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Updated: May 12, 2025
The situation of Ossaroo would have bean sufficiently ludicrous for Caspar to have laughed at it, but for the danger in which the shikaree was placed. This was so evident, that instead of indulging in anything akin to levity, Caspar looked on with feelings of deep anxiety, Karl being equally apprehensive about the result.
It is news worth guessing at; and you and Ossaroo must make it out between you." The two hunters, thus challenged, were about entering upon a series of conjectures, when they were interrupted by Karl. "Come!" said he, "there is no time now. You can exercise your ingenuity after we have got home to the hut. We must make sure of the storks, before anything else be attended to.
"What do you think of it, shikaree?" inquired Karl, speaking in a serious tone. The reply of Ossaroo did not bespeak any very sanguine hope on his part. Still he was ready to counsel a trial of the scheme. They could try it without any great trouble. It would only need to spin some more rope from the hemp of which they had plenty attach it to the leg of the bearcoot, and give the bird its freedom.
It was not in this that his chief danger lay; nor from such source was it to come; but from one altogether unexpected and unthought-of. It was near the hour of noon, and Ossaroo had already succeeded in setting the steps up to about half the height of the cliff.
Not so Ossaroo. The moment he saw the carving ivory and the dark-coloured disc, he pronounced, in a tone of careless indifference, the simple phrase, "Hornbill de bird on him nest." Just then the curved projection was observed to recede within the tree; and in its place appeared a small dark hole, apparently the entrance to a larger cavity.
Caspar was too much astonished by this exhibition to remain any longer the sole proprietor of such a mysterious secret, and without more delay he communicated his discovery to Karl, and indirectly to Ossaroo. Both at the same time turned their eyes towards the tree, and bent them upon the indicated spot. Karl was as much mystified by the strange appearance as had been Caspar himself.
Well knowing these proclivities on the part of the rogue, Ossaroo at once counselled caution in the future movements of all a counsel which Karl was too prudent to reject; and even the bold, rash Caspar did not think it proper to dissent from.
He stated that the bird in the tree was called by the Feringhees a "hornbill," but it was also known to some as the "rhinoceros bird." Ossaroo added that it was as large as a goose; and that its body was many times thicker than its bill, thick as the latter appeared to be.
The eagle was perceived, perched, or rather crouching, on a low ledge of the cliff, upon which it had dropped down after its unsuccessful attempt at flight. It looked crestfallen, and as if it would suffer itself to be caught by the hand. But as Ossaroo approached it with this intention, the bird seemed to fancy itself free, and once more rose, with a bold swoop, into the air.
Its seeds when parched, and crushed between two stones, produced a kind of meal, of which cakes of bread were manufactured by Ossaroo. These, although very far inferior to the real home-bake, or even to the most ordinary production of the bakehouse, were nevertheless sufficiently palatable to those who had no other bread.
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