Part 12

The movement was timed to perfection; no eye save the giraffe's could have calculated the aim to such a nicety, and the lion fell as though stunned, his lower jaw broken, his hunting ended for all time. Without waiting to see what had happened, the Mother Giraffe signalled to Maami to follow her, and they glided away in their own curious fashion until they were miles from the spot where the great yellow body lay writhing on the ground, a group of jackals waiting hungrily for the end.

Perhaps the two giraffes were made more careful by this adventure; certainly Maami never frisked again in the old-time happy fashion; but it was no more than an incident of daily life, and did not call for any special remembrance.

The year that followed was uneventful, and when the two giraffes came again from the forest the Mother Giraffe asked permission to join the herd from which she had departed when the time came for Maami to be born. Self-preservation took the mothers away at these most critical periods of their lives, and they were not permitted to return until their offspring were old and strong enough to obey the orders of the old bulls to whom the safety of the herd was entrusted. Experience had shown that when a calf was too young to follow the lead, mother and child fell easy victims to pursuit. Alone they might avoid attention, but a herd was a more or less certain mark for hunters, whether they went on two feet or four. So a mother looked after herself and child until both were able to face any emergency, and then they were readmitted to the pack.

Maami was now in his fourth year and well able to look after himself, cognisant of many, if not all, the dangers that beset giraffes, and the old bull in charge of the herd gave him welcome in most approved fashion by bending down certain high branches of edible trees until they were within the newcomer's reach.

For the Young Giraffe a new life seemed to have opened. He could follow the herd to feeding places where never a giraffe would have gone alone, he was entrusted with sentry duty from time to time, he acquired a measure of confidence, and, above all, he fed entirely upon vegetable matter. When he claimed his mother's care no longer, he knew that he had gained independence.

The herd numbered thirty or more, and was led by an old bull giraffe and two lieutenants, whose skins were darker than those of the old females or any of the young giraffes. All the males were thicker in the neck than the females, and heavier in the foot, and they were more nervous than their companions. Even when the herd rested against the woodland trees in the extreme heat of the day, or sought for their favourite branches at feeding time, the old bulls would never cease from scanning the surrounding country. The leader went a little lame; he, too, had killed a lion, but not without damage to some leg muscles that made him move much as a camel moves, the natural ungainliness of a giraffe's stride being made more than ever apparent by the accident.

In spite of hours of duty, in spite of the feeling that he must obey orders, Maami was happy enough. He learned to signal the events of hill and prairie by certain definite movements of head, neck and tail, so that when he was watching while others fed, his inability to cry aloud might not lead to trouble.

Nature, in her infinite care for these her most helpless surviving children, had granted protective colouring and something akin to telegraphic signalling to the giraffe world, and for two years the old bull giraffe kept his little company together with no other loss save that which came when one of the cows retired to some quiet breeding ground. Three out of four would come back in the course of time bringing a little one old enough to feed himself and obey orders, the fourth would not return. She would fall a victim to some enemy, some black huntsman searching for the giraffe because his hide fetched a big price in the African market, where it was made into whip-thongs, or she would fall to a company of lions that could unite against a giraffe, and by surrounding disable her.

Under the guidance of the old bull giraffe, the herd travelled far afield, covering a wide expanse of country and gathering much information about good quiet pools and feeding grounds from many other tree and grass-feeding animals. Zebras, deer of all kinds, elephants and even hippopotami were ready to give all the hints that were sought for, and many a time, in response to warnings that belong to the freemasonry of the animal world, the bull giraffe led his company away from feeding grounds that, for all their tempting aspect, held hidden dangers. The zebras and the deer could hear trouble, elephants could scent it, and when the wind played havoc with the scent and hearing, the giraffes could use their eyes in fashion that brought much-needed guidance to those who had served them at other seasons.

With the exception of the leopards, who worked alone, few animals sought their food or their safety by themselves. Even the lions united for the hunt, and man, the destroyer, reaching the confines of the unexplored lands where wild beasts dwelt, travelled with a company. More than once Maami saw man in the dim distance, with tents, baggage bearers, and the impedimenta associated with the pursuit of big game, but more often than not these destroyers never saw the giraffes at all.

But disaster cannot be avoided for all time, and it was written that Maami's mother should be the first of the company to pay tribute to man the implacable. One night, as the herd came from feeding among some young tree tops, she fell into one of the cunningly contrived pits that a company of native hunters had set in the path--a trap intended for even bigger game, but readily discovered by the solitary elephant for whom it had been set. He had scented it a hundred yards away, and made a new path into the forest that sheltered him, conquering the pangs of thirst that had drawn him from his lair. The giraffes having little scent and paying small attention to the ground beneath their feet, were not so fortunate; the mother beast fell, and the herd, yielding to brute instinct, turned in its tracks, and ambled away all night to a distant place of safety.

Maami understood his loss very vaguely, if at all. With the advancing years mother and son had forgotten the ties that bound them to one another in the far-off days of motherly affection and childish need; and, when morning broke, bringing lingering surcease to the poor creature's pain, terror and life, there was none of the herd within sight of the scene of the misfortune. It was one of the chances that giraffes must take, this deep pit covered lightly with grasses spread about a slender support of boughs; and the shapeless carcase that the hunters cast aside when they had stripped off the hide served to give the carrion a hearty meal. Within twenty-four hours the white bones alone remained to tell of the graceful and harmless creature that had haunted wood and plain so long.

* * * * *

Years have passed since Maami's mother met her fate in the hunters' pit, and, of the giraffe herd that still haunts the plains, seeking the high woods only in a season of drought, few of the older ones remain. Maami himself is very near to the leadership; he is second to an old bull some three years his senior. The leader of the early days lives solitary now, if he lives at all. When his eyes grew dim and his limbs began to lose their elasticity, he was compelled to pass his duties and responsibilities to another and to go his way alone.

To be sure he was no match for young lions or for huntsmen, but there was no appeal from forest law, which recognises the herd's need for sound and sure guidance, and since he had left the ranks others had followed, all to lead solitary lives, happy indeed and fortunate if inevitable death did not come to them in cruel fashion. Calves new born when Maami joined the herd are now responsible adults, and the herd moves with more care than of old time; for, although the lions tend to decrease, the white hunters have penetrated into the district; and even the black ivory and hide hunters organised by the big trading companies are armed with weapons of precision, and have learned to use them with a measure of accuracy hitherto unknown. In districts known to Maami as great homes of game in the years when he first joined the herd, you may travel for miles seeing nothing but a few whitening bones spread out here and there; and the general trend of wild life is towards the marshy malarial lands where hunters will not follow willingly.

The giraffe has seen strange sights in these latter days--lions, hyænas, leopards and jackals coming to the stream to drink with big deer and giraffes and zebras, and then moving off without as much as a growl because man the hunter is on the track, and before his advance one and all must retreat in terror. There are nights that Maami will remember as long as he lives, when among the beasts that come to the pools his sharp eyes have counted wounded lions, leopards and elephants. He has seen a great tawny lion permanently lame, his shoulder inflamed to an indescribable condition, an old bull elephant staining the pool red, a leopard drinking with feverish haste and then dropping dead by the side of the hard-sought water. All these things tell the tale of the destroyer with an eloquence beyond words, and account for the strange spirit of fraternity that seizes upon the beasts as they retreat pell-mell before the irresistible advance of the white man.

Maami is travelling alone now; it is his last journey. The white hunter has been too much for the herd; he has dropped one and wounded another, the rest have gone off in their odd swinging style, tails flapping, necks waving, heads erect.

Terror-stricken and badly hurt, Maami is running alone, he does not quite know where. He passes over a great expanse of plain, through a wood strip wherein he has often taken his fill of tender leaves, but, for once, no thought of food comes to him, he is conscious only of growing weakness and increasing thirst. It is the pool that he is running for, and happily it is not far off. He drinks deep of dwindling waters; the dry season has come upon the land of late--now he is running quite aimlessly through the scrub and high grasses. He thinks the herd is before him, always a little out of reach; he makes a special effort to overtake it and sinks down very slowly, his head still high.

From a neighbouring tree a white bird with red bills looks down compassionately. The heat is intense, thirst is coming back, a dark pool is forming by his side, but this is not water. High up in the air a vulture is looking at him; it descends very slowly.

Two bright eyes shine for a moment from the grass; the jackal is investigating the case. He meets Maami's eye and cannot face it, so he slinks away to a safe distance and howls to his heart's content. "Blood!" he cries; "meat for one and all!" And to far corners of the plain, to rocky holes that form a day refuge for carrion, the shrill cry penetrates. If there are any lions near by they are sleeping after a successful night's hunting, for never an answering cry follows the jackal's summons.

Maami is conscious of a strange gathering of ugly birds and foul beasts, but it does not concern him now. He is growing so cold that even the tropical sun above his head is powerless to warm him; his eyes are being veiled, the landscape is very blurred, the herd has passed from sight. His head droops slowly--he does not feel the teeth of the old hyæna that, mad with hunger, has flung herself upon him.

Footnote 2:

Though the giraffe is perhaps the only large animal that never makes a sound, travellers and hunters are agreed that these animals can communicate many thoughts to each other.

THE WHITE STORK

In the afternoon little Tsamani would go in the company of Fatima, his mother, to the flat roof of his father's house, but in the morning he was allowed to go up there by himself, with only the little slave girl Ayesha to guard him.

The happiest hours of Tsamani's young life were passed upon the flat house-top, where he could see the Tensift river winding its way among the palms, and the Atlas mountains with their peaks covered in snow, and the wonderful tower called Kutubia, that flanks the Mosque of the Library. He could see one of the markets, crowded with heavily laden camels and noisy tribesmen from the South; and at times when the Sultan was in the city he would watch him riding in state under the green umbrella that is Morocco's symbol of sovereignty. These sights pleased Tsamani, and delighted the little slave-girl, who was at once his guardian and his playmate; but Father and Mother Stork pleased him most of all.

When the warm spring weather came, and most of the storks in Marrakesh took their long flight oversea to cooler climes, Father Stork and Mother Stork remained behind. She sat in her rough nest upon three white eggs and he stood on one leg by her side, with his neck bent, and his bill resting on his breast. They both looked at Tsamani with great interest, perhaps because he was the son of a powerful governor--more likely because they were sorry for him on account of his loneliness. For, though Tsamani had a very soft white djellaba and bright yellow slippers, he was a lonely boy enough--not half so happy as many of the little beggars who ran all over the streets in the bazaars, as merry as they were hungry.

Father Stork made a great rattling noise with his bill, and his mate responded rather more quietly.

"That's a funny noise, O Father of the Red Legs," said Tsamani. "I can't make it with my mouth."

"No," said Father Stork, "I don't suppose you can. And you can't fly, and you can't catch frogs and fish, and you can't build a nest or hatch eggs--can you, little Tsamani? But don't let that worry you, for grown-up men can't do these things either, and never think how foolish they are."

"You are very clever, I know," said little Tsamani, wondering. "And my father has told me you are very good too. Where do you come from, and where have the other storks gone?"

"I must tell you," replied Father Stork rather pompously, "for it is impossible to know too much about us. We are, perhaps, the most interesting, the most highly honoured of all birds that fly. Our wisdom, our virtue have been the talk of all ages. We have been favoured by every nation, but the followers of Mohammed have always treated us more kindly than the others. You are a Mohammedan, and this house was built by your great-great-grandfather. Since he built it some of my family have always lived in this corner of the roof. We remain here when our children have joined the great procession to the North, and give up our place to one or other of the children only when we have gone on the still greater journey from which there is no return. Some day you will be a man and the friend of our family, so it is right that I should tell you all you want to know."

"Why do you sit so closely by your nest?" asked the little boy.

"Because all storks are not honest," replied the Father of the Red Legs. "These sticks that make the nest are collected with great difficulty and hard work. A dishonest stork--and there are such birds, I'm sorry to say--waits for the parent to leave his nest, and then steals his best twigs. So one has to be very careful."

The little slave-girl came across the roof-top, but she only heard Father Stork clapping his beak--she could not understand anything of the words he spoke. She was not a "True Believer," only a little girl stolen by slave-raiders from the Western Sudan, and brought across the terrible desert to the slave-market in Marrakesh, where Tsamani's father had bought her for a little pile of silver Moorish dollars, amounting in value to about twelve English pounds. It was no part of her business to interfere if her little charge stood by the storks' nest and Father Stork made that rattling noise with his bill. She was content to stroll round the roof, listening to the tinkle of the camels' bells, looking down at the people in the streets beyond, or at her master's other slaves who worked in the patio below, and passed the hours singing, shouting or quarrelling as fancy urged them.

"We have been a long time in the world," began the stork. "Even in the Bible--which is as the Koran to people in the far countries whither my relatives go--there is a reference to us. A prophet, Jeremiah by name, testified to our wisdom as he watched us in Palestine gathering for our yearly flight. 'Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth his appointed times,' he said, realising, as he did, that we followed the seasons with never a mistake or approach to hesitation. His people, the Jews, ancestors of the Hudis who live to-day in the Mellah, called us Chassidim, which means the pious ones, because they understood something of our great love for our children. Can you wonder, then, if we storks are proud? Yet storks were not always birds."

"What were you?" asked the astonished Tsamani.

"The first stork was born a Sultan," replied the bird solemnly. "He was a merry soul, but had no fear of Allah. He sat at the head of his high staircase and received his wazeers and subjects. One day, to make them ridiculous, he had the stairs greased; and when grave, pious men were about to salute him, they slipped and fell upon those behind, and all were sorely hurt and confused. Among those hurt was a very great saint whose groans were heard in heaven. Then Allah was wrath with the Sultan, who sat back on his throne convulsed with laughter, moving his head so that his long beard fell and rose from his breast. In an instant the beard became a bill--the Sultan was turned to a stork, and in place of his laughter one heard the chatter of his bill. But happily, on account of our high descent, and our great love for our children, we are set above all other birds."

"Are you as fond of your three white eggs as my mother is fond of me?" asked Tsamani in astonishment.

"Every bit," replied Father Stork; and Mother Stork repeated the words after him in a lower tone. "They are to us more than all the wealth of Marrakesh, and when, in the fulness of time, the shells open and the three little babies are given to us they will be dearer still. You must wait patiently until their day arrives, and then you will be able to see for yourself."

"O, little master," said the slave-girl, "it is time to descend. The sun is hot, and thy lady mother will await thee."

So Tsamani went down to the hareem of his father's house, where his mother passed most of her day lying on soft cushions and eating sweets and contradicting his father's other wives and favourites because she was above them all. And when he went upon the roof with her in the afternoon the voices of the storks were no more to him than they were to her--no more than the click-clack of their long heavy bills. But on the following morning the sound had a meaning for him--to his great delight.

Sometimes Father Stork would relieve Mother Stork in the performance of her duties, for, as he said: "Our love is equal, why then should the service not be divided?" And in the course of a few days there were three little storks in the nest, with down for feathers, and such awkward bodies and ugly heads on them that you and I, not knowing better, would have laughed. Tsamani was rather disappointed when he saw them for the first time, but Father Stork reassured him.

"Look at me," he said, putting his second leg firmly on the ground, and lifting the heavy bill off his breast. "I am a big, fine bird--nearer four feet long than three. See how beautifully my bright red bill contrasts with the black of my great wing-coverts and the chief quill feathers, and the pure white of the rest of my body. Look at my bright red legs and toes; think what an effective finish they give to me. Two of my children will grow to be like me, as they are males; the third will be like her mother--not quite as large and not so brightly coloured as the others. And all the big feathers will be brown before they are black."

Each bird in turn would fly from the roof to the pools in the gardens of the Moorish grandees, and would come back with food for the little ones. If the father went, the mother stayed; if the father stayed, the mother went; the nestlings were never left alone by night or day. It was hard work, for the three babies were anxious to grow and to have feathers in place of down, and to be able to fly or flutter to the ponds and feed themselves. "Sometimes," said Father Stork, "they try too soon, and tumble down into the street and are killed; at other times they must stop half-way because of exhaustion--but then every Moslem picks them up and returns them to their nest, for it would be a terrible misfortune to harm one of us. If some were hurt we should all leave the country."

"Far away to the north-west," continued Father Stork, "there is a country called Great Britain, and we used to go there every year; but when men saw us they would say that we were very rare, and would shoot us, without pausing to think that that would make us rarer still. So for fifty years we have not been to those islands, and I do not think we shall ever go there again, though one or two stray birds may alight there, blown out of their course by a gale. Though we are kind to all who treat us well, we can fight when it is necessary to do so. We aim at the head and eyes of those who ill-use us; but against men who carry guns no fighting avails, so we leave them--and now on all the myriad roofs of Great Britain no stork builds its nest."

"Are the Mohammedans the only people who are good to you, O Father of the Red Legs?" asked Tsamani.

"They are our best friends," said the Stork; "though in parts of Europe we are welcomed, particularly in Holland, where the people respect us for the love we bear our little ones. They tell the story of a great fire in one of their cities called Delft, where some storks, unable to remove their nestlings, died with them. We thought nothing of it--any storks would have done the same; but the good people of Delft were very impressed and told all the Dutch folk far and wide, and increased our welcome from that day. They even put up cart-wheels on poles for us to build our nests on in districts where the house-roofs have no flat surface that will help us. As a rule, when we go to a town where the inhabitants are of mixed race and religion, we find out where the Mohammedan quarter is, and build there. Uneducated people think it is because we prefer one faith to another; but the truth, of course, is that the Mohammedans respect us, welcome our arrival, regret our departure and never disturb our nests. They even say that we bring good luck to the dwellers in the house we choose for our building."

"To-day," said Father Stork, a week or two after the last conversation, "we are taking our young to the marshes. Ask your mother to let you walk in the Sultan's garden near the great pomegranate orchards by the Spanish gate."

So Tsamani hurried down to the hareem and the room where his mother lay upon soft cushions, with her gimbri for company; and she gave her permission readily enough, and called the old lady who had charge of the women's quarter, and bade her go to the main courtyard and summon two men slaves to accompany Tsamani and his little nurse to see that no harm befell them.