“Now is your chance, then.... Now!”
He’s right. Now is my chance, indeed.
Over the sea of rushes, straight toward us, is coming a pair, a single pair; and, yes, they are unmistakably mallards. It is feeding time, or resting time, and they are flying lazily, long necks extended, searching here and there for the promised lands. Our guns indubitably cover it; and though I freeze still and motionless, my nerves stretch tight in anticipation, until they tingle all but painfully.
On the great birds come; on and still on, until in another second––
That instant they see the decoys, and, warned simultaneously by an ancestral suspicion, they swing outward in a great circle, without apparent effort on their part, to reconnoitre. 305
Though I do not stir, I hear the pat! pat! of their wings, as they pass by at the side, just out of gunshot. Then, pat! pat! back of me, then, pat! pat! on the other side, until once again I see them, from the tail of my eye, merge into view ahead.
All is well––very well––and, suspicions wholly allayed at last, they whirl for the second oncoming; just above the rushes, now; wings spread wide and motionless; sailing nearer, nearer––
“Now!” whispers Sandford, “now!”
Out of our nest suddenly peeps my gun barrel; and, simultaneously, the wings, a second before motionless, begin to beat the air in frantic retreat.
But it is too late.