ture that struts around the farmyard--though _he_ is
even more beautiful than any other bird--but the wild peacock of the
Ind--of shape slender and elegant--of plumage resplendent as the most
priceless of gems--and, what was then of more consequence to our
adventurers, of flesh delicate and savoury as the choicest of game.
This last was evidently the quality of the peacock most admired by
Ossaroo. The elegant shape he had already destroyed; the resplendent
plumes he was plucking out and casting to the winds, as though they had
been common feathers; and his whole action betokened that he had no more
regard for those grand tail feathers and that gorgeous purple corselet,
than if it had been a goose, or an old turkey-cock that lay stretched
across his knee.

Without saying a word, when the others came up, there was that in
Ossaroo's look--as he glanced furtively towards the young sahibs, and
saw that both were empty-handed--that betrayed a certain degree of
pride--just enough to show that he was enjoying a triumph. To know that
he was the only one who had made a _coup_, it was not necessary for him
to look up. Had either succeeded in killing game, or even in finding
it, he must have heard the report of a gun, and none such on that
morning had awakened the echoes of the valley. Ossaroo, therefore, knew
that a brace of empty game-bags were all that were brought back.

Unlike the young sahibs, he had no particular adventure to relate. His
"stalk" had been a very quiet one--ending, as most quiet stalks do, in
the death of the animal stalked. He had heard the old peacock
screeching on the top of a tall tree; he had stolen up within bow range,
sent an arrow through his glittering gorget, and brought him tumbling to
the ground. He had then laid his vulgar hands upon the beautiful bird,
grasping it by the legs, and carrying it with draggling wings--just as
if it had been a common dunghill fowl he was taking to the market of
Calcutta.

Karl and Caspar did not choose to waste time in telling the shikaree how
near they had been to leaving him the sole and undisputed possessor of
that detached dwelling and the grounds belonging to it. Hunger prompted
them to defer the relation to a future time; and also to lend a hand in
the culinary operations already initiated by Ossaroo. By their aid,
therefore, a fire was set ablaze; and the peacock, not very cleanly
plucked, was soon roasting in the flames--Fritz having already made
s