"The deuce you do!" said I, "you must have the ears of an Indian;" and we all held our breath, and stooped and leant our ears towards the ground, in imitation of the serjeant; and to be sure we now heard distinctly enough the short quacks of the drakes, and the rustling and cackling of the feathered squadrons among the reeds. My uncle, the Macgregor, and myself, were planted at the westernmost end of the swamp; two of us armed with blunderbusses, and the Celt with his double-barrelled gun--while Messrs Twig, Flamingo, and Quacco, made a sweep towards the head of it, or eastern end. The rustling continued, as of great numbers of large birds on the opposite side; while near at hand we heard an occasional plump, and tiny splashes, such as a large frog makes when he drops into the water, and curious crawling and crackling noises, made, according to my conception, by reptiles of some kind or another, amongst the reeds. "Any alligators here?" whispered I to Mr Frenche, who was next me. "Great many," was the laconic reply. "How comfortable," thought I; "and snakes?" "Abundance." "Pleasant country," said I Benjie, again to myself. But all this time I could see nothing like the teal we were in pursuit of, although it was as clear as mud that the reeds all round us were alive with something or another. At length, as the morning lightened, and the clouds broke away, and the steamy sheet of water began to reflect them and our dark figures, and the trees and other objects on the margin, a line of ten or a dozen large birds emerged from the darkness and mist at the end where Flamingo was situated, and began slowly to sail towards us in regular line of battle. "Tere tae come at last--noo--mak reaty, Maister Prail; frient Frenche, pe prepared," and Rory himself, lying down on his chest on the wet grass, and taking deliberate aim, fired both barrels--and such a squatter!--as a flock of a thousand teal, I am certain there could not have been fewer, rose into the air with a loud rushing noise like the sound of a mighty stream--a perfect _roar_ of ducks. I fired my bellmouthed trabucco with the bushel of shot at random into the thickest of the flock, and so did mine uncle; whereupon _down_ came a feathery shower upon our _heads_, and _down_ came we both on our _tails_--the bushels of shot having told in more ways than one. This hot discharge had the effect, however, of turning the flock, and Flamingo and Twig had their own share of the spoil at the head of the swamp. The four shots had brought down four-and-thirty feathered bipeds, and two without feathers--we were as regularly smothered in ducks, as you ever saw a rabbit in onions. "I say, uncle, how do you feel?" "Rather chilly at tother end of me, Benjie; and I believe my shoulder is dislocated," quoth he, scratching his bald pate, as he sat on the ground, where Quacco's bushels of shot had deposited both of us. "And my cheek is stove in," quoth I. "My nose is bleeding like a pump," quoth he.