hat great bird, half as tall as himself, and so many times more
lovely and strong and beautiful in its life--he had killed it, and
it would never fly again! He raised it up very tenderly in his arms
and kissed it--kissed its pale green head and rosy wings; then out
of his arms it tumbled back again on to the grass.

"Oh, poor bird," he cried suddenly, "open your wings and fly away!"

But it was dead.

Then Martin got up and stared all round him at the wide landscape,
and everything looked strange and dim and sorrowful. A shadow passed
over the lake, and a murmur came up out of the rushes that was like
a voice saying something that he could not understand. A great cry
of pain rose from his heart and died to a whisper on his lips; he
was awed into silence. Sinking down upon the grass again, he hid his
face against the rosy-breasted bird and began to sob. How warm the
dead bird felt against his cheek--oh, so warm--and it could not live
and fly about with the others.

At length he sat up and knew the reason of that change that had come
over the earth. A dark cloud had sprung up in the south-west, far
off as yet, and near the horizon; but its fringe already touched and
obscured the low-hanging sun, and a shadow flew far and vast before
it. Over the lake flew that great shadow: the waters looked cold and
still, reflecting as in a polished glass the motionless rushes, the
glassy bank, and Martin, sitting on it, still clasping in his arms
the dead rose-coloured bird.

Swifter and vaster, following close upon the flying shadow, came the
mighty cloud, changing from black to slaty grey; and then, as the
sun broke forth again under its lower edge, it was all flushed with
a brilliant rose colour. But what a marvellous thing it was, when
the cloud covered a third of the wide heavens, almost touching the
horizon on either side with its wing-like extremities; Martin,
gazing steadily at it, saw that in its form it was like an immense
spoonbill flying through the air! He would gladly have run away then
to hide himself from its sight, but he dared not stir, for it was
now directly above him; so, lying down on the grass and hiding his
face against the dead bird, he waited in fear and trembling.

[Illustration: ]

He heard the rushing sound of the mighty wings: the wind they
created smote on the waters in a hurricane, so that the reeds were
beaten flat on the surface, and a great cry of terror went up from
all the wild birds. It pa