Hell! Sheer off!" Manton exclaimed in startled surprize as a shaft of speeding light flashed at a tangent to their course, with a swish of thrashing wings so close to his face that involuntarily his head jerked back as though to escape the impact of the fleeing bird.
"Looks like it's bad scared," said Haynes as both men wheeled instantly to follow the mad flight of a small island pigeon; and in the same second perceived the cause of its reckless daring. For just behind and a trifle higher followed two scintillating streaks going at the same terrific pace. Things a good foot in length, thin, and of an intense metallic blue; things that sped with wings vibrating so rapidly that merely a blur of glinting beams flickered above them, as invisible as the wing-beat of a poised humming-bird. But these things were shaped as bird never was, and though by reason of their pace impossible to descry with any clarity, yet the impression received by each astounded watcher was identical and expressed instantly.
"Flies!" cried Haynes in blank amazement.
"Or else my eyes are on the blink!" cried Manton incredulously.
And as he uttered the words, as though to deny the implication, there came a sudden hawklike acceleration of the pursuers as they swooped on the racing splash of green, and gleaming blue obliterated it. Then the tangle burst apart and a ball of green pitched with convulsive flutterings to the ground and lay there motionless.
"A foot long! Flies!" muttered Haynes with his eyes glued on the now leisurely hovering slayers.
"Flies sure enough!" said Manton in a tone of complete bewilderment. Truly there could be little doubt of the classification, for now could be plainly noted the long bisected trunks and their metallic-lustered nakedness, a quality shared by the monstrous wings, two pairs of bluish, gleaming transparency, wings whose horny framework stood out as distinctly as that of an umbrella.
Then like stones they dropped, and though amid some taller tussocks yet their weight bore down the coarse herbage and proved no hindrance to their fastening on the little heap of green feathers.
"Eat pigeons! Flies!" said Haynes incredulously.
"I'm going to smash them anyway!" declared Manton angrily.
And filled with an unreasoning resentment at such undreamt-of freaks the two men strode rapidly to within a few paces of the intently occupied brutes. Then doubt assailed Haynes and halting he caught his partner by the arm.
"Hold on, Manton! Say, looks like these things are poisonous—the way that pigeon dropped," he exclaimed in a low, dubious voice as they came to a halt.
"Dunno; maybe they are too," admitted Manton uneasily. "And we've got not even a stick to shoo them off—might be wise to get a couple of switches from the bush, eh?" he queried with indecision.
"I reckon so—look out! they're up!" cried Haynes as the colossal insects suddenly darted upward several feet and with deep, droning, pulsating wings hovered restlessly over the spot.
That the close approach of the men had aroused resentment was instantly obvious, for after a few seconds of indecisive reconnoitering there commenced the savage circling of attack, sufficiently nerve-racking to the object of a hornet's wrath, but now a hundred times more terrorizing. Apart from their almost certain venom, the momentary glimpse afforded of their grimly efficient mandibles, an inch long and broad at the base as the jaws of a small pair of
