's
confessions, and although they were not admitted at court, as they
belonged to the lower orders, still under such circumstances they might
obtain an audience. They had always borne him ill-will, they must have
seen him, and it was not unlikely they might say that the owl knew all
about it, and kept it from the king. On the other hand, he thought that
Kapchack's rage would be terrible to face.

Upon the whole, however, the owl came to the conclusion that his safest,
as well as his most honourable course, was to go straight to the king,
late as it was, and communicate all that had thus come to his knowledge.
He set out at once, and upon his way again passed the glade, taking care
not to go too near the dead oak, nor to look towards the suspended hawk.
He saw a night-jar like a ghost wheeling to and fro not far from the
scaffold, and anxious to get from the ill-omened spot, flew yet more
swiftly. Round the wood he went, and along the hedges, so occupied with
his thoughts that he did not notice how the sky was covered with
clouds, and once or twice narrowly escaping a branch blown off by the
wind which had risen to a gale. Nor did he see the fox with his brush
touching the ground, creeping unhappily along the mound, but never
looked to the right nor left, hastening as fast as he could glide to
King Kapchack.

Now the king had waited up that night as long as ever he could,
wondering why the thrush did not return, and growing more and more
anxious about the ambassador every moment. Yet he was unable to imagine
what could delay him, nor could he see how any ill could befall him,
protected as he was by the privileges of his office. As the night came
on, and the ambassador did not come, Kapchack, worn out with anxieties,
snapped at his attendants, who retired to a little distance, for they
feared the monarch in these fits of temper.

Kapchack had just fallen asleep when the owl arrived, and the attendants
objected to letting him see the king. But the owl insisted, saying that
it was his particular privilege as chief secretary of state to be
admitted to audience at any moment. With some difficulty, therefore, he
at last got to the king, who woke up in a rage, and stormed at his
faithful counsellor with such fury that the attendants again retired in
affright. But the owl stood his ground and told his tale.

When King Kapchack heard that his ambassador had been foully
assassinated, and that, therefore, the treaty was at an e