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Updated: May 10, 2025
The ferocious chuckle of a great grey king-fisher the bird which white people called the laughing jackass perched on the branch of a gum tree beside the fence, made her shudder, because the bird's soulless cachinnation seemed an echo of Colin's laugh.
They saw also the "boat-bill," or "crab-eater," a curious wading bird of the heron kind, with a large bill shaped like two boats laid with their concave sides against each other. This, like the king-fisher, sat solitarily upon a projecting stump, now and then dashing into the shallow water, and scooping up the small fishes, frogs, and crustacea with its huge mandibles.
The other at once ordered the little chest to be brought back and placed on the bridge. Shih-niang opened it Inside there were several compartments, and she asked Li Chia to help her lift out each in turn. In the first there were jewels in the shape of king-fisher feathers, jasper pins, and precious earrings, to the value of many hundred ounces.
Now imagine me, Blondet, who shiver as if in the polar regions at Saint-Cloud, in the midst of this glowing Burgundian climate. The sun sends down its warmest rays, the king-fisher watches on the shores of the pond, the cricket chirps, the grain-pods burst, the poppy drops its morphia in glutinous tears, and all are clearly defined on the dark-blue ether.
Here, where the great Mississippi, the Father of Waters, seemed to have broken his way through tangled and interminable forests, she stood and looked out upon the broad stream. It lay like a vast mirror reflecting the sunlight, its surface only now and then disturbed by a passing boat or prowling king-fisher.
Occasionally the sharp cry of a king-fisher, from a withered bough near the margin, or the fluttering of the wings of a wild duck, skimming over the surface, might be heard, but besides these there were no sounds, and they served only to make the silence deeper. It is at this hour, and upon an island in the river that our story commences.
There were streams, too, some clear and rippling where the trout flashed and the king-fisher gleamed, others dark and poisonous from the tamarack swamps, where the wanderers had to wade over their knees and carry Adele in their arms. So all day they journeyed 'mid the great forests, with never a hint or token of their fellow-man. But if man were absent, there was at least no want of life.
Justine, leading the way, guided them across the treacherous surface as fearlessly as a king-fisher, lighting instinctively on every grass-tussock and submerged tree-stump of the uncertain path.
Then she took from her coffers many ornaments of king-fisher leather and bracelets and jasper pins, even embroidered robes and girdles ornamented with phoenix. She gave them to Shih-niang, over-coming her with gratitude. She also ordered a feast of congratulation, to which all their friends were invited, and finally, at the end of day, offered the pair a bed for the night.
"Joel's jealous," said Jasper, with a laugh. "Take care, King-Fisher, that really is my hair, sir." Mrs. Fisher nodded and chuckled to the baby, and hurried off. "He didn't really mean to pull your hair, Jasper," said Phronsie in a worried way; and getting up from the floor where she had been deserted by the baby, she hurried over to the two flying around in the center of the room.
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