Black Mallards 



in my other ear, which was turned away, a reso- 

 nant voice cried Quock! with a challenge that 

 broke the tension like a pistol-shot. 



Involuntarily I turned my head, just when I 

 should have held most still; and so I lost my 

 chance. There, at arm's-length on the other side 

 of the point, a wild-eyed duck was looking over the 

 bank, her neck stretched like a taut string, her 

 olive-colored bill pointing straight at me. She 

 never said another word, and had no need to 

 repeat her challenge. All over the point and along 

 the shore necks were stretched up from the grass; 

 a dozen alert forms rose like sentinels from as many 

 tussocks, and forty pairs of keen eyes were every 

 one searching the spot at which the old hen-duck 

 pointed her accusation. 



For a small moment that tableau lasted, with- 

 out a sound, without a motion; while one was 

 conscious only of the tense necks, the pointing 

 bills, the gleaming little eyes, each with its dia- 

 mond-point of light ; and then the old duck took 

 wing. She did not even crouch to jump, so far 

 as I could follow her motion; she simply went 

 into the air like a rocket, shooting aloft as if 

 hurled from a spring. As she rose, there was an 

 answering rush of wings, whoosh! in my very ears, 

 a surge as of smitten water in the distance; and 

 in the same fraction of an instant every duck to 



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