aterside.

When he related his wonderful experience at home, and heard from his
father that the sounds he had heard were only echoes from the beds
of rushes, he was not a bit wiser than before, so that the echoes
remained to him a continual wonder and source of never-failing
pleasure.

Every day he would take some noisy instrument to the lake to startle
the echoes; a whistle his father made him served for a time; after
that he marched up and down the banks, rattling a tin canister with
pebbles in it; then he got a large frying-pan from the kitchen, and
beat on it with a stick every day for about a fortnight. When he
grew tired of all these sounds, and began casting about for some new
thing to wake the echoes with, he all at once remembered his
father's gun--just what he wanted, for it was the noisiest thing in
the world. Watching his opportunity, he got secretly into the room
where it was kept loaded, and succeeded in carrying it out of the
house without being seen; then, full of joyful anticipations, he ran
as fast as the heavy gun would let him to his favourite haunt.

When he arrived at the lake three or four spoonbills--those beautiful,
tall, rose-coloured birds--were standing on the bank, quietly dozing
in the hot sunshine. They did not fly away at his approach, for the
birds were now so accustomed to Martin and his harmless noises that
they took very little notice of him. He knelt on one knee and
pointed the gun at them.

[Illustration: ]

"Now, birdies, you don't know what a fright I'm going to give
you--off you go!" he cried, and pulled the trigger.

The roar of the loud report travelled all over the wide lake,
creating a great commotion among the feathered people, and they rose
up with a general scream into the air.

All this was of no benefit to Martin, the recoil of the gun having
sent him flying over, his heels in the air; and before he recovered
himself the echoes were silent, and all the frightened birds were
settling on the water again. But there, just before him, lay one of
the spoonbills, beating its great rose-coloured wings against the
ground.

Martin ran to it, full of keen distress, but was powerless to help;
its life's blood was fast running away from the shot wounds it had
received in its side, staining the grass with crimson. Presently it
closed its beautiful ruby-coloured eyes and the quivering wings grew
still.

Then Martin sat down on the grass by its side and began to cry, Oh,
t