O! it was a sight of living
electricity; our very eyes seemed to shoot sparks from man to man, and
even the monkey himself, as we gazed at each other in trembling
suspense.
"Noo, here they coom wi' their een o' fire an' ears o' air," whispered
the Ettric poet.
"Hush," quoth I, "or they'll be off like feathers in a whirlwind, or
shadows of the lights and darks of nothingness lost in a poet's
nightmare."
"A _sumph_ ye mean," answered Jammie.
"Hush, there they are gazing in the water, and falling in love with
their own reflected beauty."
"Mark the brindled tan buck," whispered one keeper to the other. They
fired together, and both struck him plump in his eye of fire; mine
seemed to drop sparks with sympathy: he bounded up ten feet high--he
shrieked, and fell stone dead; Gods, what a shriek it was; I fancy even
now I have that shriek and its hill-echo chained to the tympanum of my
ear, like the shriek of the shipwrecked hanging over the sea--heavens!
it was a pity to slay a king I thought, as I saw him fall in his pride
and strength; but by some irresistible instinct, my own gun, pulled, I
don't know how, and went off, and wounded another in the hip, and he
plunged like mad into the river, to staunch his wounds and defend
himself against the dogs.
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