Page:Under the Sun.djvu/47

Rh through small holes, become ragged and irregular; the tail is systematically discarded as being dangerous and a handle to ill-wishers. Death therefore must come upon some of them as a sharp cure for life — il est mort guéri.

But to others it is the bitter end of a life of perilous pleasure, — to such a one perhaps as the following. The bird I speak of was a fine young cock, a Nazarene in his unclipt wings, with the columnar legs of an athlete, snatching life by sheer pluck and dying without disgrace. His death happened in this wise. There came up the hill one day some travellers with whom the cook at the staging-house wished to stand well, and when they asked, “What is there to eat?” he replied with suavity, “Whatever your honors choose to order.” So they ordered beef and then mutton, but there being neither, they desisted from “ordering” and left it to the cook to arrange their meal. And he gave them soup made of an infant poult, two side-dishes composed of two elder brothers, a fine fowl roasted, by way of joint, and the grandmother of the family furnished forth a curry. And one of the party watched the dinner being caught. With the soup there was little difficulty, for it succumbed to a most obvious fraud. The side-dishes fell victims to curiosity, for while they were craning their necks into the cook-room door, a hand came suddenly round the corner and closed upon them. The curry, poor old soul, was taken in her afternoon sleep. But the roast, the bird italicized above, showed sport, as well it might. For seven months it had daily evaded death, scorning alike the wiles of the cook and the artifices of his minions. Nothing would tempt it during the day within the