“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, however, was less simple than it looked, as is usually the case, or rather, so appallingly simple that a slight slip, or the loosening of a grass tussock, would send the average climber whirling into space. But Roden Musgrave was an experienced hand on mountains, and thoroughly understood the principle of distributing his weight. In a very short space of time he was standing on the ledge, and had picked up the dead bird.
“I can’t throw it up,” he cried, for the benefit of his companion, who, once he had began his descent, had not been able to resist watching its progress, and lying flat on the brink was marking every step. “It’s too heavy. I shall have to sling it around me somehow.”
“Make haste and come out of that grisly position,” was all she replied.