pass directly over the center of the lagoon; and not until he was nearly over its center did he show unmistakably that he had found a victim suited to his fancy.
Until that moment he had sailed onward rather indolently, with no appearance of haste, his long, marbled wings fully extended and apparently as rigid as the lifeless wings of a monoplane. Then, all at once, the dark, broad pinions bent slightly upward and curved sharply so that they seemed half-closed, the long, stiff-shafted tail opened like a fan, the burly body of the great bird tilted forward, the strong, yellow feet were thrust forward and downward with widely opened claws. Next moment the cloven air sang the wild, keen song of the royal eagle plunging for his prey.
The shoveller drake, swimming desperately, was now some twenty feet from the lagoon's eastern margin. There a willow-grown bank, bordered with a dense growth of tall reeds springing from the marginal water, extended between the lagoon and the river. The close-growing reeds would provide a respite and perhaps safety if the drake could reach them; but that sanctuary seemed as unattainable now as if it were twenty miles instead of twenty feet away.
The drake had made one serious mistake, a mistake which seemed certain to prove fatal. Minutes
