The signal of the Shikaree.
As if sent to cheer and distract their minds from the feeling of dread
awe which still held possession of them, just then the shrill whistle of
Ossaroo came pealing across the lake, reverberating in echoes from the
cliff toward which he had gone. Shortly after the signal sounded again
in a slightly different direction--showing that the shikaree had
succeeded in bagging his game, and was returning towards the hut.
On hearing the signal, Karl and Caspar regarded each other with glances
of peculiar significance.
"So, brother," said Caspar, smiling oddly as he spoke, "you see Ossaroo
with his despised bow and arrows has beaten us both. What, if either of
us had beaten him?"
"Or," replied Karl, "what if we had both beaten him? Ah! brother
Caspar," added he, shuddering as he spoke, "how near we were to making
an end of each other! It's fearful to think of it!"
"Let us think no more of it then," rejoined Caspar; "but go home at once
and see what sort of a breakfast Ossy has procured for us. I wonder
whether it be flesh or fowl."
"One or the other, no doubt," he continued, after a short pause. "Fowl,
I fancy: for as I came round the lake I heard some oddish screaming in
the direction of the cliff yonder, which was that taken by Ossaroo. It
appeared to proceed from the throat of some bird; yet such I think I
have never heard before."
"But I have," replied Karl; "I heard it also. I fancy I know the bird
that made those wild notes: and if it be one of them the shikaree has
shot, we shall have a breakfast fit for a prince, and of a kind Lucullus
delighted to indulge in. But let us obey the signal of our shikaree,
and see whether we're in such good luck."
They had already regained possession of their guns. Shouldering them,
they started forth from the glade--so near being the scene of a tragical
event--and, turning the end of the lake, walked briskly back in the
direction of the hut.
On coming within view of it, they descried the shikaree sitting upon a
stone, just by the doorway; and lying across his knee, a most beautiful
bird--by far the most beautiful that either flies in the air, swims in
the water, or walks upon the earth--the peacock. Not the half
turkey-shaped creature that struts around the farmyard--though _he_ is
even more beautiful than any other bird--but the wild peacock of the
Ind--of shape slender and elegant--of plumage resplendent as the most
priceless of gems--and, what was then of more consequence to our
adventurers, of flesh delicate and savoury as the choicest of game.
This last was evidently the quality of the peacock most admired by
Ossaroo. The elegant shape he had already destroyed; the resplendent
plumes he was plucking out and casting to the winds, as though they had
been common feathers; and his whole action betokened that he had no more
regard for those grand tail feathers and that gorgeous purple corselet,
than if it had been a goose, or an old turkey-cock that lay stretched
across his knee.
Without saying a word, when the others came up, there was that in
Ossaroo's look--as he glanced furtively towards the young sahibs, and
saw that both were empty-handed--that betrayed a certain degree of
pride--just enough to show that he was enjoying a triumph. To know that
he was the only one who had made a _coup_, it was not necessary for him
to look up. Had either succeeded in killing game, or even in finding
it, he must have heard the report of a gun, and none such on that
morning had awakened the echoes of the valley. Ossaroo, therefore, knew
that a brace of empty game-bags were all that were brought back.
Unlike the young sahibs, he had no particular adventure to relate. His
"stalk" had been a very quiet one--ending, as most quiet stalks do, in
the death of the animal stalked. He had heard the old peacock
screeching on the top of a tall tree; he had stolen up within bow range,
sent an arrow through his glittering gorget, and brought him tumbling to
the ground. He had then laid his vulgar hands upon the beautiful bird,
grasping it by the legs, and carrying it with draggling wings--just as
if it had been a common dunghill fowl he was taking to the market of
Calcutta.
Karl and Caspar did not choose to waste time in telling the shikaree how
near they had been to leaving him the sole and undisputed possessor of
that detached dwelling and the grounds belonging to it. Hunger prompted
them to defer the relation to a future time; and also to lend a hand in
the culinary operations already initiated by Ossaroo. By their aid,
therefore, a fire was set ablaze; and the peacock, not very cleanly
plucked, was soon roasting in the flames--Fritz having already made
short work with the giblets.