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What flesh would be needed for the lions, tigers, leopards, ounces, wild-cats, wolves, bears, hyenas, jackals, dogs, and foxes, martens, weasels, eagles, condors, vultures, buzzards, falcons, hawks, kites, owls, as well as crocodiles and serpents! Not one but would eat its weight in a month, and some much more.
Should she send her back to England, or take her as far as Luxor and leave her there under the social wing of Lady Thistleton? "Have you learned any more about the Arab who follows at a distance when you ride in the morning, dear?" Damaris nodded. It seemed she had overheard Lady Thistleton talking about him; his palaces in the desert and at Cairo; his stables and falcons.
One gentleman presented a beautiful pair of falcons in their hoods. While this pageantry and noise was at its height, Queen Caroline demanded to be admitted. There was a sudden silence and consternation, it was like the "handwriting on the wall!" The sensation was intense. At last the order was given to refuse her admittance; the pageantry was renewed, and the banquet followed.
Heretofore, in the life-time of old Lorenz Waldstromer, the father of my Uncle Conrad, it had been wont to come hither once or twice a year, and was ever made welcome; if it should happen to come in the month of August it was at that season filled with noble falcons, to be placed on Board ships at Venice, inasmuch as the Sultan of Egypt and his Emirs were so fain to buy them that they would give as much as a hundred and fifty sequins for he finest and best.
Thus we had to wait; nor was it till the Brunswicker had cracked his last nut with his strong teeth, and the evening cup had been brought round, that he broke silence and told us in short, halting sentences how he had sailed from Venice to Alexandria in the land of Egypt, and all that had befallen his falcons.
"I come I come," said Raoul, who felt the necessity of embracing this opportunity of improving his hawking establishment, and hastened to the gate, where he met the merchant, attended by a servant, who kept in separate cages the three falcons which he offered for sale.
And the stout Count himself shall knight me, and I shall come back with the spurs of gold which thy ancestors, the brave Kings of Norway and Daneland, wore ere knighthood was known. Come, kiss me, my mother, and come see the brave falcons Harold has sent me: true Welch!" Githa rested her face on her son's shoulder, and her tears blinded her.
At supper that night, his father declared that at his age a boy should begin to hunt; and he arose and brought forth an old writing-book which contained, in questions and answers, everything pertaining to the pastime. In it, a master showed a supposed pupil how to train dogs and falcons, lay traps, recognise a stag by its fumets, and a fox or a wolf by footprints.
There are eight of these pieces of great ordnance, besides falcons and swivels which I did not stay to count, the heavy ordnance being all that caused me any anxiety.
I believe he has been trying to make us amenable by supplying us badly with food, just as falcons are trained by hunger. Perhaps I am doing him an injustice, but I feel only too much disposed to-day to think the worst of him and of the other fathers.