The cave rocked with their uproar. David screamed at the top of his voice and kicked the walls. The Phoenix let out a series of ear-splitting whistles and squawks and beat its wings frantically.
Echoes bounced from wall to wall. The two Gryffons came rushing into the cave, adding to the racket with their shrieking. "Now!" David shouted, and he flung the double handful of dust into the Gryffons"
faces. Instantly they were all choking and sneezing in the thick cloud. He plunged between the legs of the two Gryffons, who in the confusion began to bite and tear savagely at each other.
David and the Phoenix burst out of the cave together. The other Gryffons, aroused by the noise, were bounding toward them. David flung himself on the Phoenix"s back and shouted "Fly!" and sneezed. From somewhere behind him a set of talons s.n.a.t.c.hed out and ripped through the back of his shirt. He kicked blindly and felt his foot crunch into something which shrieked. "Fly, Phoenix!" he sobbed. The Phoenix was already in the air and needed no encouragement. They heard raucous cries and the thunder of wings behind them. David looked back over his shoulder. The Gryffons were rising from the ground in pursuit, their legs drawn up under them and their wings beating. "Faster!" he screamed.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
"You have seen nothing in the way of flying until now, my boy," the Phoenix shouted back. "Watch this!" Its wings were two blurs slicing through the air and roaring like kettledrums. The ground below streamed backwards. David looked back again. The Gryffons were falling into the distance. Their cries were getting fainter. Now they looked like a flock of starlings ... now like a cl.u.s.ter of flies ... now like gnats. And then they had faded out of sight, and David and the Phoenix were streaking over the gra.s.sland alone.
Ten minutes later they reached a sh.o.r.e and landed. They flopped on the sand, panting. And David, suddenly feeling very faint, closed his eyes and put his head between his knees. After they had got their breath, the Phoenix patted David on the shoulder and said huskily:
"I congratulate you, my boy. Your plan was magnificent--precisely what _I_ should have done, had I thought of it first. Needless to say, we shall not go on looking for the Gryffins. But now you know exactly what they are like: midway in size between the Gryffens and Gryffons, and reddish in color. Most amiable souls, willing to do anything for anyone. It is hard to believe that they are all related. But enough, my boy. Let us go home."
As soon as they reached the ledge, the Phoenix put David down and prepared to take off again.
"Where are you going, Phoenix?" David asked.
"Some business to attend to, my boy."
Muttering under its breath something that sounded like "tail feathers, indeed!" the Phoenix soared off. And David, stiff and sore and thoroughly tired, started down the mountainside for home.
5: _In Which the Scientist Arrives in Pursuit of the Phoenix, and There Are Alarums and Excursions by Night_
[Ill.u.s.tration]
The lights downstairs were all on when David got home, and as soon as he opened the front door he could tell that they had company.
He shouted, "I"m home!" and sneezed. The dust from the Gryffons" cave still clung to him, tickling his nose.
"Well, here he is at last," said Dad"s voice. "Come on in, David."
Then, as David walked into the living room, "Good heavens, Son, what"s happened to you?"
"Your _back_, David!" Mother said in a horrified voice. "Your poor back! What _happened_ to you?"
[Ill.u.s.tration]
David felt himself. The back of his shirt was ripped to tatters, and there were three lines of caked blood across his shoulders. He remembered now: it was the Gryffon that had tried to grab him as he and the Phoenix made their escape. But he had promised the Phoenix to keep its secret.
He stammered, "I--I had an accident."
"And dust all _over_ you!" Mother went on.
"Well," said David desperately, "it was a _dusty_ accident."
"It seems to have been very dusty indeed," said a third voice. There was a loud sneeze.
David"s father jumped up. "You gave me such a shock when you came in that I almost forgot, David. We have a guest." And he introduced David to a very tall, thin man with a bald head. His face and neck were burnt red by the sun, and he had on a pair of thick gla.s.ses which made his pale eyes look immense. For some reason David took an instant dislike to him, but he shook hands politely and said, "How do you do?"
"David, eh?" said the man. "Well, well. Are you a good boy, David?"
Of all the stupid questions in the world, that was the one David hated most. He clenched his teeth and looked the other way.
"David, dear," said Mother with an awkward laugh, "I think you"d better go upstairs and wash and change."
When David came into the living room again, the guest was talking excitedly. "... completely unknown to man," he was saying. "It"s the discovery of the age. My name will be famous if I succeed in my plans."
"How fascinating!" Mother said. "And to think of it happening right here!"
"And it"s huge," the guest said, "simply huge. And brilliantly colored. For a scientist like myself, it"s more than fascinating."
David was listening now. Scientist? _Scientist!_ His heart missed a beat, and he choked. Oh, no, it couldn"t be _the_ Scientist. _Or could it?_
"David here spends all his time up on the mountain," his father said.
"Maybe he"s seen it."
The guest turned his big, pale, unpleasant eyes on David. "Well, David," he said, "maybe you can help me. Now, have you seen anything unusual on the mountain?"
"Unusual?" said David unsteadily. There was a pain in his chest from the pounding of his heart.
"Yes, David," the guest went on, "unusual. So unusual that you couldn"t miss it: a very large bird with bright plumage."
The floor under David seemed to rock. It was true, then--it was horribly true. This was the Scientist who had been chasing the Phoenix. This was their enemy.
"Bird?" David dodged. "Wh-wh-why, there are lots of birds up there.
Sparrows and meadow larks and--and sparrows...."
"But nothing like a huge bird with bright feathers?"
Well, he would have to tell a lie. After all, it was for the Phoenix"s sake.
"No," said David.
"Ah," said the Scientist. But his cold eyes bored into David"s for another instant, plainly saying, "I"m not fooled, young man."
"It"s odd," he continued, "that no one has seen it. But I have no doubt it"s somewhere here. I am going to begin my search as soon as my equipment gets here."
"Tell us about it," said Mother politely.
"Well, I discovered it on the other side of the valley, you know,"
said the Scientist eagerly. "Quite by accident--I was really looking for another species. Now, birds, you know, have fixed habits. If you know those habits, you can predict just what they will do at any time.
This particular bird was a daytime creature, so I tried to watch it between dawn and dusk. But it seemed to have a mind of its own--you might almost say an intelligence. It avoided me in a very clever way, and it avoided my traps also. Uncanny! So after several weeks I decided to shoot it if I got the chance. Then suddenly it disappeared, but I"m certain it came over to this side of the valley--"
There was no escape from the subject during dinner. The Scientist could think and talk of nothing else. He described the merits of deadfalls, snares, steel traps, and birdlime. He asked which they thought would make the best bait, a rabbit, a beefsteak, a live lamb, or carrion. He told them all about the new high-powered, long-range rifle which he had ordered. And he vowed to them all that he would not rest until the bird was either caught or killed "for the advancement of human learning."