"Caw-w-w! I did; and for three grains of corn I'd pull your tail, too."
"I wasn't speaking to you," retorted Titiri the Lapwing; "I was dreaming of my old home in India—dreaming that the hunters had come into the rice fields to shoot the poor Paddy Birds and Bakula (Egret) for their feathers."
"Murderers, you should call them, not Hunters," exclaimed Hathi. "It makes me sniff in my nose now when I think of the Birds I've seen murdered, just for their feathers."
"It's an outrageous shame," declared Sa'-zada.
"I did all I could," asserted Lapwing. "When I saw the Gun-men coming, sneaking along, crouched like Pardus——"
"Sneaking like Pardus—go on, Good Bird!" chimed in Magh.
"I flew just ahead of them, and cried 'Tee-he-he! Here come the Murderers!' so that every bird in all the jhils about could hear me. And when Bakula, and Kowar the Ibis, and all the others had flown to safety, I shouted, 'Did-you-do-it, did-you-do-it!' Then the Men used language much like the disgraceful talk we have had from Cocky and Myna to-night."
"You carried a heavy responsibility," remarked Sa'-zada.
"All lies," sneered Kauwa. "Fat Bones! why, he can't even sit on the limb of a tree."