“It is the end,” he muttered, through scorched and blackened lips, as he sank, “oh, great heavens, it is the end!”
The sun beat pitilessly down on his form as it lay there in that shadeless expanse. Tiny lizards darted in and out among the scanty, dusty brush and glanced speculatively at him with their tiny bright eyes.
High in the burning blue vault of the sky a buzzard paused in its ceaseless wheelings, and, gazing down, saw that motionless form. By the magic that summons these birds of prey the sky above Jack’s still form was soon filled with them.
For a time they swung round and round; but gradually the boldest, from mere dots high in the air, became great black–winged birds with foul looking heads of bare red flesh and hideous curved beaks. First one and then another dropped to the ground a short distance from the boy’s form.
They hopped in a curious flopping fashion about him.
“Was the boy dead?” That was the question that they asked themselves as they eyed his still form with greedy, deep–set eyes.