“That’s all very well,” he returned, “but how would you like it yourself?  Will you come and do it?”

“No, no!” they all cried.  “You have undertaken this, and must go through with it.”

Thus encouraged, he once more turned to the corpse, and again anxiously began to examine the face.  Now Martin had been watching them through the slits of his not quite closed eyes all the time, and listening to their talk.  Being hungry himself he could not help feeling for them, and not thinking that it would hurt him to be cut up in pieces and devoured, he had begun to wish that they would really begin on him.  He was both amused and annoyed at their nervousness, and at last opening wide his eyes very suddenly he cried, “Feel my heart!”

It was as if a gun had been fired among them; for a moment they were struck still with terror, and then all together turned and fled, going away with three very long hops, and then opening wide their great wings they launched themselves on the air.

For they were not little black men in black silk clothes as it had seemed, but vultures—­those great, high-soaring, black-plumaged birds which he had watched circling in the sky, looking no bigger than bees or flies at that vast distance above the earth.  And when he was watching them they were watching him, and after he had fallen asleep they continued moving round and round in the sky for hours, and seeing him lying so still on the plain they at last imagined that he was dead, and one by one they closed or half-closed their wings and dropped, gliding downwards, growing larger in appearance as they neared the ground, until the small black spots no bigger than flies were seen to be great black birds as big as turkeys.

But you see Martin was not dead after all, and so they had to go away without their dinner.

CHAPTER X

A TROOP OF WILD HORSES

It seemed so lonely to Martin when the vultures had gone up out of sight in the sky, so silent and solitary on that immense level plain, that he could not help wishing them back for the sake of company.  They were an amusing people when they were walking round him, conversing together, and trying without coming too near to discover whether he was dead or only sleeping.

All that day it was just as lonely, for though he went on as far as he could before night, he was still on that great level plain of dry yellow grass which appeared to have no end, and the blue hills looked no nearer than when he had started in the morning.  He was hungry and thirsty that evening, and very cold too when he nestled down on the ground with nothing to cover him but the little heap of dry grass he had gathered for his bed.