So cast away on the tree, he here expected to live and to die.
Toward sunset great wings like clouds darkened the shining air. The birds were coming home to-night in the tree. Their nests were there as big as houses.
They settled down, causing a great wind, and put their great heads under their wings and went to sleep.
The boy was bright, and a plan of getting away from the tree came to him. He reasoned that if he could not fly the bird could, and what would be the weight of a little boy to a bird who could carry away an elephant?
So he marked the largest and most powerful bird with his eye, and crept up to it and got under his wing, and into his great feathers.
The bird was asleep and did not wake!
Morning came, and with the first red dawn, as we may fancy, the bird threw up his head and begun to stir. He lifted himself up and shook himself, but he did not shake off the boy, who was safely nestled among the little forest of its feathers.
The sun was brightening the islands, and the bird mounted up and flew away in search of food, carrying the little boy under his wing.
After traversing the sunrise air for a long time, the bird flew over a land of buffaloes.
He here descended to capture a buffalo, to bear him away to the mountainous tree for food. As he alighted on the back of the buffalo with a wild scream of delight, the little boy dropped out from under his wing, and so found his way to his own island.