One of the falconers had sent up a cast of hawks, and an Arab had ridden forward in the hope of driving some ducks out of the reeds; but instead a heron rose and, flopping his great wings, went away, stately and decorative, into the western sky.  The hawks were far away down on the horizon, and there was a chance that they might miss him; but the falconer waved his lure, and presently the hawks came back; it was then only that the heron divined his danger, and instead of trying to outdistance his pursuers as the other birds had done, and at the cost of their lives, he flopped his wings more vigorously, ringing his way up the sky, knowing, whether by past experience or by instinct, that the hawks must get above him.  And the hawks went up, the birds getting above the heron.  Soon the attack would begin, and Owen remembered that the heron is armed with a beak on which a hawk might be speared, for is it not recorded that to defend himself the heron has raised his head and spitted the descending hawk, the force of the blow breaking the heron’s neck and both birds coming down dead together.

“Now will this happen?” he asked himself as he watched the birds now well above the heron.  “That one,” Owen cried, “is about to stoop.”

And down came the hawk upon the heron, but the heron swerved cleverly.  Owen followed the beautiful shape of the bird’s long neck and beak, and the trailing legs.  The second hawk stooped.  “Ah! now he is doomed,” Owen cried.  But again the heron dodged the hawk cleverly, and the peregrine fell past him, and Owen saw the tail go out, stopping the descent.

Heron and hawks went away towards the desert, Owen galloping after them, watching the aerial battle from his saddle, riding with loose rein, holding the rein lightly between finger and thumb, leaving his horse to pick his way.  Again a hawk had reached a sufficient height and stooped; again the heron dodged, and so the battle continued, the hawks stooping again and again, but always missing the heron, until at last, no doubt tired out, the heron failed to turn in time:  heron and hawk came toppling out of the sky together; but not too quickly for the second hawk, which stooped and grappled the prey in mid-air.

Owen touched his horse with the spur; and, his eyes fixed on the spot where he had seen the heron and hawks falling, he galloped, regardless of every obstacle, forgetful that a trip would cost him a broken bone, and that he was a long way from a surgeon.

But Owen’s horse picked his way very cleverly through the numerous rubble-heaps, avoiding the great stones protruding from the sand....  These seemed to be becoming more numerous; and Owen reined in his horse....  He was amid the ruins of a once considerable city, of which nothing remained but the outlying streets, some doorways, and many tombs, open every one of them, as if the dead had already been resurrected.  Before him lay the broken lid of a sarcophagus and the sarcophagus empty, a little sand from the desert replacing the ashes of the dead man.  Owen’s horse approached it, mistaking it for a drinking trough; “and it will serve for one,” he said, “in a little while after the next rainfall.  Some broken capitals, fragments of columns, a wall built of narrow bricks, a few inscriptions... all that remains of Rome, dust and forgetfulness.”