as his
wingbeats were, there was a surging movement about them, an irresistible
thrust, which made them seem slow and gave their working an air of
absolute ease. For all this ease, however, he was flying faster than the
fugitive. Slowly, yard by yard, he crept up, the distance from his
victim grew narrower. The drake's wings whistled upon the wind, a
strange shrill note, as of terror and despair. But the wings of the
pursuing destroyer were as noiseless as sleep. He seemed less a bird
than a spirit of doom, the embodiment of the implacable Arctic cold.

The astounding speed at which the two were rushing through the sky on
this race of life and death brought the gleam of the estuary water
hurrying up from the horizon to meet them. The terrible seconds passed.
The water was not half a mile ahead. The line of the drake's flight
began to slope toward earth. A few moments more, and a sudden splash in
the tide would proclaim that the fugitive was safe in a refuge where the
destroyer could not follow. But the noiseless wings were now just behind
him, just behind and above.

[Illustration: "THE NOISELESS WINGS WERE NOW JUST BEHIND HIM"]

At this moment the fugitive opened his beak for one despairing squawk,
his acknowledgment that the game of life was lost. The next instant the
hawk's white body seemed to leap forward even out of the marvellous
velocity with which it was already travelling. It leaped forward, and
changed shape, spreading, and hanging imminent for the least fraction
of a second. The head, with slightly open beak, reached down. A pair of
great black talons, edged like knives, open and clutching, reached down
and forward.

The movement did not seem swift, yet it easily caught the drake in the
midst of his flight. For an instant there was a slight confusion of
winnowing and flapping wings, a dizzy dropping through the sky. Then the
great hawk recovered his balance, steadied himself, turned, and went
winging steadily inland toward a crag which he had noted, where he might
devour his prey at ease. In his claws was gripped the body of the black
drake, its throat torn across, its long neck and webbed feet trailing
limply in the air.

In the Unknown Dark

His long, awkward legs trembling with excitement, his long ears pointing
stiffly forward, his distended nostrils sniffing and snorting, he stared
anxiously this way and that from the swirling, treacherous current to
the silent man poling the scow. The r