"I have it! I have it!" shouted Caspar, without waiting to pursue the thread of conjecture that had occurred to him. "Yes, dear Karl, I know your scheme--I know it; and by Jupiter Olympus, it"s a capital one!"
"So you have guessed it at last," rejoined Karl, rather sarcastically.
"Well, it is high time, I think! The sight of that bra.s.s ring, with its engraved letters, should have led you to it long ago. But come! let us hear what you have got to say, and judge whether you have guessed correctly."
"Oh, certainly!" a.s.sented Caspar, taking up the tone of jocular badinage in which his brother had been addressing him. "You intend making a change in the character--or rather the calling--of these lately arrived guests of ours." Caspar pointed to the storks. "That is your intention, is it not?"
"Well?"
"They are now soldiers--_officers_, as their t.i.tle imports--adjutants!"
"Well?"
"They will have no reason to thank you for your kind intentions. The appointment you are about to bestow on them can scarce be called a promotion. I don"t know how it may be with birds, but I do know that there are not many men ambitious of exchanging from the military to the civil service."
"What appointment, Caspar?"
"If I"m not mistaken, you mean to make _mail-carriers_ of them--_postmen_, if you prefer the phrase."
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Karl, in a tone expressive of gratification at the clever manner in which Caspar had declared himself. "Right, brother!
you"ve guessed my scheme to the very _letter_. That is exactly what I intend doing."
"By de wheeles ob Juggannaut coachee," cried the shikaree, who had been listening, and understood the figurative dialogue; "dat be da goodee plan. Dese stork go back Calcutt--surely dey go back. Dey carry letter to Feringhee Sahibs--Sahibs dey know we here in prison--dey come d"liva we vey dey affer get de letter--ha! ha! ha!" Then _delivering_ himself of a series of shrill e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns, the Hindoo sprang up from the stone upon which he had been sitting, and danced around the hut, as if he had suddenly taken leave of his senses!
However imperfectly spoken, the words of Ossaroo had disclosed the whole plan, as conceived by the plant-hunter himself.
It had vaguely defined itself in Karl"s mind, on first seeing the storks above him in the air; but when the l.u.s.tre of metal flashed before his eyes, and he perceived that yellow band encircling the shank of the bird, the scheme became more definite and plausible.
When at length the storks were taken captive, and Karl deciphered the inscription--by which they were identified as old acquaintances of the R.B.G.--he no longer doubted that Providence was in the plot; and that these winged messengers had been sent, as it were, from Heaven itself, to deliver him and his companions from that prison in which they had so long been pining.
CHAPTER SIXTY TWO.
CONCLUSION.
The deliverance came at length; though it was not immediate. Several months more, of that lonely and monotonous life, were our adventurers called upon to endure.
They had to wait for the return of the rainy season; when the rivers that traverse the great plains of Hindostan became brimful of flood-- bearing upon their turbid bosoms that luxuriance, not of life, but of death, which attracts the crane and the stork once more to seek subsistence upon their banks. Then the great adjutant returns from his summer tour to the north--winging his way southward over the lofty summits of Imaus. Then, too, did Karl and his comrades believe that _their adjutants_ would be guided by a like instinct, and go back to the R.B.G.--the Royal Botanic Garden of Calcutta.
Karl felt confident of their doing so, as certain almost as if he had stood on the banks of the sacred stream in the R.B.G. itself, and saw them descending from their aerial flight and alighting within the enclosure. This confidence arose from the remembrance of his having heard--while sojourning with the Curator--that such had been their habit for many years; and that the time, both of their departure and arrival, was so periodically regular, that there was not an employe of the place who could not tell it to a day!
Fortunately, Karl remembered the time, though not the exact day. He knew the week, however, in which his guests might be expected to take their departure; and this was enough for his purpose.
During their stay in the valley the birds had been cared for, as if they had been sacred to some deity, adored by those who held them in charge.
Fish and flesh had they a plenty--with Ossaroo as their provider. Food and drink, whenever they stood in need of either; freedom from annoyance, and protection from enemies of every kind--even from Fritz, who had long since ceased to be their enemy. Nothing had been wanting to their comfort; everything had been granted--everything but their liberty.
This, too, was at length restored to them.
On a fair morning--such as a bird might have chosen for its highest flight--both were set free to go whithersoever they listed.
The only obstruction to their flight was a pair of small skin sacks, one attached to the neck of each, and prudently placed beyond the reach of its mandibles. Both were furnished with this curiously-contrived bag; for Karl--as the spare leaves of his memorandum-book enabled him to do-- had determined that each should be entrusted with a letter and lest one should go astray, he had sent his _despatch in duplicate_.
For a time the birds seemed reluctant to leave those kind companions-- who had so long fed and cherished them; but the instinct that urged them to seek the sunny plains of the South at length prevailed; and, giving a _scream_ of adieu--reciprocated by the encouraging shouts of those they were leaving behind, and a prolonged baying from the throat of the boar-hound Fritz--they soared aloft into the air; and in slow, solemn flight ascended the cliff--soon to disappear behind the crest of the encircling ridge.
Ten days after, on that same cliff stood a score of men--a glad sight to Karl, Caspar, and Ossaroo. Even Fritz barked with joy as he beheld them!
Against the blue background of the sky, it could be perceived that these men carried coils of rope, pieces of wood, and other implements that might be required for scaling a cliff.
Our adventurers now knew, that, one or other, or both copies of their duplicate despatch, must have reached the destination for which they had designed it.
And the same destination was soon after reached by themselves. By the help of their rescuers, and the long rope-ladders which they let down, all three succeeded in _climbing the cliff_--Fritz making the ascent upon the shoulders of the shikaree!
All three, amidst a company of delighted deliverers--with Fritz following at their heels--once more descended the southern slope of the Himalayas; once more stood upon the banks of the sacred Ganges; once more entered within the hospitable gates of the R.B.G.--there to renew their acquaintance, not only with hospitable friends, but with those winged messengers, by whose instrumentality they had been delivered from their living tomb, and once more restored to society and the world!
THE END.