Part 13

So the little party went out to the gardens that lie round the great green-tiled palace of the Sultan, and when they came to the marsh by the orchard of pomegranates Tsamani cried to his little companion: "O Ayesha, let us stay here and play." He had seen Father and Mother Stork with their family on the marsh. Then the two men slaves sat in the shade of the red-blossomed pomegranate trees, and little Ayesha picked wild flowers, while Tsamani went up to the stork family and saw the little ones that had only just as many feathers as enabled them to fly feebly for short distances. They splashed about in the shallow waters of the marsh, and tried to catch frogs and little fishes; but they were not skilful enough to do so; they could secure nothing better than a few worms, and would have fared ill but for Father and Mother Stork, from whom no frogs or fishes could escape. When the parent birds caught anything they washed it very carefully in the water before giving it to their young to eat, and no trouble seemed too much for them in satisfying the hunger of their little ones. Tsamani watched them while the two slaves slept under the pomegranate trees; and Ayesha, picking more flowers than she could carry, forgot that the sun's heat was growing greater.

"You must go home soon," said Father Stork at last, "or you will be hurt by the sun, and you will have to go to the hospital, just as our family has to go when it is sick or ailing."

"Is there a hospital for storks?" said Tsamani, very much astonished.

"Certainly there is," replied Father Stork. "It is in the old northern city of Fez, home of pious and learned Moors, and was founded many generations ago by a good Moslem. All sick or wounded storks are brought there and put in the charge of the pious men who conduct the hospital. The ailing ones are doctored, the hungry ones are fed, the dead are buried. It is not for nothing that we serve Moorish cities."

"Serve Moorish cities," repeated Tsamani curiously. "How do you do that?"

"We are the scavengers," said Father Stork. "In the western countries men are employed to remove the rubbish and refuse from the houses, but here and all over the East we take their places. To be sure, we cannot eat the offal, as the vultures do; but we eat a great deal that would spread sickness through any city if left lying on the ground under the hot sun. If there were no gardens and river-shallows here we could live in the city itself, and would thrive there. Very many of my family keep in the city of Fez, although there is a river and they can go out to the marshes if they felt inclined."

The summer, and the rainy season that takes the place of winter passed, bringing another spring in their train; and still Tsamani spoke to the storks when the weather permitted him to go upon the roof, and learned a great deal of their lives and ways. With the completion of their feathers and the change of colour in their wing quills from brown to black the young birds had gone afield, and were to be seen in the well-watered meadows by the tomb of Sidi Bel Abbas, the saint who wrought so nobly for the poor in his days on earth that he has become the patron of all the beggars in the white-walled city. One sat on a corner of the tomb itself, the others on the flat housetops near the gardens.

"They will go away with this summer," said Father Stork. "They will join the hundreds of others that came back from the North before the cold weather sets in. Did you not notice how full the gardens became at the beginning of the winter, and how the streets and the market places were full of birds? They do not like the cold weather of Holland and Denmark and Poland, and other countries of Europe, where they go to rear their young. At a given season of the year the desire for home takes them. In spring they seek a milder clime and leave Africa, so that the people of the countries they favour may know that the summer has come."

"The swallow and the nightingale go with them. Indeed, they go into countries that my family will not visit. Think what those countries have lost. There is France, and there is Britain, for example; no stork builds in either."

"Do you all come back and go away at the same time from all countries?" asked Tsamani. "And if you do how do you manage it, O Father of the Red Legs?"

"You ask more than I can answer," replied Father Stork. "I can only tell you that within three days of the start for the North there is not one stork in Morocco that intends to take the journey, and within a week of the time the first stork comes southward from oversea the entire migration is accomplished. It is one of Nature's secrets that she has chosen to tell to all the birds of passage but has not given to you and your fellow-creatures, and consequently nothing I can say would make the reason clear to you.

"We know when to go and when to return as well as you know when to go to sleep and when to rise. It is bird law. At times the summons comes to us to fly earlier than usual, even before all the eggs are hatched, or the young ones have learned to fly. Then we must forget our love. We must destroy the eggs that are not yet hatched; we must kill the little ones that cannot face the journey. Nothing could be more terrible to us. We would prefer to die for our little ones, but we have no choice but to obey the law. For generations uncounted we have done so, and now it is no more strange to us than the regulation of our day--the morning search for food, the long rest for digestion and contemplation that follows, the evening search for another meal, the following sleep. In a day or two now we shall commence our love-flights, and my wife will fill our nest with eggs once more."

"What are your love-flights?" said Tsamani.

"Wait a little while, and you will see," replied Father Stork.

Some two or three mornings later, when Tsamani and Ayesha climbed to the roof-top, Father Stork was no longer to be seen. It was then too late for him to be eating. He should have been standing by the nest, in accordance with custom; but there were no signs of him. Mother Stork sat looking skywards, as though in an ecstasy of happiness.

"I am not lost, Tsamani," said Father Stork's voice. It sounded far away up in the sky; but when the boy looked up into the blue his eyes could hardly pierce the dazzling light. He saw nothing for a few minutes, and then Father Stork descended slowly, apparently from the heavens. He was singing a strange new song, such as Tsamani had never heard in all his life before--the song that had lighted so much happiness in the eyes of Mother Stork.

"Listen, Ayesha!" he cried. "Do you hear the white stork's song."

"No, no," laughed stupid Ayesha, showing her beautiful white teeth. "The storks do not sing, my little lord; they chatter with their beaks, but they have no song. The doves in the gardens have more song than storks." Tsamani said no more; he was afraid to let the girl know that he could hear things she did not dream about.

"Quite right, Tsamani," said Father Stork, gliding easily and gracefully through the air to the roof's edge. "To Ayesha there is nothing to be heard but the clattering of my mandibles. To my wife it is a beautiful love-song. She thinks I brought it down from heaven, for I soared out of her sight so high that even to my keen eyes Marrakesh was no more than a dull speck on the ground. Now you shall see my lower love-flight." So saying, he sprang into the air, and, reaching a point as far from the roof as the roof was from the ground, went through a series of movements that were like those of a great yacht with all her sails set to catch a favouring wind. Tsamani never saw his wings flap, never saw him in any difficulty to turn in an exact angle at a given point; the motion was smooth, easy, graceful, and it thrilled Mother Stork with joy.

"We are great lovers," said Father Stork, when he had settled; "so well known that all the lovesick youths of Moorish cities ask us to give their messages to the well-beloved. They stand in the white street below and sing to us."

Once again Mother Stork sat on three eggs, once again Father Stork stood on one leg by the nest-side, his beak upon his breast, and helped in all love and loyalty to fetch the food when the babies came. The weeks hurried towards the summer, the birds were nearly fledged, and one morning when they were feeding in the gardens Father Stork came back hurriedly with another of his tribe. They talked vigorously upon the roof-top and then the newcomer went his way, leaving Father Stork angry and disturbed.

"What is the matter?" asked Tsamani uneasily. He felt sure that trouble was brewing, that some disaster was at hand.

"Matter enough!" said Father Stork gravely. "My companion came to give me and my wife notice that we must join in battle with the ravens on the fourth day from now."

"Why are you ill friends?" asked the boy.

"That is a secret of stork and raven life that I cannot attempt to explain," replied Father Stork. "We must fight them and prevail, or must leave this city. The battle will be a few miles from the Dukala Gate. I think we shall win and return. You will soon know."

* * * * *

All through the third day Tsamani watched and waited, seeing no grown stork on roof or in street, straining eyes and ears in vain. Even the townsfolk were alarmed, and crowded the Mosques, and prayed devoutly.[3] On the following morning he rose when the Mueddin called for the first prayer, and the guardian of the hareem allowed him to pass the door and to climb the steep steps to the roof. He saw the sun come up from the East and he heard the camels' bells as the caravan moved out to cross the desert, carrying salt, that it might return with slaves. He was listening to the earliest notes of stock-doves in the gardens, when with swift flight a stork swept over the Dukala Gate. He was one of the younger birds of that year's brood.

"We have won!" he cried. "We have won! The ravens are in full flight. The storks will return to Marrakesh; and my parents sent me to bid you good-bye."

"Are they well and safe?" cried Tsamani, sorely afraid, for he was old enough to know that he had no other friends.

"They live," replied the young stork, "but are sorely wounded, and are flying northward, slowly and carefully, to the City of the Sickle, the place of the hospital, where their wounds may be healed. I must return to them. Haply, we may all come back again."

"How the young stork chatters!" said Ayesha sleepily.

But Tsamani said no word as he went down the narrow stairs, for he felt that he was alone in the world.

Footnote 3:

This incident occurred when I was in Southern Morocco where some reliable observers told me that fights between the storks and ravens are of almost annual occurrence.

THE WILD BOAR

He trotted along happily enough through the great open spaces of the Argan Forest,[4] parts well-nigh unknown to men. All around him the giant Argan trees defied the sun. Stray goats climbed their broad branches to eat the fruit, the tiny asphodel flowered in their shade, and the stock-doves cooed.

Little Tusker knew the forest better in darkness than by morning light, for the herd rested during the heat, and the grown up ones fed at night; but they often drank by day in that secluded place, and would seek the pools by the tiny river where trout flashed and otters fished and kingfishers shone in the bright sun. It was pleasant to go down to the pool in the middle of the hot night and listen to the nightingales in the woods around. By day the numbers of the herd stood in the way of complete enjoyment, for the strong ones got to the water first and the weakest had to wait.

"Why do we all go together like this?" asked little Tusker.

"For safety," replied the mother, who had no tusks and was naturally of a timid, shrinking disposition. "There are hyænas and other wild things in the forest. We might be attacked if we went by ourselves. You will remain with the herd until you are four or five years old, and then you will do as your father has done, and will live by yourself, for your tusks will have grown until you can protect yourself against anything but the Man."

"What is the Man?" he asked.

"He is the enemy who never tires," answered his mother. "He has two legs instead of four, he has no tusks, he does not know the forest as we know it, but he carries death with him, and the boar he follows is doomed."

All this was quite unintelligible to little Tusker, and the first few years of his life brought him no reminder of the warning. He travelled with the herd, but as soon as he was able to look after himself his mother's affection came to an end, and she would push him out of her way on the feeding grounds, as readily as though he had been a stranger. The herd went many miles in search of food, and did most of their travelling and eating by night, when only the jackals and hyænas made a noise in the forest. They rooted for sweet potatoes and wild turnips, tearing up great patches of ground, and they hunted for the young maize at the proper season of the year, ravaging the lands of the farmers to get the grain.

Luckily for them the farmers, being Moors, were without guns and full of superstition. They would not sit up at night to wait for the marauders, and so the herd grew fat. Every season saw some of the full-grown boars leave to live their solitary life, and in the early winter sows would go away for some months and bring their litter back with them later on.

On his nightly rambles little Tusker often met the porcupine who also fed after dark, and was quite harmless in spite of his formidable bristles. He heard the jackals crying and was amused; he saw the shining eyes of the hyæna and was afraid. Slowly he learned all the lessons that a boar must know, and the forest yielded him some of her many secrets.

There was no real winter there. The forest enjoys almost perennial summer, but there is a rainy season when the days are cooler than at other times. Then the best lairs are under the Argan trees; when the greatest heat is on the land, the moist sandy places high up above the valley are best. Again, in the brief days of tempest the hollows and gorges are most sought for, since the wind cannot reach them.

Young Tusker learned to know how and when the weather would change. He knew if any stranger were coming down the wind ever so far away. The meaning of the cries that the herd uttered, the signs that showed if water was near, and the significance of the footmarks that crossed the forest in all directions; he learned all these things.

As he grew up, sleeping under the sun and feeding under the stars, finding food plentiful and life pleasant, Tusker gradually ceased to be little. His shaggy skin became covered with bristles, a bristly ridge covered his spine; his heavy head grew larger and heavier, and the milk-white tusks developed until the lower ones took the upward curve that made them formidable. He could fight now with his fellows, but little harm was done, for all boars learn to receive their neighbour's tusk-thrusts on their own tusks or on the shoulders, where the hard, coarse skin is not readily torn.

With consciousness of strength came the desire to travel, and when Tusker found any track that moved him to curiosity, he would leave the herd to follow it. One night, when he was rather more than three years old, he saw the mark of a boar, the track of a large hoof, and he followed it industriously, leaving the herd far behind. The big hoof-prints fascinated him, he tracked them all through the night, and through the next night, too. Then, under an Argan tree, he found the stranger in his lair.

"What are you doing here?" said Tusker rather rudely.

"I am a recluse from the mountains," said the stranger. "I have left family, friends and home, that I may live my life alone, and there is good feeding ground about here. I am three years' old, and it is time to lead the solitary life."

He spoke at length of the joys of the single state in which he lived all the year save for the brief period beginning with November, when he drove some charming young lady pig from the nearest herd to be his companion for a few weeks. He would tend her with all the care and love and affection of which a boar is capable, but leave her to rear the young and join the herd again when her litter was strong enough.

Thereafter Tusker made his home under an Argan tree, separated from the rest of the forest by a wide clearing where wild thyme and toad flax and dwarf palm grew, and creeping plants climbed over the double-thorn bushes. During the fine weather he never went out by daylight unless it was to drink, but when the rains came he would eat by day. He was so constituted that one visit to the pools would suffice him for two or even three days; but the visit was a prolonged one, accompanied by endless precautions, for since he had become solitary he had become more nervous than ever, and when he ate or drank he would make sudden pauses to make sure that nobody was about. He relied more upon hearing than sight. The slightest unaccustomed sound when he was coming to the pool would send him grunting into the thicket, but if all was well he would permit himself to enjoy a very lively time. First, he would drink deeply, and then he would wallow in the mud for two or three minutes to ease the irritation of his skin.

The forest was very quiet at night in spite of hungry jackals and stray hyænas, and Tusker made very little noise as he travelled to his feeding grounds, always working against the wind. There were a few duars, or native villages, in the forest, and one or two large farmhouses built on the sun-dried clay called tapia that glows so white under the light of the moon. Tusker avoided farm and village but he could not leave the crops alone, and for the chance of a meal of young maize he was content to go where no other food would have taken him.

His keener perceptions taught him now that there was a great, inexplicable danger in the forest--something his mother had spoken about when he first joined the herd by her side; and, though he had forgotten the details, the sense of fear was never really absent from him, and it was strengthened by one or two events that took place in his first solitary year.

One night he met the recluse from his mountains looking as he had never seen pig look before. His coarse hair was matted with perspiration, he breathed heavily, his little eyes were full of the terror that comes to the hunted beast.

"I must eat a little," said the recluse hoarsely, "my strength has almost gone," and so saying he fell to and found a number of Argan nuts which he ate eagerly, though he paused to sniff the breeze every moment and ate head to wind. Tusker was astonished and uneasy.

"What's the matter?" he said, when both had eaten.

"The Hunter of the Forest has been on my track these three days," said the boar of the mountains. "I cannot shake him off, and unless I can reach the hills where he will not follow, I must die. The hills are two day's journey and I am tired already. Twice I have broken through the pack."

"The pack? What is that?" said Tusker curiously.

"There are twenty or more of them," replied the mountain boar. "Dogs of mixed breed, some large, some small, all savage. With them come the stalkers, and in the track of the stalkers comes the hunter, and when he reaches me I must die. I have tried every trick known to me, you will learn in your time what they are, but now I am not sure if I shall get to the hills. I must seek a lair now and sleep. Perhaps this good food and a quiet rest will restore my strength." He shambled off into the darkness, leaving Tusker full of terror, so fearful indeed that he would not go back to his old home, but wandered for some hours in the darkest part of the forest.

Only in the spring-time did he become quite courageous, but with the coming of April every living thing in the forest took heart of grace; even the stock-doves were ready to fight in defence of nest and young. Tusker felt the full joy of life too in November, when he had fought with several brother boars for the sake of a sow who summed up for him all his understanding of grace and beauty. He drove her from the herd and followed her for days when her other lovers were routed, he pursuing and she retreating all through the wild places of the forest.

Even the Hunter laid down his rifle for a brief season knowing that should he find boar and sow together, the boar would send the sow to make her escape, and would stand and fight to the death to give his beloved time to get away. When the season of love and war had passed Tusker left his companion to raise her litter and shift for herself; while, all his love forgotten, he resumed his solitary life and his accustomed nervousness.

Seven long years passed in the forest, and then in the third year of his seclusion, when he was in splendid condition, and provided with tusks that made him respected by all his fellows, the Hunter of the Forest found his tracks. All the forest paths had tracks of boars, old and new, some of small animals, some of large, and every track was plain as print to the Hunter. When he first caught sight of Tusker's footmarks, he jumped off his horse.

"A great beast, Mohammed," he said to the wiry, muscular Moor who followed him; "leans to the left when he walks, and must have some defect in his right hind hoof, for it makes the faintest mark of the four, he goes so lightly on it." Then he made a few measurements and recorded them, and noted the exact position of the spot, and rode home very happy indeed, for his eyes, trained to the forest for nearly forty years, told him he was on the track of a very fine boar.

That night Tusker fed upon the green maize in the fields of a neighbouring farmer, returning before daybreak to his lair, where he slept until a slight rustle in the bushes near at hand startled him to wakefulness. A moment later, and a little lean mongrel dog showed at the entrance to his home.

"Come out and fight," said the little lean mongrel dog showing his white teeth.

"Show me something worth fighting," replied Tusker, showing his own terrible weapons, "and I'll talk to you."

"O Father of Tusks," replied the little mongrel, "wait until I summon my twenty-three brethren," and then he gave the call that summons the pack and gladdens the huntsman's heart. Tusker, hearing answering yelps near and far, knew in a moment that the dogs had been hunting for him with their heads to the wind, so that he could not scent them, and realised that he was face to face with the most serious trouble of his life. He dashed out at once, before the pack had found time to gather round him, and made off as hard as he could through the forest.

Tusker led the pack through the most difficult country. He ran at double thorn bushes and passed right through them; the little dogs of the pack followed on his heels, and the big ones kept well on either side of the cover. And while he used his legs Tusker used his brain as well. "The hunter cannot keep up with us," he said to himself, "if I turn to bay I'll hurt a few of these fellows, and while he attends to them I'll get further off."