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TALES OF THE UNTAMED. 
MARGOT (continued). 
Adapted from the French by Douglas English. 
THE lamplight dazed and blinded her, transpierced 
the tiipla curtains of her eyes, whose thin trans- 
lucent inner lids betrayed the fear behind them. 
The lamplight filled her brain with night- 
mare horrors, tossed sleep on swirls and eddyinga 
of unrest, mocked at her waking helplessness. By fitful turns, 
she dozed, and woke, and dozed again. 
At last came darkne.'-s, and she slept profoundly, and 
dreamt of forest lullabies, the night-songs of the sisterhood, 
tha surr and rustle of green leaves. 
Her mind had no tense of contingencies; no instinct 
counselled wakefulness, lest she iihould miss some loophole of 
escape. 
She woke with daybreak in a silent house; watched the 
slow birth of form from formless shade ; took stock of things 
inanimate, on floor and wall and ceiling. Man's lair had 
this in common with her forest. It sheltered moving 
things and motionless — and moving things alone were to ba 
feared. So by slow reasoning v/orked her mind — a lifeless 
room was harmless. 
On this, her first long curious inquiry, a linger;'":; fear 
intruded. It left her as she ate. As though the fortsL still 
was round about her, not caring why, nor caring whence they 
came, she gulped the food-scraps littered in her prison. She 
pecked indifferently at seeds she knew, at tempting morsels 
which were unfamiliar, at sugar, cake-scraps, biscuits, which 
■ome strange chance had garnered in the cage. 
She found drink ready also. A pannikin of water, stag- 
nant, luko, on which a floating dust-film scrawled a spiral. 
She crouched and stretched her neck to meet its level, 
spread wide her beak, and gulped; then, with closed mouth 
and eyes upturned in ecstasy, gazed heavenward as she 
swallowed. 
So had she quaffed the forest springs and puddles on the 
wayside. 
With thirst and hunger slaked her hopes revived. Per- 
haps these noisy humans yet might spare her. Were they 
BO terrible indeed ? At least they brought her food and drink 
in plenty. Was it some trap 7 Some scheme to capture her 
afresh ? 
Without cocks crew, dogs barked. She hastened to de- 
vour the last small scraps, for fear they might be snatched 
from her. 
She knew dogs well enough — noisy, four-footed, shaggy- 
plnmaged things, who, in their maddest, wildest course, kept 
muzzle close to ground. They were no foes to winged folk. 
She feared the voice of Chanticleer far more; this, close 
at hand, was strange, and so disquieting. 
But other sounds swept both these voices from her; the 
growl, the heavy tread of Man behind the party wall. 
And presently Man entered, boisterous, menacing. 
For Margot he was simply Man — the counterfeit of him 
who captured her. Even v/ith lapse of time, when she knew 
every patron of the tavern, she could not mark with cer- 
tainty the one who had laid hands on her the first and tugged 
her from her rival and borne her from the frosted field to 
the hot, smoke-grimed kitchen. 
She eyed him cross-ways, curious, defiant, with beak 
Bgape and half-curled claw. He paid small heed to her 
effrontery. He saw the food had gone and laughed. And 
laughter grated harsh on Margot's ears. The feathers 
bristled on her neck, her beaded eye grew rounder, brighter, 
fiercer. 
The Man brought further store of grain, and tit-bits, 
which lie forced between the wires. 
And Margot, with wide-sundered, flapping wings, 
backed, beak in rest, against her farther wall. 
The Man set to his work, plied busy broom. He flung 
side-glances at the cage to note if she was tempted by the 
food. But Margot sulked. The dust-clouds surged and 
Beetled. They puzzled her, but riddle more profound lay in 
the Man's quiet eyes. 
She thought herself the object of his toiling, and sought, 
by scrutiny of his acts and gestures, to learn how they con- 
cerned herself. 
The problem seemed alternative. 
Either the Man would kill her or would loose her. 
His movements must be peaceable or hostile. There 
wan no third solution. Imprisonment was unimaginable. 
Her present case was transitory, impermanent — a restf, 
a halting-station on the road which led to death or liberty. 
But there was ground for hopefulness. The Man would 
surely loose her. He had not tried to capture her. He 
brought her food — food which her forest sisters sought in 
vain. What use was freedom if one starved? 
The door flung open, and the Woman entered. 
Her mind once more swung dubious. 
What marked this uncouth monster from its mate? Its 
size t Its form ? Its plumage ? 
There seemed no sure distinction. Was one less dan- 
gerous than the other ? 
Hearing and scent inclined her to the Woman. No reek 
of shag exhaled from her. Her voice, for all its harshness, 
was gentler than the Man's. It had a bird-note ring in it. 
The children met with kindlier recognition. 
Their heads were barely table-high. She need nob 
thrust and stretch her neck to follow their bright eyes. 
She had no fear lest they should fall and crush her. 
So stood, at first, her knoweldge of the household. 
The children prattled round hor cage, thrust tit-bits in 
between the bars, cajoled her with endearments. 
She listened with her head aslant, half-frightened, half- 
coquettish. 
Sometimes she pecked the food-scraps, and merry 
laughter rippled out, and made her pause dumbfounded. Bub 
no one tried to harm her. 
Man came and went throughout the day, lolled on the 
benches, swilled his drink, and sang and laughed and gos- 
siped. He left her unmolested. 
She soon gained confidence in those she knew. 
By evening she took scraps of food from grimy, toil- 
stained fingers. She tasted them and dropped them, for she 
liad crammed her full. Some fell into the drinkingtrough. 
Some she disposed in corners of her cage, a cage-born instinct 
guiding her, an insurmountable distrust. 
Days passed in slow accustomment to Man. 
She soon knew all the inmates of the house, the adults 
by their voices, the children by tl'.eir height. She gave to 
each a different meed of confidence. She trusted more to 
manners than appearance. She liked the Girl the best, the 
Woman next. The Boy's wild mischief scared her, the Man's 
gruff voice, and, worse than this, the stench of smoke which 
oozed from every pore of hira. 
It brought to mind the powder smell, and drijiping, 
clotting blood. 
She counted always on escape. Youth's sanguine voice 
forbade despair, and hope found new-born energy in fierce 
discordant longings. Hourly she pecked and rattled at the 
bars. Hourly she read, in trivial happenings, a message of 
deliverance. 
A single thought obsessed her mind, a passionate instinct 
fevered her, and lent her spriglitliness and voice. 
Her gaolers misconstrued the change, thought that thli 
gaiety was real, that she was reconciled to fate, that she 
would settle down. 
So danger grew from want of understanding and 
hastened the inevitable end. 
A storm from westward swept across the snow, and flung 
a driving rain at it, and smirched its virgin whiteness. 
This way and that the muddying thaw trailed zig-zag 
down the plough, liks toper who has foundered in the ditch, 
and pl.iuts unsteady feet to save himself. 
It drove mankind to shelter — and to boredom. 
Tlio leaden sky was matched by leaden faces. Margot 
alone was lively. Slie danced and clacked, and so compelled 
attention. 
And, suddenly, her pri::on door v:as opened. 
Was this her chance? She leapt towards the gap. A' 
hand outspread itself and barred the way. Five crooking 
fingers groped for her, five monstrous fleshy fingers. They 
forced her backwards, pinned her to the bars. Screaming, 
sue drove at tlicm with beak and claw. They fixed, like 
eagle's talons, round her body, grijiped breast and back, 
and tightened like a girth. Tlie trough capsized and 
drenched her, head to tail. The cage tiptilted, dropped away 
from her. 
{To he corfir.i'.fJ.) 
Priutod by the Vici'OiuA Ilousii PaiNTisa Co., Lro., Tudor Sueet, Whitefciars, London, K.C. 
