A drop of blood stained
the floor. He wiped it away hastily with his sleeve, and picking
up the mouse, threw it away, without saying a word about it to
anyone.
All sorts of birds pecked at the seeds in the garden. He put some
peas in a hollow reed, and when he heard birds chirping in a tree,
he would approach cautiously, lift the tube and swell his cheeks;
then, when the little creatures dropped about him in multitudes,
he could not refrain from laughing and being delighted with his
own cleverness.
One morning, as he was returning by way of the curtain, he beheld
a fat pigeon sunning itself on the top of the wall. He paused to
gaze at it; where he stood the rampart was cracked and a piece of
stone was near at hand; he gave his arm a jerk and the well-aimed
missile struck the bird squarely, sending it straight into the
moat below.
He sprang after it, unmindful of the brambles, and ferreted around
the bushes with the litheness of a young dog.
The pigeon hung with broken wings in the branches of a privet
hedge.
The persistence of its life irritated the boy. He began to
strangle it, and its convulsions made his heart beat quicker, and
filled him with a wild, tumultuous voluptuousness, the last throb
of its heart making him feel like fainting.
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