IN CAPTIVITY
Gorgo was only three years old, and had not as yet thought about marrying and procuring a home for himself, when he was captured one day by a hunter, and sold to the Skansen Zoölogical Garden, where there were already two eagles held captive in a cage built of iron bars and steel wires. The cage stood out in the open, and was so large that a couple of trees had easily been moved into it, and quite a large cairn was piled up in there. Notwithstanding all this, the birds were unhappy. They sat motionless on the same spot nearly all day. Their pretty, dark feather dresses became rough and lustreless, and their eyes were riveted with hopeless longing on the sky without.
During the first week of Gorgo's captivity he was still awake and full of life, but later a heavy torpor came upon him. He perched himself on one spot, like the other eagles, and stared at vacancy. He no longer knew how the days passed.
One morning when Gorgo sat in his usual torpor, he heard some one call to him from below. He was so drowsy that he could barely rouse himself enough to lower his glance.
"Who is calling me?" he asked.
"Oh, Gorgo! Don't you know me? It's Thumbietot who used to fly around with the wild geese."
"Is Akka also captured?" asked Gorgo in the tone of one who is trying to collect his thoughts after a long sleep.
"No; Akka, the white goosey-gander, and the whole flock are probably safe and sound up in Lapland at this season," said the boy. "It's only I who am a prisoner here."
As the boy was speaking he noticed that Gorgo averted his glance, and began to stare into space again.
"Golden eagle!" cried the boy; "I have not forgotten that once you carried me back to the wild geese, and that you spared the white goosey-gander's life! Tell me if I can be of any help to you!"