Chapter VI: Part 6

This advice seemed very good to the Young Seal, who felt no family ties and had a love of adventure. He set out, resting from time to time upon the shore, and keeping the best possible look out for strangers. As he moved down the coast, he met a seal two years older than himself, bound on the same errand, and this one promised to show him the road. Having company, each seal was bolder than before, and as the sea was teeming with fish just then, they moved quite slowly to the home of the great pink delicacy. One fine afternoon they lay at their ease high upon the shore, and came near to be cut off, for a pleasure boat hove in sight, and they had to rush towards it in search of safety. This was a thrilling experience, and might have ended very differently if any of the four men on the boat had carried a gun. As it was, the two seals ran down the beach in fearful haste, raising sand and shingle very freely, as they progressed in awkward jerks, first on their chest, then on their stomach. To the men in the boat the movements appeared so strange that they could hardly row for laughter, indeed the reduction of their efforts may have accounted for the seals' escape, but to the two frightened animals the case was quite different--they found nothing to laugh at. When they reached water at last, they were very sore, stiff and bruised; sharp stones and rocks had hurt them very considerably. They remained under the water for a very long time, and only ventured to show their heads above it a long way down the coast. At the same time the incident was not without considerable value. It taught them that an enemy might appear at any moment, and that they must not venture inland either when the tide was receding or when the shape of the coast corner tended to obstruct the view.

At length they reached the river's estuary, and moving along it with extreme caution, found a point where the banks narrowed a little below the netting. There they remained for some weeks, and the Younger Seal found that the salmon seeking the fresh water were worthy of everything the Herring-gull had said in their praise. He remembered the advice that had been given to him; his little experience along the coast had done something to fix it in his mind, and it is doubtful whether the fisher folk who looked after the nets realised the close presence of the seals. Doubtless the men, to whom some of the salmon fell in the latter days, knew that the fish had run the gauntlet, for now and again a salmon escaping with his life from seal and nets carried to the upper waters the mark of the seal's teeth. If not gripped behind the neck, many a salmon could tear himself away with little serious hurt.

At last the fish began to decrease in numbers and the Seal had eaten enough salmon to satisfy him for a long time. He began to think with pleasure of the life that awaited him among his own people, and of the joys of basking at ease without fear of disturbance. In the estuary he had been bound to observe the greatest care, and now he was not feeling quite well, the season of change was upon him. So he went down again to the open water, and turned his head to the north, covering the road home in comparatively short time, and arriving to find that the female seals were silvered, and that the males were beginning to change colour. He told all his experiences to the Herring-gull, but said nothing about them to his brethren. Instinct told him that if the salmon ground should be invaded by the seals, man the enemy, who owned the nets, would resent the invasion after his own brutal fashion. Strange though it may appear, he knew himself for a poacher.

This summer did not differ from the last. Perhaps the Seal climbed higher rocks than he had cared to face in the previous year, and perhaps he was more nervous if alarmed, and more careless when undisturbed. There were some rocks that the high tide covered and the low tide left bare, and he took a particular pleasure in seeking one of these at the ebb and sleeping on the top until the flood lifted him off into the water--sometimes to finish his sleep there.

Though his colour changes were well defined now, he took no part in the September fighting, he was not yet sufficiently matured to seek a mate. His sex was fairly clear by now, particularly when he was with a female of his own age, for then his jaws and teeth were larger and stronger than hers would be, and his head was rather bigger. In disposition he was kind and gentle, and would play for hours with his half-sister, a baby girl seal born to his mother about the time when he sought the salmon. He taught her many of his cleverest tricks, and sometimes went with her, in pursuit of fish, to places she could not have visited alone. So she saw nothing of the savage September fights in which many male seals were quite badly torn.

Another winter passed uneventfully, another spring saw considerable increase in the seal colony, and following it a partial migration in search of fresh feeding grounds. The gulls and sea swallows told the seals they liked best the very quiet and well-stocked corners of the coast; they had the best opportunities of finding out where safety and plenty were associated.

The Young Seal took his half-sister down the coast to the river estuary, and they stayed from time to time upon the top of a high rock that was well out of the reach of man. But some of the salmon that came to the nets were very badly mauled, and the men in charge began to keep a sharp look-out. At first they were uncertain whether otters or seals were in the estuary, then a field-glass revealed the presence of the real enemy, and a Norwegian who was among the workers at the nets offered to mend matters in a certain brutal fashion practised in his own land. He rowed out to the rock when the seals were not at home, and fixed eight or ten barbed hooks round the base on a stout rope. Then, on the following morning, when the seals were at rest upon the rock, the boat appeared suddenly, and they slid off into the water.

As good luck, or their light weight, would have it, little harm was done. The Elder Seal was badly scratched, and his young companion had a torn flipper; but the injury was only bad enough to keep them from the rock and send them farther down stream to the mouth of the estuary, where they soon found the salmon too quick for them, and made up their minds to return.

When September came, the Young Seal showed fight, and actually endeavoured to enter into competition with one of his elders for the possession of a lady seal who was at least two years his senior. The contest was a brief one. A few leaps out of the water, one or two valiant attempts to bite, and the smaller combatant received a terrible scratch that put the fear of death into him, and cost quite a lot of his young hot blood.

He sought the refuge of a lonely crag, and felt exceedingly sorry for himself. There his faithful half-sister found him, and stretched herself by his side and kissed him affectionately, while the Herring-gull came and talked wisely to him, and between the efforts of his two friends and well-wishers he was induced to take a brighter view of life.

"You are much too young to take a wife," explained the Gull cheerfully; "why, if you succeed in securing one two years from now, you will have done well."

"I shall never get over this trouble," groaned the Seal, showing the nasty gash left by his opponent's flipper. "Where I fell back into the water, it was quite red and horrid."

"Nonsense," said the Herring-gull quite cheerfully; "you'll be quite right by the time your dark spots have come back. Your enemy did not want to maul you very severely, or you would have had a very different tale to tell. He could have ripped you up, or cracked your skull as if it were no thicker than an egg-shell, had he been in earnest. No seal should think of fighting for a mate before he is three years old at least. There isn't a seal of your age that has a wife in any part of the sea I ever sailed over, and very few would be so foolish as to search for one!"

This information cheered the Young Seal, but he kept away from his companions until his wounds were healed, and, returning, found that all quarrels had been forgotten, and the kindliest feelings ruled. To be sure, there were occasional fights, but they were quite friendly affairs like the dances and games of "Follow my leader" in which the community delighted.

Two years passed uneventfully, the Seal was an adult now nearly six feet long, victorious in the September fights, and master of many lady-loves. The Herring-gull was gathered to his forefathers, and it was from a younger generation that news came to the seal family of certain changes fraught with grave danger to one and all. The land lying round the little bay they knew and loved so well had passed from the hands that held it for so long and was let to a sportsman. Sport! the word had a strange and terrifying sound in the Seal's ear, he remembered what his old friend had told him.

He was guardian of a group of seals now, the last to take his place on rock or shore, the first to rise out of the water and look for danger. His playing time was over, and responsibility had come with power.

Shots had been heard on several occasions; some young seals that had ventured on to the sand at full tide, and had forgotten about the ebb, had never returned.

The Old Seal summoned a family council, and explained matters.

"Farther to the north," he said, "there are some islands that the Herring-gull knew. There the guns are never heard. Shall we leave our home?"

The answer to this question is plain to all visitors to the coast to-day. Sea-birds scream and play and flutter their wings over the rocks, the summer waters are bright and clear and tempting to the swimmer, but the seals have gone for good and aye.

THE GIRAFFE

Picture to yourself a wide expanse of open land covered with flowers and grasses that spring two or three feet high in the track of the rains.

To the far west stretches a high mountain range, whose topmost peaks are ever clad in snow; to the east a river bed filled with a raging torrent at one season, and dry at another; to the south an acacia wood; to the north the open land, trackless and desert as the sea.

In this land, from which the sun never takes its departure for more than a few days at a time, Maami the giraffe was born, a quaint and curious little creature, whose proportions even in those early days were almost grotesque. In the secluded spot that was his earliest home the growth was thick and luxuriant and, while one who surveyed it with a field-glass from a distant hill might have thought the grasses were comparatively short, the big antelopes that raced along from time to time showed no more than the tops of their horns, the lion who pursued them was unseen. So, too, was the leopard, as he stole along in the direction of the foot hills of the mountain, hoping to surprise some of the noisy baboons that lived and clustered there.

From time to time a lion roared close to the young giraffe's home; once, indeed, when his mother was away, and there were other moments of danger that Maami never understood. Had he been old enough and big enough to see and understand what followed the lion's roar, when he was lying in the soft nest that his mother's body had made for him, his love and admiration for his parent would have been greater than ever. The Old Giraffe had been feeding in the acacia grove, and was on her way home when the lion roared. Hearing the cry, she broke into her fastest stride; it was not a gallop, it was not a canter, it was not a trot; it partook of all three, and in the rhythm of the movement there was a challenge that the lion would not wait to accept.

The great plain was full of antelopes that could be had without fighting, so he roared an assurance that he meant no harm, and hurried away to the left, while the eager mother pounded her rapid way to her calf's side, and then seeing that he was all right, stood up to the last inch of her height and looked out over the prairie to see where danger lay. In other animals of Africa it is the sharp hearing, the extraordinary scent that puzzles the European; the giraffe was content to rely upon a power of vision second only to the eagle's. Her bright coat lost its lustre against trees and bushes; she became part of the landscape by reason of her wonderful gift of protective colouring, and could scan the country with a certainty that no source of danger would be overlooked.

Throughout the season of rains mother and son remained in the thicket; but when the drought came it brought countless cruel insects to prey upon Maami's tender skin, and for his sake the Mother Giraffe, who was schooled to endure such trouble, decided to leave their home.

"We will go up into the forest of the high hills," she said, speaking in the low tones that only the animal world can hear,[2] "for the insects never climb so far. The evening cold would kill them, so they must stay on the low hot ground."

Then Maami followed his mother through a dense growth that wrapped and hid him, over rivers that were dwindling down to the size of insignificant brooks, over the bare foot hills, where the baboons loved to play when the nights were long and bright, and up into the high forest, whose depths knew no light at all.

The silence of the place was awe-inspiring after the comparative gaiety of life upon the plains. Never a singing bird came to the forest; the snakes that climbed and clung could hang motionless for hours, and more than once Maami passed a very old elephant standing up against some tree trunk as stiffly and silently as though carved in wood by some cunning sculptor. Happily, there were consolations to make amends for the darkness and solitude. The ticks and hard-biting insects, that could thrive so well upon the plains, succumbed to the cold damp air of the high ground, and within a week Maami and his mother were free from pain and annoyance. Then, again, food was plentiful for the Mother Giraffe, and there was plenty of milk for Maami. On the plains the giraffe had often been driven to the mimosa wood, or even farther afield, in search of succulent branches and tree tops; here the meals were waiting to be eaten at every hour of the day. Giraffes have a certain contempt for the ground; they will not bend their long necks to the earth.

Living, they stand with heads erect; dying, they preserve their stately carriage until the last. Only when moving rapidly will they bend head and neck to the body level. Though the plains might have held much nourishing food the giraffes never condescended to seek it; they looked to the tree tops for their fare.

Mother and son stayed in the depths of the high forest during the dry season, and the elder giraffe seldom left her son. He could follow her when she searched for food, and it was only on the rare occasions when she needed water that she left him for a time, and went down by night towards the plains, where a pool well known to her survived the scorching heat. A few minutes there would suffice the giraffe for some days; indeed, if she found leaves that retained their moisture at all, a weekly journey to the pool would suffice for all her wants.

Only when the rains returned the two giraffes made their way hastily to the scorched plains. There could be no delay, because the dry beds of the rivers would become impassable when the rain had fallen for a few days, and many beasts would be cut off from the plains, or compelled to travel for miles through dangerous country in order to find a ford.

The scorched vegetation made way, as though by magic, for a new, green carpet, that rose hour by hour; great flocks of birds and beasts returned from the far corners whither the drought had driven them; and to the giraffes, so long pent up in the dark forest, the change was a delightful one. Maami was big enough now to look out over the advancing greenery, young enough to frisk and play, shaking his neck and whisking his tail as his mother did, and unfortunate enough to attract the attention of a jackal who chanced to be prowling about, and at once set off to the lair of his master the lion, bearing glad tidings of fresh meat. The lion was hungry, so hungry, indeed, that the jackal would not approach too close to the lair, preferring to howl without it. As soon as the lion stirred the jackal slipped away to the side, and followed at a respectful distance.

At first the lion moved in the direction of another lair, to summon two of his tribe to join him; but they were feasting on an eland bull many miles away, and he was forced to proceed alone. He moved stealthily up wind in the direction of the giraffes' resting-place; but there were birds on every bush, and they gave the alarm, so that when the huge, tawny beast was within forty or fifty feet of his goal he saw the Mother Giraffe watching and waiting for him. He paused, and lashed his flanks with his tail, uttering a horrible challenge, at which Maami nearly died of fright; but the Mother Giraffe, in no wise alarmed, whisked her own tail by way of reply, twisted her long neck in many strange ways, planted her feet firmly on the ground and waited for the attack. With a quick succession of leaps the lion hurled himself at his prey, but as he came full at the giraffe she lashed out with her heavy feet.

The movement was timed to perfection; no eye save the giraffe's could have calculated the aim to such a nicety, and the lion fell as though stunned, his lower jaw broken, his hunting ended for all time. Without waiting to see what had happened, the Mother Giraffe signalled to Maami to follow her, and they glided away in their own curious fashion until they were miles from the spot where the great yellow body lay writhing on the ground, a group of jackals waiting hungrily for the end.

Perhaps the two giraffes were made more careful by this adventure; certainly Maami never frisked again in the old-time happy fashion; but it was no more than an incident of daily life, and did not call for any special remembrance.

The year that followed was uneventful, and when the two giraffes came again from the forest the Mother Giraffe asked permission to join the herd from which she had departed when the time came for Maami to be born. Self-preservation took the mothers away at these most critical periods of their lives, and they were not permitted to return until their offspring were old and strong enough to obey the orders of the old bulls to whom the safety of the herd was entrusted. Experience had shown that when a calf was too young to follow the lead, mother and child fell easy victims to pursuit. Alone they might avoid attention, but a herd was a more or less certain mark for hunters, whether they went on two feet or four. So a mother looked after herself and child until both were able to face any emergency, and then they were readmitted to the pack.

Maami was now in his fourth year and well able to look after himself, cognisant of many, if not all, the dangers that beset giraffes, and the old bull in charge of the herd gave him welcome in most approved fashion by bending down certain high branches of edible trees until they were within the newcomer's reach.

For the Young Giraffe a new life seemed to have opened. He could follow the herd to feeding places where never a giraffe would have gone alone, he was entrusted with sentry duty from time to time, he acquired a measure of confidence, and, above all, he fed entirely upon vegetable matter. When he claimed his mother's care no longer, he knew that he had gained independence.

The herd numbered thirty or more, and was led by an old bull giraffe and two lieutenants, whose skins were darker than those of the old females or any of the young giraffes. All the males were thicker in the neck than the females, and heavier in the foot, and they were more nervous than their companions. Even when the herd rested against the woodland trees in the extreme heat of the day, or sought for their favourite branches at feeding time, the old bulls would never cease from scanning the surrounding country. The leader went a little lame; he, too, had killed a lion, but not without damage to some leg muscles that made him move much as a camel moves, the natural ungainliness of a giraffe's stride being made more than ever apparent by the accident.

In spite of hours of duty, in spite of the feeling that he must obey orders, Maami was happy enough. He learned to signal the events of hill and prairie by certain definite movements of head, neck and tail, so that when he was watching while others fed, his inability to cry aloud might not lead to trouble.

Nature, in her infinite care for these her most helpless surviving children, had granted protective colouring and something akin to telegraphic signalling to the giraffe world, and for two years the old bull giraffe kept his little company together with no other loss save that which came when one of the cows retired to some quiet breeding ground. Three out of four would come back in the course of time bringing a little one old enough to feed himself and obey orders, the fourth would not return. She would fall a victim to some enemy, some black huntsman searching for the giraffe because his hide fetched a big price in the African market, where it was made into whip-thongs, or she would fall to a company of lions that could unite against a giraffe, and by surrounding disable her.

Under the guidance of the old bull giraffe, the herd travelled far afield, covering a wide expanse of country and gathering much information about good quiet pools and feeding grounds from many other tree and grass-feeding animals. Zebras, deer of all kinds, elephants and even hippopotami were ready to give all the hints that were sought for, and many a time, in response to warnings that belong to the freemasonry of the animal world, the bull giraffe led his company away from feeding grounds that, for all their tempting aspect, held hidden dangers. The zebras and the deer could hear trouble, elephants could scent it, and when the wind played havoc with the scent and hearing, the giraffes could use their eyes in fashion that brought much-needed guidance to those who had served them at other seasons.

With the exception of the leopards, who worked alone, few animals sought their food or their safety by themselves. Even the lions united for the hunt, and man, the destroyer, reaching the confines of the unexplored lands where wild beasts dwelt, travelled with a company. More than once Maami saw man in the dim distance, with tents, baggage bearers, and the impedimenta associated with the pursuit of big game, but more often than not these destroyers never saw the giraffes at all.

But disaster cannot be avoided for all time, and it was written that Maami's mother should be the first of the company to pay tribute to man the implacable. One night, as the herd came from feeding among some young tree tops, she fell into one of the cunningly contrived pits that a company of native hunters had set in the path--a trap intended for even bigger game, but readily discovered by the solitary elephant for whom it had been set. He had scented it a hundred yards away, and made a new path into the forest that sheltered him, conquering the pangs of thirst that had drawn him from his lair. The giraffes having little scent and paying small attention to the ground beneath their feet, were not so fortunate; the mother beast fell, and the herd, yielding to brute instinct, turned in its tracks, and ambled away all night to a distant place of safety.

Maami understood his loss very vaguely, if at all. With the advancing years mother and son had forgotten the ties that bound them to one another in the far-off days of motherly affection and childish need; and, when morning broke, bringing lingering surcease to the poor creature's pain, terror and life, there was none of the herd within sight of the scene of the misfortune. It was one of the chances that giraffes must take, this deep pit covered lightly with grasses spread about a slender support of boughs; and the shapeless carcase that the hunters cast aside when they had stripped off the hide served to give the carrion a hearty meal. Within twenty-four hours the white bones alone remained to tell of the graceful and harmless creature that had haunted wood and plain so long.

* * * * *

Years have passed since Maami's mother met her fate in the hunters' pit, and, of the giraffe herd that still haunts the plains, seeking the high woods only in a season of drought, few of the older ones remain. Maami himself is very near to the leadership; he is second to an old bull some three years his senior. The leader of the early days lives solitary now, if he lives at all. When his eyes grew dim and his limbs began to lose their elasticity, he was compelled to pass his duties and responsibilities to another and to go his way alone.

To be sure he was no match for young lions or for huntsmen, but there was no appeal from forest law, which recognises the herd's need for sound and sure guidance, and since he had left the ranks others had followed, all to lead solitary lives, happy indeed and fortunate if inevitable death did not come to them in cruel fashion. Calves new born when Maami joined the herd are now responsible adults, and the herd moves with more care than of old time; for, although the lions tend to decrease, the white hunters have penetrated into the district; and even the black ivory and hide hunters organised by the big trading companies are armed with weapons of precision, and have learned to use them with a measure of accuracy hitherto unknown. In districts known to Maami as great homes of game in the years when he first joined the herd, you may travel for miles seeing nothing but a few whitening bones spread out here and there; and the general trend of wild life is towards the marshy malarial lands where hunters will not follow willingly.

The giraffe has seen strange sights in these latter days--lions, hyænas, leopards and jackals coming to the stream to drink with big deer and giraffes and zebras, and then moving off without as much as a growl because man the hunter is on the track, and before his advance one and all must retreat in terror. There are nights that Maami will remember as long as he lives, when among the beasts that come to the pools his sharp eyes have counted wounded lions, leopards and elephants. He has seen a great tawny lion permanently lame, his shoulder inflamed to an indescribable condition, an old bull elephant staining the pool red, a leopard drinking with feverish haste and then dropping dead by the side of the hard-sought water. All these things tell the tale of the destroyer with an eloquence beyond words, and account for the strange spirit of fraternity that seizes upon the beasts as they retreat pell-mell before the irresistible advance of the white man.

Maami is travelling alone now; it is his last journey. The white hunter has been too much for the herd; he has dropped one and wounded another, the rest have gone off in their odd swinging style, tails flapping, necks waving, heads erect.

Terror-stricken and badly hurt, Maami is running alone, he does not quite know where. He passes over a great expanse of plain, through a wood strip wherein he has often taken his fill of tender leaves, but, for once, no thought of food comes to him, he is conscious only of growing weakness and increasing thirst. It is the pool that he is running for, and happily it is not far off. He drinks deep of dwindling waters; the dry season has come upon the land of late--now he is running quite aimlessly through the scrub and high grasses. He thinks the herd is before him, always a little out of reach; he makes a special effort to overtake it and sinks down very slowly, his head still high.

From a neighbouring tree a white bird with red bills looks down compassionately. The heat is intense, thirst is coming back, a dark pool is forming by his side, but this is not water. High up in the air a vulture is looking at him; it descends very slowly.

Two bright eyes shine for a moment from the grass; the jackal is investigating the case. He meets Maami's eye and cannot face it, so he slinks away to a safe distance and howls to his heart's content. "Blood!" he cries; "meat for one and all!" And to far corners of the plain, to rocky holes that form a day refuge for carrion, the shrill cry penetrates. If there are any lions near by they are sleeping after a successful night's hunting, for never an answering cry follows the jackal's summons.

Maami is conscious of a strange gathering of ugly birds and foul beasts, but it does not concern him now. He is growing so cold that even the tropical sun above his head is powerless to warm him; his eyes are being veiled, the landscape is very blurred, the herd has passed from sight. His head droops slowly--he does not feel the teeth of the old hyæna that, mad with hunger, has flung herself upon him.

-----

Footnote 2:

Though the giraffe is perhaps the only large animal that never makes a
sound, travellers and hunters are agreed that these animals can
communicate many thoughts to each other.

THE WHITE STORK

In the afternoon little Tsamani would go in the company of Fatima, his mother, to the flat roof of his father's house, but in the morning he was allowed to go up there by himself, with only the little slave girl Ayesha to guard him.

The happiest hours of Tsamani's young life were passed upon the flat house-top, where he could see the Tensift river winding its way among the palms, and the Atlas mountains with their peaks covered in snow, and the wonderful tower called Kutubia, that flanks the Mosque of the Library. He could see one of the markets, crowded with heavily laden camels and noisy tribesmen from the South; and at times when the Sultan was in the city he would watch him riding in state under the green umbrella that is Morocco's symbol of sovereignty. These sights pleased Tsamani, and delighted the little slave-girl, who was at once his guardian and his playmate; but Father and Mother Stork pleased him most of all.

When the warm spring weather came, and most of the storks in Marrakesh took their long flight oversea to cooler climes, Father Stork and Mother Stork remained behind. She sat in her rough nest upon three white eggs and he stood on one leg by her side, with his neck bent, and his bill resting on his breast. They both looked at Tsamani with great interest, perhaps because he was the son of a powerful governor--more likely because they were sorry for him on account of his loneliness. For, though Tsamani had a very soft white djellaba and bright yellow slippers, he was a lonely boy enough--not half so happy as many of the little beggars who ran all over the streets in the bazaars, as merry as they were hungry.

Father Stork made a great rattling noise with his bill, and his mate responded rather more quietly.

"That's a funny noise, O Father of the Red Legs," said Tsamani. "I can't make it with my mouth."

"No," said Father Stork, "I don't suppose you can. And you can't fly, and you can't catch frogs and fish, and you can't build a nest or hatch eggs--can you, little Tsamani? But don't let that worry you, for grown-up men can't do these things either, and never think how foolish they are."

"You are very clever, I know," said little Tsamani, wondering. "And my father has told me you are very good too. Where do you come from, and where have the other storks gone?"

"I must tell you," replied Father Stork rather pompously, "for it is impossible to know too much about us. We are, perhaps, the most interesting, the most highly honoured of all birds that fly. Our wisdom, our virtue have been the talk of all ages. We have been favoured by every nation, but the followers of Mohammed have always treated us more kindly than the others. You are a Mohammedan, and this house was built by your great-great-grandfather. Since he built it some of my family have always lived in this corner of the roof. We remain here when our children have joined the great procession to the North, and give up our place to one or other of the children only when we have gone on the still greater journey from which there is no return. Some day you will be a man and the friend of our family, so it is right that I should tell you all you want to know."

"Why do you sit so closely by your nest?" asked the little boy.

"Because all storks are not honest," replied the Father of the Red Legs. "These sticks that make the nest are collected with great difficulty and hard work. A dishonest stork--and there are such birds, I'm sorry to say--waits for the parent to leave his nest, and then steals his best twigs. So one has to be very careful."

The little slave-girl came across the roof-top, but she only heard Father Stork clapping his beak--she could not understand anything of the words he spoke. She was not a "True Believer," only a little girl stolen by slave-raiders from the Western Sudan, and brought across the terrible desert to the slave-market in Marrakesh, where Tsamani's father had bought her for a little pile of silver Moorish dollars, amounting in value to about twelve English pounds. It was no part of her business to interfere if her little charge stood by the storks' nest and Father Stork made that rattling noise with his bill. She was content to stroll round the roof, listening to the tinkle of the camels' bells, looking down at the people in the streets beyond, or at her master's other slaves who worked in the patio below, and passed the hours singing, shouting or quarrelling as fancy urged them.

"We have been a long time in the world," began the stork. "Even in the Bible--which is as the Koran to people in the far countries whither my relatives go--there is a reference to us. A prophet, Jeremiah by name, testified to our wisdom as he watched us in Palestine gathering for our yearly flight. 'Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth his appointed times,' he said, realising, as he did, that we followed the seasons with never a mistake or approach to hesitation. His people, the Jews, ancestors of the Hudis who live to-day in the Mellah, called us Chassidim, which means the pious ones, because they understood something of our great love for our children. Can you wonder, then, if we storks are proud? Yet storks were not always birds."

"What were you?" asked the astonished Tsamani.

"The first stork was born a Sultan," replied the bird solemnly. "He was a merry soul, but had no fear of Allah. He sat at the head of his high staircase and received his wazeers and subjects. One day, to make them ridiculous, he had the stairs greased; and when grave, pious men were about to salute him, they slipped and fell upon those behind, and all were sorely hurt and confused. Among those hurt was a very great saint whose groans were heard in heaven. Then Allah was wrath with the Sultan, who sat back on his throne convulsed with laughter, moving his head so that his long beard fell and rose from his breast. In an instant the beard became a bill--the Sultan was turned to a stork, and in place of his laughter one heard the chatter of his bill. But happily, on account of our high descent, and our great love for our children, we are set above all other birds."

"Are you as fond of your three white eggs as my mother is fond of me?" asked Tsamani in astonishment.

"Every bit," replied Father Stork; and Mother Stork repeated the words after him in a lower tone. "They are to us more than all the wealth of Marrakesh, and when, in the fulness of time, the shells open and the three little babies are given to us they will be dearer still. You must wait patiently until their day arrives, and then you will be able to see for yourself."

"O, little master," said the slave-girl, "it is time to descend. The sun is hot, and thy lady mother will await thee."

So Tsamani went down to the hareem of his father's house, where his mother passed most of her day lying on soft cushions and eating sweets and contradicting his father's other wives and favourites because she was above them all. And when he went upon the roof with her in the afternoon the voices of the storks were no more to him than they were to her--no more than the click-clack of their long heavy bills. But on the following morning the sound had a meaning for him--to his great delight.

Sometimes Father Stork would relieve Mother Stork in the performance of her duties, for, as he said: "Our love is equal, why then should the service not be divided?" And in the course of a few days there were three little storks in the nest, with down for feathers, and such awkward bodies and ugly heads on them that you and I, not knowing better, would have laughed. Tsamani was rather disappointed when he saw them for the first time, but Father Stork reassured him.

"Look at me," he said, putting his second leg firmly on the ground, and lifting the heavy bill off his breast. "I am a big, fine bird--nearer four feet long than three. See how beautifully my bright red bill contrasts with the black of my great wing-coverts and the chief quill feathers, and the pure white of the rest of my body. Look at my bright red legs and toes; think what an effective finish they give to me. Two of my children will grow to be like me, as they are males; the third will be like her mother--not quite as large and not so brightly coloured as the others. And all the big feathers will be brown before they are black."

Each bird in turn would fly from the roof to the pools in the gardens of the Moorish grandees, and would come back with food for the little ones. If the father went, the mother stayed; if the father stayed, the mother went; the nestlings were never left alone by night or day. It was hard work, for the three babies were anxious to grow and to have feathers in place of down, and to be able to fly or flutter to the ponds and feed themselves. "Sometimes," said Father Stork, "they try too soon, and tumble down into the street and are killed; at other times they must stop half-way because of exhaustion--but then every Moslem picks them up and returns them to their nest, for it would be a terrible misfortune to harm one of us. If some were hurt we should all leave the country."

"Far away to the north-west," continued Father Stork, "there is a country called Great Britain, and we used to go there every year; but when men saw us they would say that we were very rare, and would shoot us, without pausing to think that that would make us rarer still. So for fifty years we have not been to those islands, and I do not think we shall ever go there again, though one or two stray birds may alight there, blown out of their course by a gale. Though we are kind to all who treat us well, we can fight when it is necessary to do so. We aim at the head and eyes of those who ill-use us; but against men who carry guns no fighting avails, so we leave them--and now on all the myriad roofs of Great Britain no stork builds its nest."

"Are the Mohammedans the only people who are good to you, O Father of the Red Legs?" asked Tsamani.

"They are our best friends," said the Stork; "though in parts of Europe we are welcomed, particularly in Holland, where the people respect us for the love we bear our little ones. They tell the story of a great fire in one of their cities called Delft, where some storks, unable to remove their nestlings, died with them. We thought nothing of it--any storks would have done the same; but the good people of Delft were very impressed and told all the Dutch folk far and wide, and increased our welcome from that day. They even put up cart-wheels on poles for us to build our nests on in districts where the house-roofs have no flat surface that will help us. As a rule, when we go to a town where the inhabitants are of mixed race and religion, we find out where the Mohammedan quarter is, and build there. Uneducated people think it is because we prefer one faith to another; but the truth, of course, is that the Mohammedans respect us, welcome our arrival, regret our departure and never disturb our nests. They even say that we bring good luck to the dwellers in the house we choose for our building."

"To-day," said Father Stork, a week or two after the last conversation, "we are taking our young to the marshes. Ask your mother to let you walk in the Sultan's garden near the great pomegranate orchards by the Spanish gate."

So Tsamani hurried down to the hareem and the room where his mother lay upon soft cushions, with her gimbri for company; and she gave her permission readily enough, and called the old lady who had charge of the women's quarter, and bade her go to the main courtyard and summon two men slaves to accompany Tsamani and his little nurse to see that no harm befell them.

So the little party went out to the gardens that lie round the great green-tiled palace of the Sultan, and when they came to the marsh by the orchard of pomegranates Tsamani cried to his little companion: "O Ayesha, let us stay here and play." He had seen Father and Mother Stork with their family on the marsh. Then the two men slaves sat in the shade of the red-blossomed pomegranate trees, and little Ayesha picked wild flowers, while Tsamani went up to the stork family and saw the little ones that had only just as many feathers as enabled them to fly feebly for short distances. They splashed about in the shallow waters of the marsh, and tried to catch frogs and little fishes; but they were not skilful enough to do so; they could secure nothing better than a few worms, and would have fared ill but for Father and Mother Stork, from whom no frogs or fishes could escape. When the parent birds caught anything they washed it very carefully in the water before giving it to their young to eat, and no trouble seemed too much for them in satisfying the hunger of their little ones. Tsamani watched them while the two slaves slept under the pomegranate trees; and Ayesha, picking more flowers than she could carry, forgot that the sun's heat was growing greater.

"You must go home soon," said Father Stork at last, "or you will be hurt by the sun, and you will have to go to the hospital, just as our family has to go when it is sick or ailing."

"Is there a hospital for storks?" said Tsamani, very much astonished.

"Certainly there is," replied Father Stork. "It is in the old northern city of Fez, home of pious and learned Moors, and was founded many generations ago by a good Moslem. All sick or wounded storks are brought there and put in the charge of the pious men who conduct the hospital. The ailing ones are doctored, the hungry ones are fed, the dead are buried. It is not for nothing that we serve Moorish cities."

"Serve Moorish cities," repeated Tsamani curiously. "How do you do that?"

"We are the scavengers," said Father Stork. "In the western countries men are employed to remove the rubbish and refuse from the houses, but here and all over the East we take their places. To be sure, we cannot eat the offal, as the vultures do; but we eat a great deal that would spread sickness through any city if left lying on the ground under the hot sun. If there were no gardens and river-shallows here we could live in the city itself, and would thrive there. Very many of my family keep in the city of Fez, although there is a river and they can go out to the marshes if they felt inclined."

The summer, and the rainy season that takes the place of winter passed, bringing another spring in their train; and still Tsamani spoke to the storks when the weather permitted him to go upon the roof, and learned a great deal of their lives and ways. With the completion of their feathers and the change of colour in their wing quills from brown to black the young birds had gone afield, and were to be seen in the well-watered meadows by the tomb of Sidi Bel Abbas, the saint who wrought so nobly for the poor in his days on earth that he has become the patron of all the beggars in the white-walled city. One sat on a corner of the tomb itself, the others on the flat housetops near the gardens.

"They will go away with this summer," said Father Stork. "They will join the hundreds of others that came back from the North before the cold weather sets in. Did you not notice how full the gardens became at the beginning of the winter, and how the streets and the market places were full of birds? They do not like the cold weather of Holland and Denmark and Poland, and other countries of Europe, where they go to rear their young. At a given season of the year the desire for home takes them. In spring they seek a milder clime and leave Africa, so that the people of the countries they favour may know that the summer has come."

"The swallow and the nightingale go with them. Indeed, they go into countries that my family will not visit. Think what those countries have lost. There is France, and there is Britain, for example; no stork builds in either."

"Do you all come back and go away at the same time from all countries?" asked Tsamani. "And if you do how do you manage it, O Father of the Red Legs?"

"You ask more than I can answer," replied Father Stork. "I can only tell you that within three days of the start for the North there is not one stork in Morocco that intends to take the journey, and within a week of the time the first stork comes southward from oversea the entire migration is accomplished. It is one of Nature's secrets that she has chosen to tell to all the birds of passage but has not given to you and your fellow-creatures, and consequently nothing I can say would make the reason clear to you.

"We know when to go and when to return as well as you know when to go to sleep and when to rise. It is bird law. At times the summons comes to us to fly earlier than usual, even before all the eggs are hatched, or the young ones have learned to fly. Then we must forget our love. We must destroy the eggs that are not yet hatched; we must kill the little ones that cannot face the journey. Nothing could be more terrible to us. We would prefer to die for our little ones, but we have no choice but to obey the law. For generations uncounted we have done so, and now it is no more strange to us than the regulation of our day--the morning search for food, the long rest for digestion and contemplation that follows, the evening search for another meal, the following sleep. In a day or two now we shall commence our love-flights, and my wife will fill our nest with eggs once more."

"What are your love-flights?" said Tsamani.

"Wait a little while, and you will see," replied Father Stork.

Some two or three mornings later, when Tsamani and Ayesha climbed to the roof-top, Father Stork was no longer to be seen. It was then too late for him to be eating. He should have been standing by the nest, in accordance with custom; but there were no signs of him. Mother Stork sat looking skywards, as though in an ecstasy of happiness.

"I am not lost, Tsamani," said Father Stork's voice. It sounded far away up in the sky; but when the boy looked up into the blue his eyes could hardly pierce the dazzling light. He saw nothing for a few minutes, and then Father Stork descended slowly, apparently from the heavens. He was singing a strange new song, such as Tsamani had never heard in all his life before--the song that had lighted so much happiness in the eyes of Mother Stork.

"Listen, Ayesha!" he cried. "Do you hear the white stork's song."

"No, no," laughed stupid Ayesha, showing her beautiful white teeth. "The storks do not sing, my little lord; they chatter with their beaks, but they have no song. The doves in the gardens have more song than storks." Tsamani said no more; he was afraid to let the girl know that he could hear things she did not dream about.

"Quite right, Tsamani," said Father Stork, gliding easily and gracefully through the air to the roof's edge. "To Ayesha there is nothing to be heard but the clattering of my mandibles. To my wife it is a beautiful love-song. She thinks I brought it down from heaven, for I soared out of her sight so high that even to my keen eyes Marrakesh was no more than a dull speck on the ground. Now you shall see my lower love-flight." So saying, he sprang into the air, and, reaching a point as far from the roof as the roof was from the ground, went through a series of movements that were like those of a great yacht with all her sails set to catch a favouring wind. Tsamani never saw his wings flap, never saw him in any difficulty to turn in an exact angle at a given point; the motion was smooth, easy, graceful, and it thrilled Mother Stork with joy.