Just then the adder raised his horned head from the ground, only to be knocked flat immediately by a lightning-like stroke from one of the bird's wings. Then the secretary darted forward, and made an effort to seize the reptile in his strong, hooked beak; but quick as the bird was the snake was quicker, and frustrated the attempt by throwing back its head in readiness to strike.
Nothing daunted, the brave bird backed off, and, after a little manœuvring, knocked the reptile flat again, and this time succeeded in laying hold of it before it could recover itself.
Oscar expected to see the bird devour his prey on the spot; but instead of that he arose straight in the air until he had reached an altitude of two hundred feet or more, and then he allowed the snake to drop to the ground.
Swooping down after it with the velocity of an eagle, the bird caught up the now disabled reptile and repeated the operation again and again; and having at last satisfied himself that his enemy was dead, he walked off and left it lying on the plain.
"I wouldn't shoot him if I could," said Oscar, who had watched the struggle with the keenest interest. "These birds live almost entirely on poisonous reptiles, but this one's actions prove that he wasn't hungry. He killed that adder just because he hated him and didn't want to have him around. It's too bad to shoot a bird like that, even for scientific purposes. If that fight could be represented in the museum it would be well worth looking at; but I wouldn't skin and stuff that adder for all the money Mr. Adrian is worth. Perhaps I can mount the bird as he appeared when——"
Oscar's soliloquy was interrupted by a most startling incident. While he was following the secretary-bird he had approached within twenty yards of one of the numerous little groves that was scattered over the plain.
When he turned his horse about to watch the fight we have just described his back was toward this grove, from which there now issued, without warning of any kind, an enemy which gave him a fright that he will remember to his dying day.
The first intimation he had of the terrible danger that threatened him was a quick movement on the part of Little Gray, who sprang forward so suddenly that Oscar very narrowly escaped being unhorsed.
As it was his feet were jerked out of the stirrups, and he was thrown over on one side, so that he hung by one leg and by one arm, which he had managed to throw around the horn of his saddle.