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One day when she had been walking a long distance, and was very hungry, she had forgotten about keeping the crumb, and was just breaking the last crust, when she heard the quick, sharp cry of a bird in distress. Looking round she found a wounded sparrow lying on a rock.
They hover about these seeds, and, when they are within a certain distance, a slight pressure on a wooden spring causes a drop of the acid in the globe to escape into the tube, and so to set in movement a current of electricity, which, being very sympathetic to the bird, acts as an attractor so powerful, that it cannot get away.
All was wonderfully still, not so much as a whisper could be heard of night bird or animal astir.
But in the weeks that followed no plot had succeeded, no device or subtle invitation had lured the bird to the list, so that she beat sharply upon a silver gong this night of the stars, upon which the Ethiopian came running hastily to cast himself upon the ground at the jewelled, henna'd feet.
Then she laid his parched Sawik in one plate and hers in another and said to him, "Eat of this, for 'tis better than thine." So he feigned to eat of it and when she thought he had done so, she took water in her hand and sprinkled him therewith, saying, "Quit this form, O thou gallows- bird, thou miserable, and take that of a mule one- eyed and foul of favour."
But I could see only his head and neck, the rest of his body being hidden by the leaves. It was a moment of feverish excitement. Here was a new bird, a bird about which I had felt fifteen years of curiosity; and, more than that, a bird which here and now was quite unexpected, since it was not included in either of the two Florida lists that I had brought with me from home.
As there was nothing in this road, or rather nothing which I look for in travelling, I cannot fill up the blank better than with a short history of this self-same bird, which became the subject of the last chapter.
The bird that will dash itself against the wires of its cage beats itself all bloody and torn. Let us take the providence and it ceases to be hard. One last word; we all carry an iron yoke upon our shoulders. For, hard as it is for us preachers to get our friends that listen to us to believe and realise it, 'We all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. That yoke is on us all.
She resolutely refrained from looking down and kept on steadily, branch above branch, until she reached the one from which the robin hung. Then began the most perilous part of the undertaking. To reach the bird she must crawl out on this branch for a distance of at least six feet, there being no limb directly underneath for her to walk out on.
"I told you so," said Halleck, who kept on eating wheat and defying the sharpshooters, who were unable to hit him, though he was a conspicuous target. The secret of it was he did not stand still, but kept moving, and they had to hit him, if at all, like a bird on the wing which at the distance was a hard shot to make.
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