No doubt they had made a long journey, and needed rest.

Their wings hung drooping by their sides, proclaiming weariness.

Perhaps they were dreaming--dreaming of a roost on some tall fig-tree, or the tower of an antique temple sacred to the worship of Buddha, Vishna, or Deva--dreaming of the great Ganges, and its odorous waifs--those savoury morsels of putrefying flesh, in which they delighted to dig their huge mattocks of mandibles.
Ossaroo being entrusted with the noose, did not pause to think, about what they might be dreaming; or whether they were dreaming at all.
Enough for him to perceive that they were sleeping; and, gliding forward in a bent attitude, silent as a tiger threading his native jungle, the shikaree succeeded in making approach--until he had got almost within _snaring distance_ of the unconscious adjutants.
There is many a slip between the cup and the lip.

The old saw was illustrated in the case of the shikaree while endeavouring to ensnare the storks; though it was not the snare, but the birds that now illustrated the adage.
After the attempt had been made, the snare could be still seen in its place, stiffly projecting from the point of the long bamboo rod; while the adjutants were soaring in the air, mounting still higher upward, their slender necks outstretched, their beaks cracking like castanets, and their throats emitting an angry sound like the roaring of a brace of lions.
The failure was not to be attributed to Ossaroo; but to the imprudence of one of his companions--an individual of the party close treading upon his heels.

That individual was _Fritz_! Just as Ossaroo was about casting his loop over the shoulders of a sleeping adjutant, Fritz--who had followed the party from the hut--now for the first time perceiving the birds, rushed forward and seized the tail of one of them between his teeth.