had perceived a drift of rooks when on
their evening flight to the rookery were passing along the very line
which divided the hawk from the heron. A rook is a hard temptation for
a hawk to resist. In an instant the inconstant bird had forgotten all
about the great heron above her and was circling over the rooks, flying
westward with them as she singled out the plumpest for her stoop.

"There is yet time, sire! Shall I cast off her mate?" cried the
falconer.

"Or shall I show you, sire, how a peregrine may win where a gerfalcon
fails?" said the Bishop. "Ten golden pieces to one upon my bird."

"Done with you, Bishop!" cried the King, his brow dark with vexation.
"By the rood! if you were as learned in the fathers as you are in hawks
you would win to the throne of Saint Peter! Cast off your peregrine and
make your boasting good."

Smaller than the royal gerfalcon, the Bishop's bird was none the less
a swift and beautiful creature. From her perch upon his wrist she had
watched with fierce, keen eyes the birds in the heaven, mantling herself
from time to time in her eagerness. Now when the button was undone
and the leash uncast the peregrine dashed off with a whir of her
sharp-pointed wings, whizzing round in a great ascending circle which
mounted swiftly upward, growing ever smaller as she approached that
lofty point where, a mere speck in the sky, the heron sought escape from
its enemies. Still higher and higher the two birds mounted, while the
horsemen, their faces upturned, strained their eyes in their efforts to
follow them.

"She rings! She still rings!" cried the Bishop. "She is above him! She
has gained her pitch."

"Nay, nay, she is far below," said the King.

"By my soul, my Lord Bishop is right!" cried the Prince. "I believe she
is above. See! See! She swoops!"

"She binds! She binds!" cried a dozen voices as the two dots blended
suddenly into one.

There could be no doubt that they were falling rapidly. Already they
grew larger to the eye. Presently the heron disengaged himself and
flapped heavily away, the worse for that deadly embrace, while the
peregrine, shaking her plumage, ringed once more so as to get high above
the quarry and deal it a second and more fatal blow. The Bishop smiled,
for nothing, as it seemed, could hinder his victory.

"Thy gold pieces shall be well spent, sire," said he. "What is lost to
the Church is gained by the loser."

But a most unlooked-for chance deprived the Bisho