Gay-Neck

The city of Calcutta, which boasts of a million people, must have at least two million pigeons. Every third Hindu boy has perhaps a dozen pet carriers, tumblers, fantails, and pouters. The art of domesticating pigeons goes back thousands of years in India, and she has contributed two species of pigeons as a special product of her bird fanciers, the fantail and the pouter. Love and care have been showered on pigeons for centuries by emperors, princes and queens in their marble palaces, as well as by the poor, in their humble homes. The gardens, grottos and fountains of the Indian rich—the small field of flowers and fruits of the common folks, each has its ornament and music,—many-colored pigeons and cooing white doves with ruby eyes.

Even now any winter morning foreigners who visit our big cities may see on the flat-roofed houses innumerable boys waving white flags as signals to their pet pigeons flying up in the crisp cold air. Through the blue heavens flocks of the birds soar like vast clouds. They start in small flocks and spend about twenty minutes circling over the roofs of their owners' homes. Then they slowly ascend and all the separate groups from different houses of the town merge into one big flock and float far out of sight. How they ever return to their own homes is a wonder, for all the house-tops look alike in shape in spite of their rose, yellow, violet and white colors.

There was no more of that panicky beating of wings in order to balance himself as his feet touched the roof.

His parents, who had accompanied Gay-Neck in his preliminary flights, now began to leave him behind, and to fly much higher above him. For a while I thought that they were trying to make him fly still higher; for the son always made an effort to reach the level of his parents. Perhaps his elders were setting the little fellow a superb example. But at last one day early in June, that explanation of mine was shaken by the following fateful incident. Gay-Neck was flying high: he looked half his usual size. Above him flew his parents almost as small as a man's fist. They were circling above him with the regularity of a merry-go-round. It looked monotonous and meaningless. I removed my gaze from them; after all it is not comfortable to look upward steadily for long. As I lowered my eyes toward the horizon they were held by a black spot moving swiftly and growing larger every second. I wondered what sort of a bird he was coming at such a speed in a straight line, for in India birds are named in the Sanskrit, Turyak, or "curve-tracers."

Suddenly Ghond told us to run a dozen yards and hide in a bush. Hardly had we done so when the noises about us began to subside. In another sixty seconds the insects stopped their buzzing, the birds ceased to call, and even the trees seemed to grow still with expectation. In the air slowly rose the thin whistle of something. In a few moments it fell into a lower key. Hard upon it came a weird noise almost sounding like a shriek and a giant bird flew down to the eagle's eyrie. The wind was still whistling in its wings. By its size Ghond thought it was the mother of the two babies. She remained still in the air till the eaglets withdrew into the inner recesses of their home. From her talons hung something well skinned, like a large rabbit. She landed, dropping her prey on the ledge. One could see that her wings from tip to tip measured half a dozen feet. She folded them as a man folds a paper, then seeing that her children were coming toward her, she drew in her talons lest they pierce their un-armoured tender flesh. Now she hobbled like a cripple. The two little fellows ran and disappeared under her half open wings, but they did not want to be brooded, for they were hungry. So she led them outward to the dead rabbit, tore away some of its flesh, excluded any bone that clung to it, and gave it to them to swallow. Again from below and all about the insects and birds resumed their noises. We rose from our hiding and started homeward after Radja and I had extracted a promise from Ghond that he would bring us back later to see the full-fledged eaglets.

At last we found a tree to our liking. Radja stood on Ghond's shoulder and I on Radja's, until we reached branches as thick as a man's torso. I climbed and sat on one of them and from it let down our rope ladder which we always carried in the jungle for emergencies such as the present one. Radja climbed up and sat near me, then Ghond ascended the branch and sat between us. Now we saw that below us where Ghond had stood it had not only grown dark as the heart of a coal mine but there glowed two green lights set very close to one another. We knew too well whose they were. Ghond exclaimed jovially: "Had I been delayed down there two extra minutes the striped fellow would have killed me."

Seeing that his prey had escaped him, the tiger gave a thunderous yell, scourging the air like a curse. At once a tense silence fell and smothered all the noises of insects and little beasts and it descended further and deeper until it sank into the earth and seemed to grip the very roots of the trees.

Led by such good accounts we reached the highest table-land of Sikkim and were forced to bivouac there the third night. Our ponies were sleepy, and so were we, but after what seemed like an hour's sleep, I was roused by a tenseness that had fallen upon everything. I found the two beasts of burden standing stiff; in the light of the fire and that of the risen half moon I saw that their ears were raised tensely in the act of listening carefully. Even their tails did not move. I too listened intently. There was no doubt that the silence of the night was more than mere stillness; stillness is empty, but the silence that beset us was full of meaning, as if a God, shod with moonlight, was walking so close that if I were to put out my hand I could touch his garment.

Just then the horses moved their ears as if to catch the echo of a sound that had moved imperceptibly through the silence. The great deity had gone already; now a queer sensation of easing the tense atmosphere set in. One could feel even the faintest shiver of the grass, but that too was momentary; the ponies now listened for a new sound from the north. They were straining every nerve in the effort. At last even I could hear it. Something like a child yawning in his sleep became audible. Stillness again followed. Then a sighing sound long drawn out, ran through the air; which sank lower and lower like a thick green leaf slowly sinking through calm water.