340 A MEDLEY OF SPOKT 



We had not started on our voyage of discovery long 

 when the capful of air died away almost to a dead calm. 

 Then my stalwart companion lowered the sail and com- 

 menced to propel the punt, noiselessly but swiftly, by 

 means of the setting-pole, and, although we were passing 

 over the very shallowest of shoals, ground was never 

 once touched. From time to time the weird, albeit 

 musical, cry of a curlew, the shrill call of a redshank, 

 or the strange *' mewing " of a lapwing, reached our ears 

 from the neighbouring flats, and more than once the 

 merry cackle of a bunch of mallard, travelling high over- 

 head, was heard. I sighted nothing, however, until the 



rugged headland of W loomed high and gaunt above 



the rippleless tide on the port bow. Then it was that I 

 noticed a number of large birds quartering a tongue of 

 ooze which extended from a patch of saltings down to the 

 water's edge. 



" Curloos," was the laconic whisper of Gilson, whose 

 keen and well-tried eyes had probably sighted the herd of 

 curlew long before my own. 



On and on crept the low, grey, wicked-looking craft, 

 nearer and nearer to the long-billed, and, apparently, un- 

 suspecting birds, until the nearest of them were well within 

 range of the 8-bore. With a great to-do, and giving vent 

 to a piercing " cur-lee w ! " of alarm, up got one of the 

 sentinels. The warning came too late, however, for, 

 pulling into a bunch of five of the curlew as they rose in a 

 " heap," a couple dropped dead as stones, while a third, 

 with a wing down, after struggling to the water's edge, fell 



