When Bashan, barking from the shore across the intervening flood, threatens their security, then it is a fine sight to see them all rise simultaneously into the air with loud cries and caws. But there is no need of their feeling themselves menaced; there is no real danger. For quite apart from his inborn aversion to water, Bashan harbours a very wise and entirely justifiable fear of the current of the river. He knows that his strength could not possibly cope with this and that it would infallibly bear him off, God knows whither or to what distances, presumably as far as the Danube, where he would arrive, however, in an extremely disfigured condition. This is a contingency of which we have already had ocular evidence in the shape of bloated cadavers of cats which were en route to those far-off parts. He will never venture into the river farther than the first submerged stones that line the bank—even though the fierce and ecstatic lust of the chase should be tugging at his limbs—even though he should wear a mien as though he were about to plunge himself into the waves—yes, the very next moment! Full confidence, however, may be placed in his caution, which remains active and vigilant beneath all this external show of passionate abandon. There is a distinct purpose behind all these mimetic onsets, these spectacular preparations for action—they are empty threats which in the last analysis are not really dictated by passion at all, but are calculated with the utmost _sangfroid_ merely to intimidate the webfooted foe. But the gulls, true to their names, are far too poorly equipped in head and heart to be capable of mocking his efforts. Bashan cannot get at them, but he can send his barks against them, send his voice thundering across the water. This voice has the effect of something material—an onset which flutters them and cows them and which they are unable to resist for long. True, they make the attempt to do so; they remain seated, but an uneasy movement goes through the writhing mass. They turn their heads, ever and anon one of them will lift its wings upon a chance, until suddenly the whole crew, like a whitish cloud, from the core of which come bitter and fatalistic caws, goes rustling and rushing up into the air—with Bashan jumping about hither and thither on the stones in order to scare and scatter them and keep them in motion. For that is the thing to do—to keep them in motion—they must not be permitted to rest; they must fly up-stream and down-stream, so that he may chase them.