It was a noise well calculated to inspire terror in those who had never before heard it, or did not know what was causing it.

It was a sort of fluttering, clattering sound, or rather a series of sounds, resembling the quickly repeated gusts of a violent storm.
The moment Ossaroo heard it, he knew what it was; and instead of giving a direct answer to Caspar's question, he simply said-- "Wait a bit, sahib.

Here come old cockee horneebill; he show you how de hen getee her food." The words had scarcely passed from the lips of the shikaree, when the cause of that singular noise became known to his companions.

The maker of it appeared before them in the form of a great bird, that with a strong flapping of its wings flew past the tree in which they were seated, towards that which contained the nest.
In an instant afterwards, it was seen resting on a spur-like projection of the trunk, just below the aperture; and it needed not Ossaroo to tell them that it was the cock hornbill that had there alighted.

The large beak--the tip of it resembling that which they had already seen sticking out of the hole, and which was once more visible and in motion-- surmounted by an immense helmet-like protuberance, rising upon the crown, and running several inches along the top of the upper mandible, which might have been taken for a second beak--this singular appendage could belong to no other bird than the _hornbill_..