Part 50 (2/2)
”For a moment he stood looking at me without answering. It was as though he was carefully formulating a reply. Then he said:
”'I _have_ remembered. I have positively refused to partic.i.p.ate in certain matters in which I have been pressed to become active. At this moment that is all that I am enabled to say.'
”'It is all I desire to know,' I said. 'Tell me, what of Mara?'
”'All is well between us,' he returned, 'so long as one mentions not the bird.'
”Later I found them together in the garden. Mara was, as usual, sewing.
While I sat and talked with her, Gavrilo started picking fresh leaves to put into the bird cage. Mara, who had been telling me how, upon the morrow, the Serbs were to leave their shutters closed all day, so that they should not see the Austrians, ceased to speak as Gavrilo began gathering the leaves, and watched him narrowly for a moment.
”'Gavrilo,' she said, 'please put no more leaves into the cage.'
”'Why not?'
”'Because it is not well for him. He has been pecking at the leaves and I think they poison him.'
”'No,' said Gavrilo.
”'Yes,' she insisted. 'He appears miserable to-day.'
”'But naturally!' returned the youth. 'That is not new. He is dying. See how he is huddled with closed eyes in the corner of the cage.' As he spoke he plucked another leaf.
”Mara's expression became ominous.
”'If he should die,' she said in a quavering voice, 'it will be because of the leaves which you have given him!'
”'Impossible,' Gavrilo replied. 'Does not a bird live among the leaves?'
”'I tell you,' she exclaimed, 'I have asked the old bird man about it.
He says some leaves are good and some are not. He is coming this evening to see the _kos_ and give it medicine in its water.'
”I was relieved when Gavrilo pressed the point no farther but dropped the fresh leaves on the ground. Feeling that a situation had been narrowly averted, I thought best to leave them together.
”That evening, as I was walking toward the hotel from the square at the center of the town, I saw him coming out of the _kafana_ with several of the youths I had come to recognize as his friends. He joined me and we walked along together. At Mara's garden gate he halted, saying: 'Let us enter and see the poor bird.'
”'No, Gavrilo,' I said warningly. 'It is not the bird we go to see, but Mara.'
”'So be it,' he replied. 'Let us then visit Mara.'
”Mara was not in the garden. Gavrilo called her name. She answered from the house, and a moment later came out to meet us.
”As she emerged I saw her glance at the bird cage. Then she gave a startled cry.
”'Look!' she wailed. 'The _kos_ is dead!'
”It was true; there lay the bird upon its back among the dry leaves at the bottom of the cage.
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