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Considering the size and savagery of the hawk, any small bird but the little king would have been well content with his riddance. Not so the king-birds. With shrill chirpings they sped to the rescue. Their wings cuffed the marauder's head in a fashion that confused him. Their wedge-like beaks menaced his eyes and brought blood through the short feathers on the top of his head.
Indeed the boys, who started on his trail scarcely two hours after the raid had been committed, undoubtedly disturbed him at his repast. The shote was not completely eaten when they found the bear's breakfast-table. "It is a mighty big bear anyway," Bryce declared, looking at the marks of the marauder's feet. "He couldn't have brought that pig so far if he hadn't been."
"Surely this is a noble fellow, a worthy fellow," exclaimed Leicester, who was filled with admiration at the bold marauder's progress, and vowed that he was "the only soldier in truth that they had, for he was never idle, and had succeeded hitherto very happily."
There is something piteous in the futile efforts of reluctant lenders to save their property from depredation. They place their reliance upon artless devices which never yet were known to stay the marauder's hand. They have their names and addresses engraved on foolish little plates, which, riveted to their umbrellas, will, they think, suffice to insure the safety of these useful articles.
Over pastures, through ravines, across rivers, under forest arches dim as twilight, they hurried on, a pack of hounds yapping in advance, a broken branch, a trampled bush, a hoof-print in the margin of a stream also giving proof that they were on the right path; a herder, who had seen the ruffian pass, likewise testifying to the fact, and giving his service to the company; and so they came to a clearing, where they found the marauder's abandoned and exhausted horse.
The marauder's thirst for present plunder, and the conqueror's lofty ambition of future glory, now stirred in strong conflict within him. He walked to the opening of the tent, and thrusting aside its curtain of skins, looked out upon Rome in silence.
"Surely this is a noble fellow, a worthy fellow," exclaimed Leicester, who was filled with admiration at the bold marauder's progress, and vowed that he was "the only soldier in truth that they had, for he was never idle, and had succeeded hitherto very happily."
He accepted the fact of the marauder's presence as quite the expected thing. But the man who had robbed Tom and later tried to repay him for playing what appeared to be a practical joke on the robber, did not trouble the Swift premises with his presence before morning. Koku, thrusting Eradicate Sampson aside and striding to his bedroom to report this fact, was what awoke Tom at eight o'clock.
Disregard for mortuary convention was carried to further lengths next day; during the absence of the family at the funeral ceremony the remaining survivors of the speckled Sussex were massacred. The marauder's line of retreat seemed to have embraced most of the flower beds on the lawn, but the strawberry beds in the lower garden had also suffered.
Scaling was therefore out of the question; mining was still more so, for want of tools and gunpowder; neither were the besiegers provided with food, means of shelter, or other conveniences, which might have enabled them to convert the siege into a blockade; and there would, at any rate, have been a risk of relief from some of the marauder's comrades.
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