At once the long wings of his enemy closed halfway, and she swooped after him.
Then back and up, like a sword drawn at need, went the heron's sharp beak; and the falcon saw it, and swerved and shot past her nearly-taken prey.

Again the heron began to tower up and up with a harsh croak that seemed like a cry of mockery; then the wondrous swing and sweep of the long, tireless wings of the passage hawk, and the cry of another heron far off, scared by its fellow's note; and again for us a canter over the moorland, eye and hand and knee together wary for both hawk above and good horse below, till the falcon bound to the heron, and both came to the ground, and there was an end in the grey shadow of the Dartmoor tors.

Ay, but King Alfred's hawk was a good one! "Now, where shall we seek Ethelnoth ?" I said.
"No good seeking him," said Harek.

"We had better make our way back to the village." We coupled up the greyhounds again and hooded the falcon, and rode leisurely back over our tracks for some way.

The sun set about that time into a purple bank of mist beyond the farther hills.