Our adventurers witnessed the uprising of the birds with looks that betokened disappointment and displeasure; and Fritz was in danger of getting severely castigated. He merited chastisement; and would have received it on the instant—for Caspar already stood over him with an upraised rod—when an exclamation from Karl caused the young hunter to hold his hand, and saved Fritz from the “hiding” with which he was being threatened.

It was not for this that Karl had called out. The exclamation that escaped him was of a different import—so peculiarly intoned as at once to draw Caspar’s attention from the culprit, and fix it on his brother.

Karl was standing with eyes upraised and gazing fixedly upon the retreating stork—that one with whose tail Fritz had taken such an unwarrantable liberty.

It was not the ragged Marabout feathers, hanging half plucked from the posterior of the stork, upon which Karl was gazing; but its long legs, that, as the bird rose in its hurried flight, hung, slantingly downward, extending far beyond the tip of its tail. Not exactly these either was it that had called forth that strange cry; but something attached to them—or one of them at least—which, as it came under the shining rays of the sun, gleamed in the eyes of Karl with a metallic lustre.

It had a yellowish sheen—like gold or burnished brass—but the scintillation of the sun’s rays, as they glanced from its surface, hindered the spectators from making out its shape, or being able to say exactly what it was.

It was only Caspar and Ossaroo who were thus perplexed. Karl knew that glittering meteor, that for a moment had flashed before his eyes like a beam of hope—now slowly but surely departing from him, and plunging him back into the old misery.

“Oh! brother!” he exclaimed, as the stork flew upward, “what a misfortune has happened!”

“Misfortune! what mean you, Karl?”

“Ah! you know not how near we were to a chance of being delivered. Alas! alas! it is going to escape us!”

“The birds have escaped us, you mean?” inquired Caspar. “What of that? I don’t believe they could have carried up the rope anyhow; and what good would it be to catch them? They’re not eatable; and we don’t want their feathers valuable as they may be.”

“No, no!” hurriedly rejoined Karl; “it is not that—not that.”

“What then, brother?” inquired Caspar, somewhat astonished at the incoherent speeches of the plant-hunter. “What are you thinking of?”

“Look yonder!” said Karl, now for the first time pointing up to the soaring storks. “You see something that shines?”

“Ha! on the leg of one of the birds? Yes; I do see something—like a piece of yellow metal—what can it be?”

“I know what it is!” rejoined Karl, in a regretful tone; “right well do I know. Ah! if we could only have caught that bird, there would have been a hope for us. It’s no use grieving after it now. It’s gone—alas! it’s gone; and you, Fritz, have this day done a thing that will cause us all regret—perhaps for the rest of our lives.”

“I don’t comprehend you, brother!” said Caspar; “but if it’s the escape of the storks that’s to be so much regretted, perhaps it will never take place. They don’t appear to be in such a hurry to leave us—notwithstanding the inhospitable reception Fritz has given them. See! they are circling about, as if they intended to come down again. And see also Ossaroo—he’s holding out a lure for them. I warrant the old shikaree will succeed in coaxing them back. He knows their habits perfe............