where the ewes and the sick lambs are. He will lie down, and unless
the lambs bleat again before morning, he will not wake up, for he is
dead tired. He knows that I am close and on guard, and so he does not
trouble himself about that shaky old door to the fold. The wolf could
nose it open and not half try. But the wolf won't come here unless he
thinks I am watching up at the big pen. So I shall go up there. You
climb the steep steps that lead to the loft over the straw beds where
the sick lambs are. Go softly, and wait. I will follow the wolf down
here if he comes. And if he gets inside the pen, you spring down on him
from the loft."
All this the canny shepherd dog had schemed and perfected as he was
running after his friend. It was too good to be true, he felt, that
here at last was the chance he had hoped for. And if he had ever
feared the wolf, he did not fear him now, but was only afraid that the
terrible creature would not appear.
Dan hid beneath his master's barn. From a corner in the heavy stone
underpinning he could look down the yard to the lower pen. Nothing
could approach that point without his seeing it, unless it came from
the rocky shore. He waited long and the silence was unbroken save for
the dripping of the water where the snow was melting on the barn roof
and little rills of it spattered from the eaves.
Suddenly, so suddenly that his heart stood still, he saw two great
yellow eyes staring out of the darkness. The wolf was in the yard and
not ten feet from where Dan lay! Then the gleaming eyes turned and a
great shadowy form hulked past. It was so huge that Dan trembled. It
made no noise and moved slowly and with great caution.
Dan straightened himself out, full length, and crawled low in the mud,
picking his foothold in such a way as to let no twig or pebble move
under his weight. Any smallest noise would be fatal. His heart beat so
fast that he could not breathe, but he stalked the terrible shadow step
by step.
Suddenly he realized that if the wolf should turn, there would be no
chance to escape. Perhaps the great jaws would kill him before he could
even cry out, and Denmark would never know about it until too late.
The wolf's half-defined form suddenly vanished. He had made a great,
silent spring into the center of the sheep pen. For such was the
surpassing cunning of the wolf that he was into the pen and had seized
one of the lambs all in a single leap.
There was a roar such as Dan had never heard. For Denmark had never
spoken in such voice before. Then came sounds that woke up every one on
the two farms and brought everybody running to the scene with lanterns
and guns.
Denmark had come down on the wolf's back, and had gripped his throat.
Dan rushed in and helped in pulling him down. But the damage to the
dogs was frightful, for the terrible fangs of the wolf, hampered as the
creature was, had ripped and torn his opponents. The three desperate
animals rolled and tossed and flung themselves in such a frantic battle
that the shepherd was many times thrown down in his attempts to get
near them. He was afraid that he would stab the dogs instead of the
wolf. But when the lights came, and the guns were pointed, there was no
need of either knives or shot. The two dogs lay bleeding on the floor
of the hut and the great timber wolf was twitching in death.
It was the greatest thing that the shepherds had ever heard of in their
lives. They told of it for years, and Dan and Denmark became known for
miles and were justly happy in their fame.
XIII
THE TRAVELS OF PRINCE FLAMINGO
The wonderful adventures and the long, beneficent reign of Prince
Flamingo are matters which would be lost to the world were it not for
the venerable Mrs. Leatherback.
For Mrs. Leatherback is not only the oldest and the largest of the
great turtles, but she is by all odds the most distinguished, and is
gifted with the most accurate power of memory. And her adventures
in the five hundred years of her life have been many. She swims the
great Gulf from coast to coast, she knows the islands--every one of
them--she has been far up the rivers which pour their floods into the
tropic seas, and every bay and lagoon knows her presence. And there is
no one whose arrival is more eagerly welcomed by the little people of
the lagoons and the coral coves than she. For with her vast knowledge
goes a power of recital which charms her auditors; and if she chances
to spend a moonlight evening by some quiet swamp, or beneath a pleasant
sand dune where the breeze is good and the outlook charming, you may
be sure that the intelligent and conservative members of society, such
as the Cranes, the Terrapins, the Black Swans, and perhaps one of the
wise Foxes, will be gathered around the distinguished visitor.
And her stories, notably that of Prince Flamingo, have gone far inland,
even to the remote North; for the Heron is himself a great traveler,
and it is, indeed, as he has presented the story, rather than in the
words of Mrs. Leatherback, that it is generally related. Perhaps it has
gained something in its travels, for time and distance lend a charm,
and the coral islands are beautiful in perspective. To put it simply,
you remember what the wise old Mr. Rat said as he nibbled the Dutch
cheese: "The best things come from a long way off."
So it is from a remote past, and from the most lonely and most
beautiful of the tropic islands that the romance of the beautiful white
flamingo has traveled down to us.
There is a great lagoon or inlet of the sea which widens itself into
a vast marsh on the southernmost extremity of an island. Ships could
never enter its shallow waters, and it is protected on the land side
by miles of dense reeds and water growth. No place in the world could
be safer for the city of the flamingoes. And of all birds, the great,
pink flamingoes need a secret place to build their nests and rear their
young.
Their wonderful city was populous with thousands of their kind on the
beautiful morning when this particular little flamingo was born. For
never had a hunter penetrated to their home, and their natural enemies
were few.
Great flocks of flamingoes were wheeling in long, curving lines
overhead. And they were so pink against the early morning sky that you
would have thought them the reflection of the rosy dawn itself. And
almost as far across the lagoon as one could see, they were standing
by their nests feeding their babies, or preparing for flight to the
distant feeding grounds. You could see nothing but their tall, red
forms, thousands of curving necks, and wide, beautiful wings.
Everybody was talking, and the confusion would have been terrible
except for the fact that no one seemed to pay any attention to anybody
else, and each beautiful flamingo seemed to know exactly what he was
about. Hundreds of other babies were being hatched that morning, and
so little White Wing (as they called him at first) attracted no
attention. His mother was in a great state of delight over him, of
course, and his stately father eyed him with approval. But hundreds
of other parents were in the same state of mind over their young, and
congratulations had long gone out of fashion.
[Illustration: "HIS MOTHER WAS IN A GREAT STATE OF DELIGHT OVER
HIM, OF COURSE, AND HIS STATELY FATHER EYED HIM WITH APPROVAL"]
The beautiful young father had just arrived from the distant shore and
was the first to feed the pretty youngster. He curved his graceful neck
downward and when he kissed the baby, as you might say, it was to put
into his tiny mouth the wonderful juice of the shell fish which the
great bird had been eating. While he did this the mother preened her
feathers, and took a few stately steps to stretch her legs, for she had
been all night on the nest, and then she wheeled in a wonderful circle
over the lagoon, mounting higher and higher until at last she was in
line with many flamingoes who were heading with tilted wings against
the wind, on their way to the beaches and sand-bars.
The sun grew very hot and the wind died away. The waters of the lagoon
flashed in the burning light, and the heat was terrible. But over the
nests where the babies lay the tall birds threw their shadows, and
again and again little White Wing was turned over in his bed, and he
was given innumerable feedings. So at last, when the sun went down
and the air grew cool, he was surprisingly different from what he had
been in the morning. He was already larger, and his wings and his feet
were getting strength enough so that he could move, and he had found a
little voice of his own.
With successive days he grew apace, and at last he tumbled himself out
of the nest and began to walk. The nest was a mound of mud and sand,
for all the world like a basket of sticks and moss reposing on an
inverted flower-pot, and not so high but what White Wing could struggle
back into it when the heat of the day came and his watchful father took
his post by the side of the little home to throw the shadow of his
stately figure over it.
At first White Wing was just like the other little flamingoes, and with
them he began to play on the sandy floor of the flamingo city, and with
them he very soon learned to take short flights as his wings developed.
But just as a hundred or so of cousins began to shed their white down
and to grow very brown and fuzzy, he began to get whiter and whiter. In
a few weeks they were beginning to shed their brown clothes for the
beautiful pink feathers which are the proper thing for the flamingo.
Little White Wing was somewhat distressed when his playmates began to
jeer at him, and it was perplexing to note a lack of affection on the
part of his beautiful father and mother. For his elders were greatly
embarrassed. Nothing like this had ever happened in their family. And,
so far as the handsome father could learn by inquiry among the oldest
birds of Flamingotown, no one had ever heard of a white flamingo. But
when the neighbors cast aspersions, and hinted that there must be some
common blood in that family, then the father grew angry and the gentle
mother had all she could do to keep him from killing little White Wing.
Every night the little fellow would bury his head close to his
beautiful mother's ear, and say:
"Don't you think, perhaps, dear mother, that I'll be pink in the
morning?"
And she would tell him to hush and be quiet and go to sleep.
But when morning came he would be as white as ever, and his long sad
day would begin. No one would play with him and he was soon shifting
for himself. Somehow he picked up a living of tiny fish in the long
pools of tide-water that the waves left in the soggy lagoon, and when
all his playmates had gone to bed and it was safe to come among them,
he would step home, picking his way between the nests, and trying to
reach his own without calling attention to himself.
All this was hard, but it speedily grew worse. The King of the
flamingoes said that the white offspring must die.
"Begone, my child, begone!" the mother whispered to him, for she had
heard that little White Wing was to die. "Go away, as far as you can.
Sometime it will be all right. Remember that your mother loves you."
So that ended White Wing's childhood. Even before the first streak of
dawn, the beautiful young bird flew out and away. Across the lagoon,
miles and miles to the westward, over a wide stretch of sea he flew
until his wings could hardly bear him up. Then he sighted land, and he
strained every nerve to reach it. When at last he wheeled down to the
sands in the shade of a great mangrove tree, his first day's flight was
finished and he was a lonely, famished bird on a strange shore.
But a deep, sweet voice suddenly came to him. At first he could not
place it. Then he saw to his astonishment a huge turtle only a few
yards below him on the beach.
"Ah, ha!" she was saying in her most affectionate way. "So there you
are! I've heard of you. They drove you out, did they? Didn't want any
variety in the family. Well, well, Sonny, cheer up."
Then this large and hearty creature pawed her way heavily up the sands,
and continued her remarks:
"Funny creatures, you birds. Now look at me and consider the
difference. I don't care a clam what my children look like. I'm on my
way up to that sand dune this very blessed minute to lay about nine
pecks of eggs. And I hope they hatch and the young ones won't get eaten
up. But they can come out of that shell any color they please, for all
I care. We turtles don't worry. We just float along easy. That's the
way to live."
Then she gave a hearty laugh and settled down to digging a pit in the
white sands.
"S'pose you run along, Sonny, and pick up your supper. I rather like my
own company when I'm laying eggs. But just come back a little later and
I'll tell your fortune."
No one had ever called him Sonny before, and never had he dreamed that
such high good humor existed anywhere. The good old turtle and her
cheerful ways had suddenly made life worth living. And poor White Wing,
on coming to himself, realized that he was very hungry. He feasted,
indeed, ravenously on fiddler crabs, which he otherwise would have
despised, and the moon was high and he was heavy with sleep when Mrs.
Turtle, after hours of scratching and pawing, had patiently buried her
eggs, and was ready to talk. What she had to say was brief, but it cast
the life of White Wing in strange places, and it was on her words that
he made his great journey.
"You're bound to be somebody," she began. "Probably a king. But this
is no place for you around here. You must go where you are wanted. And
that is a long ways from this quiet spot. There's a great Emperor who
has a palace by the smoking mountains. He's been wishing for a white
flamingo all his life. If you can get there, why, your fortune is made.
If you fly with your feet to the sunrise until you come to the great
river mouth, and if you follow that river long enough, you'll see the
mountains with the fiery tops. That's the place. And you want to walk
right in as though you owned the kingdom. Don't be scared when you get
there. Just forget about those saucy cousins of yours back home and be
as grand as you know how."
Poor White Wing was almost dizzy at this unexpected vision of good
things. He did not reckon on what the journey meant. But the motherly
old turtle was particular to tell him of the many islands he must pass,
and the dangers that he would encounter. Then she bade him God-speed,
and began her toilsome way down the sands, for she was intent upon
reaching deep water again.
"I have a long way to go," she said; and added that sometime they would
be sure to meet again.
The second morning found White Wing far out at sea once more, straining
his eyes for the island where he was to get food and water, and
cherishing to himself but one idea--to reach the great Emperor who
wanted a white flamingo.
After many days and nights of lonely travel, he came to a mountain
solid green and black, with palms and forest trees; where there were no
white shores, but a heavy marshy line of wonderful vegetation. And from
the height at which he flew he could discern the muddy strip of river
water which stained the blue sapphire of the ocean. This, then, was the
river, and far up its course must be the mountains and the city of the
great Emperor.
He was right in his conjectures. For a black bird, with a yellow bill
as big as a cleaver, greeted him with familiar and jovial laughter, and
told him that he was indeed on the right path. This bird was a toucan
and he told many things of his family to White Wing, adding much good
advice. He was distressed that the beautiful stranger would not eat
bananas, and explained that he owed his good health to an exclusive
fruit diet.
"But then," he admitted with a noisy laugh, "somebody must eat the
fish, I'm sure. And I'm glad if you like them."
Also this happy-go-lucky toucan volunteered to guide White Wing on his
flight up the valley. But, like so many guides, he fell out before
he accomplished all that he had promised. For scarcely had the two
traveled a day's journey when they came upon a prodigious growth of
wild figs, and the greedy toucan would go no farther.
Those were hard hours for poor White Wing. The river valley was dark
and hot, and in the night he was perpetually wakened by the startling
sounds around him. Such noisy parrots he had never dreamed of, nor such
millions of burning insects that flashed and flashed their lanterns
till the heavy vines and palm leaves seemed afire with them. And the
screams of terror that rose from the dark depths of the forest when the
great cats or the powerful snakes seized their prey, chilled his blood.
But the days brought him at last to higher ground, and finally to a
wonderful plain where it all seemed but so many miles of lawn and clear
smooth waters. He took heart. Suddenly the mountains came in sight.
Yes, and one of them was sending out a thin stream of smoke into the
cloudless sky. Another day, possibly that very night, he would reach
the city of the Emperor.
Very wisely he waited for the dawn. He had seen the high walls, and the
housetops, and the glittering armaments of the palace as they glowed in
the sunset, and he had heard strange music, a sweet confusion of lovely
sounds. But from the cliffs above the river he watched and waited and
preened his beautiful white suit.
When morning came, just as the mountains were pink and the city was
cool and gray, a grand procession mounted a great rock above the
Emperor's palace. Trains of slaves and priests there were, the sounds
of drums, and a heavy, solemn chanting. The Emperor was to greet the
sun and they were all to worship the great light, for it was their
deity.
Then White Wing soared high above them all. His great white form was
suddenly thrown against the rising sun, and it was beautiful beyond
comparison. No living bird had ever seemed so lovely. He could see the
crowds of men and women and the ranks of priests start back in one
motion of surprise. Then he floated down, slowly and with great calm,
alighting on the stone altar where the Emperor was staring upward in
amaze.
From that hour, after the court had recovered from its surprise, White
Wing was almost an emperor himself. A park was made for him and slaves
were in attendance. The tenderest of tiny fish and juicy snails were
given him to eat, and he was a familiar of that barbaric household
whose slightest inclination was taken to be law, and whose smallest
preferences were translated into royal commands. He was ceremoniously
tethered with a golden chain and a clasp of blue jewels to his thin
leg, but even such a regal restraint was abandoned and the jewels and
the beaten gold and the turquoise were made into a neck chain which he
wore with great dignity.
Never could the Emperor enter into his councils and audiences without
the Prince of the Dawn, as he was called; and White Wing was a sage and
judicial counselor. He would stand for hours on one leg, his jewels
flashing upon his breast, his head turned at a knowing angle, as if in
the profoundest thought, a very embodiment of wisdom beside the throne.
In reality he was sound asleep, a condition wherein he set an immortal
example for ministers of state.
For years he dwelt in splendor and acquired great wisdom. And for the
little princes and princesses, who were many and lovely, he had great
affection.
But of his love for one princess in particular and of the jealousies
which grew up so that his life was plotted against and he was at
last to be undone, there is another story which the wonderful Mrs.
Leatherback is always slow to relate.
She has been known to depart and pursue her business in foreign lands,
returning at her leisure, before she will be induced to relate the rest
of the story of Prince Flamingo.
XIV
PRINCE FLAMINGO'S TRIUMPHANT RETURN
In the gorgeous court of the Emperor, where White Wing had come into
such great good fortune, the one person whom everybody feared was
the splendid ruler himself. For rulers have been notable in history
for their fickle ways and shifting affections, and this emperor was
no exception to the rule. First it was one favorite who fell into
disfavor, and then another, and even the priests and the councilors,
who were the closest to him, were as unsafe as the meanest slave. For
while an underling could be made away with quickly and at a word, the
Emperor was no less willing to let his anger smolder through a long
and carefully plotted revenge in the case of some person who might be
next to him in rank. So there were mysterious things happening in the
great stone palace, and White Wing observed soon after he came there
that nobody seemed really to enjoy the wonderful splendors of the court
itself but, on the contrary, they seemed always anxious to be in the
parks or the city, or even out on the lonely plains around it, rather
than in the vast rooms of stone and silver.
Nevertheless, White Wing had nothing to fear from the stalwart and
imperious ruler, for the bird was truly his most treasured possession;
and if he were in an evil mood, the Emperor would often betake himself
to White Wing's splendid garden, and there he would toy with the
bird, asking him many questions, and seeming always content to find
his answer in the flamingo's sagacious looks, or a chance nod of the
creature's head.
There were the troops of lovely children, too, whose quarters were a
whole part of the palace itself, and these were a delight to White
Wing, for they were gentle with him and fed him all sorts of dainties
from their little brown hands.
Among these was a lovely little girl who grew to be a favorite of the
Emperor's and was deeply attached to White Wing.
One day, to the latter's great distress, he saw traces of tears on the
child's face as she came hurrying across the enclosed garden to the
sunken pool where White Wing was looking down into the water at the
gold fish. There happened to be no one in the great courtyard at that
moment but the child and the stately bird. She looked around first, to
be sure that what she was about to say would not be overheard.
"Oh, Prince of the Dawn, dear Prince," she began, "do you know what has
happened? I have run away from the others just to tell you. It's the
saddest thing in the world. The Emperor is sending all the children
away to the farthermost corner of the land to keep them in hiding. And
only the soldiers and the priests are to live here now. There is only
one hour left, for down below the great walls there are thousands of
bearers and mules laden with everything, and a whole army of escorts.
Maybe we shall never come back."
Then she threw herself at White Wing's feet and clutched the flowers on
the border of the fountain as she cried.
But this was only the beginning of the troubles in that great palace.
What the princess had told White Wing explained much that he had
observed, but what the child did not know, and what the Emperor feared
the most, was the plotting that went on against his own life and the
rivalries among his generals. The kingdom was being attacked to the
eastward. Up that same valley that White Wing had followed in his
flight, a terrible army was marching against the capital of this
realm. It was an army of men from the other side of the world. Such
conquerors they were as even the Emperor himself had never dreamed of.
But now excited slaves came rushing in and bore the child off. She had
scarcely time to say farewell, and poor White Wing heard her sobs as
they died away through the courtyards and arched corridors. Yes, his
palace was being deserted, and he could walk through empty rooms and
suddenly stilled hallways without meeting a soul. Everybody was in the
lower courtyard watching the departure of the household.
But just as White Wing, much depressed and filled with wonder, came to
a little doorway in a corner of the great upper hall, he heard voices.
They were the Emperor's councilors, he knew, but why they should be
there now when everybody was so busy elsewhere, he wondered. They were
not talking as usual, but whispering, and a great curtain had been
drawn across the doorway.
White Wing knew that the chamber was lighted by a window that opened
to a tiny courtyard of its own. To reach this court without passing
through the room was impossible to any one but such as White Wing. He
could mount the walls by a short flight from the garden, and descend
within the secret yard.