Tell me about the gazelles."
"How we went from oasis to oasis in quest of this man who always
eluded us, meeting him at last in Beclere's oasis. But you haven't
heard about Beclere's, the proprietor, you might say, of one oasis;
he discovered a Roman well, and added thousands of acres; but if I
began to tell about Beclere's we should be here till midnight."
"I should like to hear about the gazelles first."
"I never knew you cared so much for sport, Harding; I thought you
would be more interested in the desert itself, and in Beclere's. It
spoils a story to cut it down to a mere sporting episode. There
doesn't seem to be anything to tell now except I tell it at length:
those great birds, nearly three feet high, with long heads like
javelins, and round, clear eyes, and lank bodies, feathered thighs,
and talons that find out instinctively the vital parts, the heart and
the liver; the bird moves up seeking these. And that is what is so
terrible, the cruel instinct which makes every life conditional on
another's death. We live upon dead things, cooked or uncooked."
"But how are these birds carried?"
"That is what I asked myself all the way across the desert. The hawks
are carried on the wrist, but a bird three feet high cannot be
carried on the wrist.
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