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Here and there men were adrift like himself. In spots the sea was blackened by charred and sometimes smoking fragments. A galley up a long way was lying to with a torn sail hanging from the tilted yard, and the oars all idle. Still farther away he could discern moving specks, which he thought might be ships in flight or pursuit, or they might be white birds a-wing. An hour passed thus.
As he started up, he heard the clatter of a horse's feet in the road, and saw an Indian woman trotting toward him on a pony. In an instant he was a-wing with terror, scooting toward the thick of the woods. He screamed as he ran, for his head was full of Indian stories, and he knew that the only use Indians had for little boys was to steal them and adopt them into the tribe.
Hans Mueller had been moving on and on; another half minute and he would have been behind the base of the hill out of sight; when, as from the turf at one's feet there springs a-wing a covey of prairie grouse, from the tall grass about the retreating figure there leaped forth a swarm of other similar dark figures: a dozen, a score in front, behind, all about.
Soon the guerilla and the girl disappeared in the distance; the fences flew by; the shocks of corn seemed all a-trooping down the fields; the evening star in the red haze above the purple western mountains had spread its invisible pinions, and was a-wing above their heads.
As the other car swept past, Maitland was shocked by a report and flash beside him. Hickey was using his revolver. The detonation was answered by a cry, a scream of pain, from the lighted cage. It paused on the instant, like a bird stricken a-wing, some four floors below, but at once resumed its downward swoop. "Down, down! After 'em!" Hickey bellowed. "I dropped one, by God! T'other can't "
For a second the entire flock stared in dumb paralytic surprise; then following there came a note of terror from eight and twenty throats that rose as one voice, that over the now silent prairie could have been heard for miles. It was the signal for action, for escape, and, terror-mad, they broke into motion. But a flock of great Canada geese cannot, like quail, spring directly a-wing.
Sydney Harbour ... the air alive with sunlight and white flutterings of sea gulls a-wing ... alive with pleasure boats that leaned here and yon on white sails. Now that we were safe in harbour, I hesitated whether to run away or continue with the ship.
Hope, that had died away, and Fear, that had vanished utterly, were a-wing once more. In the air they met and clashed tumultuously. America was soaring into the blue; England fluttering earthward again. And the cause was not far to seek. The boy on the brown was tiring. He was swaying in his saddle. A thousand glasses fixed on his face confirmed the impression.
A long, rangy fowl happened into the road just ahead of us, but immediately flopped clumsily, half afoot, half a-wing, to one side in the brush, like a stampeded hen. "Road runner," said Bill, with a short laugh. "Remember how they used to rack along in front of a hoss for miles, keeping just ahead, lettin' out a link when you spurred up? Aggravatin' fowl!
Something beyond our ken is a-wing to-night." "But, Eli," said Ezra, "if it were wolves or jackals, the dogs would be barking. And where are the other shepherds? Wilt thou battle alone if the wild beasts come?" "Nay, child, nay," said Eli patiently. "I look not for wild beasts to-night, nor do the dogs expect their ancient enemy.
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