us, no cruel boys dare climb, and no cruel shooters fire. We are
safe, quite safe, and the sweet summer has begun!"

Lampblack listened, and even in his misery was touched and soothed
by the tender liquid sounds that these little throats poured out
among the light yellow bloom of the Banksia flowers. And when one
of the brown birds came and sat on a branch by him, swaying itself
and drinking the raindrops off a leaf, he ventured to ask, as well
as he could for the iron that strangled him, why they were so
safe, and what made them so happy.

The bird looked at him in surprise.

"Do you not know?" he said. "It is YOU!"

"I!" echoed Lampblack, and could say no more, for he feared that
the bird was mocking him, a poor, silly, rusty black paint, only
spread out to rot in fair weather and foul. What good could he do
to any creature?

"You," repeated the nightingale. "Did you not see that man under
the wall? He had a gun; we should have been dead but for you. We
will come and sing to you all night long, since you like it; and
when we go to bed at dawn, I will tell my cousins, the thrushes
and merles, to take our places, so that you shall hear somebody
singing near you all the day long."

Lampblack was silent.

His heart was too full to speak.