“Oh, then there were two of us. We took the risk between us. Hallo!” he broke off, “that’s a fine specimen!”
She followed his upward glance. A huge bird of prey had shot out from the cliff overhead and was circling in bold, powerful sweeps, uttering a loud, raucous scream.
“As good a specimen of a dasje-vanger as I ever saw,” went on Roden, still gazing upward. “Now, I wonder if a Snider bullet would blow it all to pieces at that distance!”
“You’ll never bring it down with a bullet?” said Mona eagerly.
“Not, eh? Perhaps not.”
The great eagle, jet black save for her yellow feet standing out against the thick dusky plumage, floated round and round in her grand gyrations, her flaming eye visible to the spectators as she turned her head from side to side. Roden, without dismounting, put up his rifle. Simultaneously with the report a cloud of black feathers flew from the noble bird, who, as though with untamable determination to disappoint her slayer, shot downward obliquely, with arrow-like velocity, and disappeared beyond the brow of the cliff overhead.
“You were right,” said Roden, slipping a fresh cartridge into his piece. “I did not bring it down, for with characteristic perversity, the ill-conditioned biped has chosen to yield up the ghost at the top of the cliff, whereas we are at the bottom.”
“Oh, can’t we go up to it? This is much better game than those poor little rhybok. But, wherever did you learn to shoot like that?”
“We can go up!” he replied, purposely or accidentally evading the last question. “That gully we passed, a little way back is climbable. But you had better wait below. It will be hard work.”
“So that’s how you propose taking care of me—to leave me all alone? Not if I know it. The place looked perfectly safe.”