ree was so overcome by the spectacle that he
too nearly fainted, and said to himself: "It is clear that my lucky star
rose to-night, for without a doubt the trap was intended for me. I have
perched on that very bough every evening for weeks, and I should have
alighted there to-night had not the hawk been before me. I have escaped
from the most terrible fate which ever befell any one, to which indeed
crucifixion, with an iron nail through the brain, is mercy itself, for
that is over in a minute, but this miserable creature will linger till
the morning."

So saying, he felt so faint that (first looking very carefully to see
that there were no more traps) he perched on a bough a little way above
the hawk. The hawk, in his delirium, was talking of all that he had done
and heard that day, reviling Ki Ki and Choo Hoo, imploring destruction
upon his master's head, and then flapping his wings and so tearing his
sinews and grinding his broken bones together, he shrieked with pain.
Then again he went on talking about the treaty, and the weasel's
treason, and the assassination of the ambassador. The owl, sitting close
by, heard all these things, and after a time came to understand what the
hawk meant; at first he could not believe that his master, the king,
would conclude a treaty without first consulting him, but looking
underneath him he saw the feathers of the thrush scattered on the grass,
and could no longer doubt that what the hawk said was true.

But when he heard the story of Ki Ki's promised treason on the day of
battle, when he heard that the weasel had betrayed the secret of the
spring, which did not freeze in winter, he lifted up his claw and opened
his eyes still wider in amazement and terror. "Wretched creature!" he
said, "what is this you have been saying." But the hawk, quite mad with
agony, did not know him, but mistook him for Ki Ki, and poured out such
terrible denunciations that the owl, shocked beyond measure, flew away.

As he went, after he had gone some distance under the trees, and could
no longer hear the ravings of the tortured hawk, he began to ask himself
what he had better do. At first he thought that he would say nothing,
but take measures to defeat these traitors. But presently it occurred to
him that it was dangerous even to know such things, and he wished that
he had never heard what the hawk had said. He reflected, too, that the
bats had been flying about some time, and might have heard the hawk