"Ladies and gentlemen," the Dutchman said, and lifted his sea-captain’s hand, with its nails like lance-heads, in entreaty and monition. "Ladies and gentlemen. Very good. Very. Asceticism. Indulgences. Lust of the flesh. By all means. Most important. Most debatable. But may I—I should like to—I fear we may commit a serious error. Are we not irresponsibly neglecting—one of our highest—" He drew in a deep breath. "Ladies and gentlemen. This air—this characteristic thawing air, with its somewhat enervating breath, full of memories and promises of spring—we should not breathe it in to breathe it out in—Really.—I must implore you. We must not. It is an insult. We should give it out only in the form of praise—of complete and utter—enough, ladies and gentlemen. I interrupt myself—in honour of—" He did, indeed, stand still, bent backward, shading his brows with his hat. They followed his gaze. "May I," said he, "may I draw your attention upwards—high in the sky, to that black, circling point against the blue, intensely blue, shading into black—that is a bird of prey. It is, if I am not mistaken—look, ladies and gentlemen, look, my child. It is an eagle. Most emphatically I call your attention—look, it is no buzzard, no vulture, it is an eagle. If you were as far-sighted as my advancing age—yes, my child, advancing—my hair is white. You would see, as plainly as I do, the blunt pinions—it is a golden eagle. He circles directly overhead, he hovers, not a single beat of his wing—at a tremendous height in the blue, and with his keen, far-sighted eyes under the prominent bony structure of his brows he is peering earthwards. The eagle, ladies and gentlemen, the bird of Jove, king of his kind, the lion of the upper air. He has feathered gaiters, and a beak of iron, with a sudden hook at the end; claws of enormous strength, their talons curving inwards, the front ones overlapped by the long hinder one in an iron clutch. Look!" And he tried to put his long fingers in the posture of an eagle’s claw. "Gaffer, why are you circling and spying up there?" He turned his head upwards again. "Strike! Strike downward, with your iron beak into head and eyes, tear out the belly of the creature God gives you—splendid! Splendid! Absolutely! Bury your talons in its entrails, make your beak drip with its blood—"