"Well, but if you cannot see them, Henry, you can hear them," said Charles, "at least the heron. Listen! listen! he asks quarter!"
Two or three plaintive cries were heard which a practised ear alone could detect.
"Listen!" cried Charles, "and you will see them come down more quickly than they went up."
As the King spoke, the two birds reappeared. They were still only two black dots, but from the size of the dots the falcon seemed to be uppermost.
"See! see!" cried Charles, "Iron Beak has him!"
The heron, outwitted by the bird of prey, no longer strove to defend itself. It descended rapidly, constantly struck at by the falcon, and answered only by its cries. Suddenly it folded its wings and dropped like a stone; but its adversary did the same, and when the fugitive again strove to resume its flight a last blow of the beak finished it; it continued to fall, turning over and over, and as it touched the earth the falcon swooped down and uttered a cry of victory which drowned the cry of defeat of the vanquished.
"To the falcon! the falcon!" shouted Charles, spurring his horse to the place where the birds had fallen. But suddenly he reined in his steed, uttered a cry, dropped his bridle, and grasping his horse's mane with one hand pressed the other to his stomach as though he would tear out his very vitals.
All the courtiers hastened to him.
"It is nothing, nothing," said Charles, with inflamed face and haggard eye; "it seemed as if a red-hot iron were passing through me just now; but forward! it is nothing."
And Charles galloped on.