The very certainty that the birds above him were the gigantic cranes of the Ganges--the sacred birds of Brahma--caused him to utter a sort of frenzied shout, and at the same time, dropping his "sack of beans" into the water! He needed not to look at the colour of the birds, to note that they were brown black above, and white underneath.

The naked vulture neck with its pouch-like appendage of brick-red hue; the silken feathers of bluish white under the tail--those precious plumes well-known and worn by the ladies of many lands under the appellation of _marabout feathers_--all were recognised at a glance.
Even quicker than either of his youthful comrades had the Hindoo identified the birds.

A single glance sufficed, and simultaneously with that glance had the cry fallen from his lips, and the sack of Pythagorean beans from his grasp.
The birds were flying slowly, and to all appearance _laboriously_: as if wearied of wing.

They appeared to be in search of some roost on which to repose themselves.
That they had entered the valley with this intention was made evident a few moments after: for having made a circuit round the little lake, both at the same instant ceased to ply their long pinions, and drawing their wings suddenly in to their bodies, they settled down upon the shore.
The spot upon which they had chosen to alight was the prominence terminating a little peninsula that protruded out almost to the bed of lilies, and from which the three waders had themselves descended into the water.

As the latter now stood knee-deep among the aquatic plants, they were distant not more than twenty paces from the point of this peninsula.
The storks, after alighting, stood upon the shore in erect attitudes-- apparently as unconcerned about the presence of our three adventurers, as if the latter were only overgrown stalks of the Pythagorean bean-- utterly incapable of doing them an injury..