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Thor felt trebly insulted just then; possibly he believed that "Shoo! shoo!" had something to do with shooies, and the allusion was ill-timed he considered. After much noise and hustling, and what Thor looked upon as unseemly action, he came to the conclusion that a boat is not always an ark of refuge, nor is one's master always to be depended upon as a sure help in time of need.
Still gasping, but self-possessed, Thor hopped from the thwart on to Yaspard's arm, and then, turning up one side of his head, he leered at the shooies in such an expressive and ludicrous manner that the boy went into fits of laughter, even though one of the shooies swooped so near in its baffled anger as to touch his hair.
Yaspard thought Thor would, if they made it sufficiently plain to his corvidaeous intellect that he must not remain with the boats. "He has often followed me, poor old chap!" said Yaspard. "I dare say he was coming on my tracks when the shooies fell foul of him; he will return to Moolapund if I drive him off. He won't halt by the way now, for it is near his roosting time, and he is tired to boot."
He leaned back and let her go, while giving himself up to ecstatic dreams of adventure in which his new acquaintance played the important part. He had adopted Fred Garson for his hero, and was already setting him in the chief place in every airy castle of his imagination; but fancy's flight was interrupted by flight of another kind. These shooies live chiefly by preying on other birds.
At that moment Sir Raven, uttering a loud and prolonged scream, shot downward and alighted on the thwart next Yaspard, too exhausted to do more than utter one faint croak, which might have been a parting anathema on the shooies, but which charity impels me to believe was an expression of thankfulness for such an ark of refuge as the boat of a Viking.
Corbie is in a fix," quoth Yaspard to himself, as he watched the swift, graceful evolutions of the shooies as they darted through the air buffeting and tormenting the unfortunate raven, whose harsh, fierce croak and futile efforts to escape were quite pitiful though amusing.
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