The osprey screams and beats his wings, sending up fountains of spray all round. Like others of his species, he is accustomed to master even the largest booty, and he still entertains the highest hopes and will not let go.
Then all at once danger is imminent! The rash captor notices that the sustaining volume of air beneath his wings is growing less. Now his wings are beating the water. He tries to get rid of his prey, but cannot get his claws out quickly enough; and the next moment he is drawn down and, to his terror, feels--what he has never quite believed--that water is not after all his true element.
Life is quickly departing from the hitherto victorious bird; the bold flyer, who has darted down hundreds of times and let the water close over his light, oiled feathers, to rise a moment later in a shower of spray and ascend proudly to dizzy heights, now sways, suffocated, ruffled and limp, upon feet whose claws seem rooted in fish-flesh.
Grim lived all that winter with the eagle on her back, and felt strangely hampered in her movements. The bird gradually decomposed, and at last was only a skeleton that sometimes appeared weirdly above the surface.
In the spring the whole rotted away, but Grim never got rid of the claws. To the day of her death they remained embedded in her back.
She now began to find more dangerous enemies. Her various predatory attacks, which had not all passed unobserved, attracted an ever-increasing amount of attention. In the surrounding districts, where she was spoken of as a serpent and a dragon, myths began to be formed; she had once more to guard against man.
They fired guns at her, and once she got a couple of stray shot in her side, but otherwise escaped with only a fright. Traps were set out, but they were fortunately much too small to allow of her getting into them.
One day she lay burrowing in the mud, so far down that not even the tiniest ripple reached the surface. There were indications nevertheless. From time to time little green-bearded, slime-covered pieces of reed came up vertically through the water, and lay flat as soon as they reached the surface. A farmer’s lad, out spearing eels, sent his fork down eagerly. He missed his mark--as the shot had done before.
One day, in the early summer, however, Grim came very near to finding her match.