FROM THE BLACK NOTEBOOK
213
full of screams, groans, grunts and gasps. But as it is, there reigns
over the sunbathed veld the silence of peace."
A cleaving of wings. A bird alighted.
"No don't," said Maryrose in pain, opening her eyes and raising
herself on her elbow. But it was too late. Paul had shot; the bird fell.
Before it had even hit the ground another bird had touched down,
swinging lightly on a twig at the very end of a branch. Paul shot; the
bird fell, this time with a cry and a fluttering of helpless wings. Paul
got up, raced across the grass, picked up the dead bird and the
wounded one. We saw him give the wounded struggling bird a quick
determined tight-mouthed look, and wring its neck.
He came back, flung down the two corpses and said: "Nine. And
that's all." He looked white and sick, and yet in spite of it, managed
to give Jimmy a triumphant amused smile.
"Let's go," said Willi, shutting his book.
"Wait," said Jimmy. The sand was now unmoving. He dug into
it with a fine stem and dragged out, first the body of the tiny beetle,
and then the body of the ant-eater. Now we saw the jaws of the ant–
eater were embedded in the body of the beetle. The corpse of the
ant-eater was headless.
"The moral is," said Paul, "that none but natural enemies
should engage."
"But who should decide which are natural enemies and which
are not?" said Jimmy.
"Not you," said Paul. "Look how you've upset the balance of
nature. There is one ant-eater the less. And probably hundreds of ants
that should have filled its maw will now live. And there is a dead
beetle, slaughtered to no purpose."
Jimmy stepped carefully over the shining round-pitted river of
sand, so as not to disturb the remaining insects lying in wait at the
bottom of their sand-traps. He dragged on his shirt over his sweaty
reddened flesh. Maryrose got up in the way she had--obedient,
patient, long-suffering, as if she had no will of her own. We all stood
on the edge of the patch of shade, reluctant to plunge into the now
white-hot midday, made dizzy and giddy by the few remaining
butterflies who reeled drunk in the heat. And as we stood there, the
clump of trees we had lain under sang into life. The cicadas which
inhabited this grove, patiently silent these two hours waiting for
