Peyrou, however, was altogether above the vulgar sorcerer by his entire disinterestedness. Had he some honest poverty to befriend, he ordered one of his wealthier clients to put a moderate offering in some secret spot which he indicated; the poor client, informed by Peyrou, went to the spot and found the mysterious alms.
Instigated by a blind zeal, the priests of the diocese of Marseilles wished to criminate the mysterious life of Peyrou, but the surrounding population immediately assumed such a menacing attitude, and the town council bore such testimony to the excellence of the watchman’s character, that he was permitted to live his solitary life in peace.
His only companion in this profound retreat was a female eagle which, two years before, had come to lay her eggs in one of the hollows of the inaccessible rocks which bordered the coast. The male bird had no doubt been killed, as the watchman never saw him.
Peyrou gave food to the young eagles; by degrees the mother grew accustomed to the sight of him, and the year after, she returned in perfect confidence to lay in the nest which Peyrou had prepared for her in a neighbouring rock.
Often the eagle perched on the branches of the tall pine which shaded the watchman’s house, and sometimes walked with a heavy and awkward step on the little platform.
Upon that day, Brilliant, for so the watchman had named the noble bird, seduced him from his reverie. She tumbled down from the topmost branch of the pine, and with half-open wings ran up to her friend with the ungraceful, waddling gait of a bird, of prey. Her plumage, black and brown on the wings, was ash-coloured and spotted with white on the body and neck; her formidable talons, covered with thick and shining scales, terminated in three claws and a sharp spur of smooth, black horn.
Brilliant looked up at the watchman, lifting high her flat, gray head, where glittered two bold round eyes, whose iris dilated in a transparent cornea, the colour of topaz.
Her beak, strong and bluish like burnished steel, disclosed, when it opened, a slender tongue of pale red.
To attract the watchman’s attention, the eagle gently bit the end of his shoe, made of fawn leather.
Peyrou stooped and caressed Brilliant, who ruffled her feathers and uttered a discordant and broken cry.