ouldn't have gone far with that
bullet hole through it. Now, you search that way, and I'll search
this."

For a few minutes they searched hither and thither; then a cry from Mona
brought him to her side.

"This is the place," she said. "Look!"

She stood as near as she dared to the brow of the cliff, pointing
downwards. On the very verge, fluttering among the grass bents, were
several small feathers, jet black, and such as might have come out of
the breast of the great bird. Roden advanced to the brink.

"This _is_ the place!" he declared, leaning over. "And, look! there
lies our quarry, stone dead. The spiteful brute has chosen a difficult
place, if not an inaccessible one."

"Where? Let me see. Hold my hand, while I look down, for I don't half
like it."

This he did, and shudderingly she peered over. From where they stood
the cliff fell for about twenty feet obliquely, but very steep, and
grown over with tufts of grass, to a narrow ledge scarcely two feet
wide; below this--space. But upon this ledge lay the great eagle, with
outstretched wings, stone dead, its head hanging over the abyss.

"I can get at it there, fortunately," muttered Roden.

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going down to pick up the bird."

"You are not."

He stared.

"But I want it," he urged. "It is too fine a specimen to be left lying
there."

"Never mind; you can shoot another. Now, don't go, don't!"

Again he recognised the expression which came into her face, as with
startled eyes and voice which shook with the very _abandon_ of her
entreaty, she stood there before him. What then? He had seen that look
in other faces, but what had come of it!

"I am going down," he repeated.

"You cannot; you shall not. It is too horrible. You will be killed
before my eyes. Won't you give it up because _I_ ask you?"

"No."

There were men who would have given a great deal to have heard Mona
Ridsdale speak to them in that tone, who would willingly have risked
their lives, rather than have refrained from risking them, at her
request. This one, however, answered short and straight and with brutal
indifference, "No."

They looked at each other for a moment, as though both realised that
this was a strange subject for a conflict of will, then she said,

"So you will not give it up?"

"No. It is an easy undertaking, and for me a safe one."

She turned away without another word, and he began his descent.

This, howev