CHAPTER VII
Inthe preceding chapter I made scanty references to the places and incidents through which Gay-Neck was recovered. Ghond found his track with certainty the first day of our ten days' search for him, but in order to see those things clearly and continuously, it would be better to let Gay-Neck tell his own Odyssey. It is not hard for us to understand him if we use the grammar of fancy and the dictionary of imagination.
The October noon when we boarded the train at Darjeeling for our return journey to town, Gay-Neck sat in his cage, and commenced the story of his recent truancy from Dentam to Singalele and back.
"O, Master of many tongues, O wizard of all languages human and animal, listen to my tale. Listen to the stammering wandering narrative of a poor bird. Since the river has its roots in the hill, so springs my story from the mountains.
"When near the eagle's nest I heard and beheld the wicked hawk's talons tear my mother to pieces, I was so distressed that I decided to die, but not by the claws of those treacherous birds. If I was to be served up for a meal let it be to the king of the air; so I went and sat on the ledge near the eagle's nest, but they would do me no harm. Their house was in mourning. Their father had been trapped and killed, and their mother was away hunting for pheasants and hares. Since up to now the younglings had only eaten what had been killed for them, they dared not attack and finish poor me who was alive. I do not know yet why no eagle has harmed me; during the past days I have seen many.
"Then you came to catch and cage me. As I was in no mood for human company, I flew away, taking my chances as I went, but I remembered places and persons who were your friends and I stayed with them on my way south to Dentam. During those two days—for I flew only two days—I was attacked by a newly fledged hawk, and I gave him the best defeat of his life. It was in this wise; one morning as I was flying over the woods below Sikkim, I heard the wind screech overhead. I knew what that meant now, so I played a trick. I stopped all on a sudden and the hawk, who was falling upon me, missed me and fell away down, grazing his wing on a tree-top. I rose higher and flew fast, but he caught up and then I began to make circles in the air. I rose high, oh so high that my lungs could not breathe the air there, and I had to come down again.
"But no sooner had I descended than with an ominous screech and cry the hawk fell upon me. Fortunately, then and there, for the first time in my life I tried to tumble as I had seen my father do, and I succeeded in making a double tumble, then shooting up like a fountain. Again the hawk missed and rose to attack, but I gave him no chance. I flew at him. And just as I was passing him, he dipped down, then up, and clutched at me; again I tumbled, striking him so hard that he lost his balance. I do not know what happened, but that very moment I felt something sucking me down down to the depth of the earth. My wings were powerless. I fell as an eagle falls—heavy and inevitable—striking the hawk on the head with my full weight. I think the blow stunned him. He too fell, and was lost in the woods below, but I was glad to find myself on the branch of an ilex tree.
"I had been sucked down by an air current. Since that first experience of mine, I have met many others like it but I have never understood why it was that above certain trees and streams the air gets very cold and makes a current that draws into itself the bird that strikes it. I had to learn the lesson of flying in those currents after being whirled up and down by them. But I do not hate them, since the first air current I encountered saved my life.
"Sitting on that ilex tree I became so hungry that it drove me to fly home. Luckily, no soulless hawk obstructed my arrow-like flight.
"But my successful escape from that newly-fledged murderer gave me back my courage, and as soon as you came home I said to myself: 'Now that he, my friend, has seen me alive, he will not worry about me. I must fly anew through the falcon-infested air and test my courage.'
"Now began my real Odyssey. I went northwards to the eagle's nest, and stopped at the Lamasery where a holy man had blessed me on an earlier occasion. There I re-visited Mr. and Mrs. Swift, my old friends. Moving further north I went past Singalele at last and reached the eyrie of the eagles who had flown away. So I made myself comfortable there, but not too happy, for the eagles leave all kinds of refuse in their nests, and I am afraid they swarm with vermin. Though I spent my day in the eagle's nest, I decided to spend the night in a tree, free from horrid insects. After a couple of days, my going in and out of the eyrie gave me great prestige among other birds. They feared me, perhaps because they took me for a sort of eagle. Even the hawks began to give me a wide berth. That gave me all the confidence that I needed, so early one morning, seeing a white wedge of birds coming south, flying very high, I joined them. They did not mind my joining them, they were wild geese going towards Ceylon and beyond, in the quest of a sunny ocean.
"Those geese, after two hours' flight, as the day became warmer, descended onto a rapid mountain stream. Unlike the eagles, they rarely looked downwards, but watched the horizon lines. They spied a little ribbon of whitish blue far off against the sky, and flew in a slowly declining straight line till it seemed as if the earth were rising to meet us, and soon all plunged into the silver stream, for now, the waters looked more silvery than blue. They floated on the water, but as I knew that I was not web-footed, I sat on a tree and watched their antics. You know how flat and ugly the bills of geese are, but now I saw the reason for it. They used them like pincers on things such as shells that grew on the side of the banks. Every now and then a goose would put his bill on a plant or a shell, then wring it out of position as a butcher would wring a duck's neck. After that it would devour its victim wholesale, crushing it in its powerful throat, but ere it passed very far down its size dwindled to nothing. I saw one fellow do worse than that. He found a fish—as lean as a water snake—in a hole under the bank; he began to pull it. The more he pulled the thinner and longer it got. Slowly, after a terrific tug of war, the poor fellow was dragged from his hole. Then the goose hopped up the shore and flung it on the ground. His bill had crushed the part it had held onto, nearly into pulp, so no wonder his wriggling victim was already dead. Then from nowhere walked up to him another goose. (By the way, are not geese the most ungainly birds when they are not flying or swimming? On the water they resemble dreams floating on pools of sleep, but on land they hobble like cripples on crutches!) By now the two geese were quarrelling. They pulled one another's feathers, they slapped with their wings, they kicked each other with their feet every time they hopped up above the ground. While they were thus engaged, oblivious of their bone of contention, a cat-like creature, probably an otter, pounced from among the reeds, grabbed the dead eel and vanished. Now the geese declared a truce, but too late! Oh, they have no more sense than, well—geese! Compared with them, we pigeons seem paragons of cleverness.
"After they had stopped fighting, the chief goose cried—'Cluck, caw, caw, caw!' That instant all of them paddled hard to gather momentum. A few extra wing-beats and they were in the air. How beautiful they looked now! That soft soughing of vast wings, their necks and bodies like drawings against the sky, making a severe eye-pleasing wedge. I shall never forget it.
"But every flock has its straggler. One fellow was left behind, because he was still struggling with a fish. At last he secured it, and flew up in quest of a tree where he could eat it under cover. Suddenly from the empty air an enormous hawk attacked him. The goose rose higher but the indefatigable hawk did not relent. Up and up they circled, screaming and quacking. Suddenly a faint but clear echo of a honk was heard. The chief of the flock was calling the straggler; that distracted him. Hardly knowing what he was doing, he honked back an answer. That instant the fish fell from his mouth. It began to fall like a leaf. The hawk dipped, and just as he was going to pierce it with his talons, down the air came a surge and roar. In a trice an eagle fell as a rock falls down a high precipice. That hawk ran for his life, and that gave me a great deal of pleasure to behold.
"Under the eagle's two wings like vast sails, the talons forked out lightning fashion and grabbed the fish—then the monarch of the air in his shining armour of brown gold sailed away, the wind ruffling the feathers above his knees. Far away, the hawk was still running for his life!
"I am glad he went very far away, for I had to fly about in quest of a caravan road where I could get some seeds dropped by men. I soon found some and after a tolerably decent meal, I perched on a tree and went to sleep. When I woke it was mid-afternoon. I decided to fly away up, to reach the blessed Lamasery, and visit my friends the swifts. My flight was unattended by any mishap, for I had learned to fly carefully by now. I generally went very far up and looked down, as well as at the horizon. Though I have not as long a neck as a wild goose, yet I turned and took side glances every few minutes in order to make sure that nothing was attacking my rear.
"I reached the monastery just in time, as the Lamas were getting ready to stand on the edge of their chapel in order to pour benediction upon the world during sunset. Mr. and Mrs. Swift were flying near the nest where their three youngsters were put to bed. Of course they were glad to receive me. After their vesper services, the monks fed me, and the sweet old Lama said something about a blessing that some one called Infinite Compassion had put upon me. Then I flew from his hand feeling absolutely fearless. In that state of mind and body I entered my nest next to the swifts under the eaves of the Lamasery.
"The nights in October are cold. In the morning while the priests rang their bells, the little swifts flew about for exercise while their parents and I had to fly to shake off the chill of the morning. That day I spent there in order to help them make preparations for their journey south. I was surprised to learn that they intended to build a nest in Ceylon or Africa whither they were going. I explained to them that a swift's nest is not at all an easy thing to construct. Then in order to assuage my thirst for knowledge they told me how they erect their homes."