All that day the parent eagle did not re-visit her nest. When night came again her children gave up all hope of her return, and withdrew into the inner part of their home. It proved a memorable night for us. We were so far up that we were quite sure of no attack by a four-footed beast of prey. Tigers and leopards go downwards, not that they fear the heights, but because like all animals they follow their food. Antelopes, deer, bison and wild boars graze where valleys and jungle-growth are plentiful and since they go where grass, sapling, luscious twigs, in short, their dinner, grows on river banks, those who live by eating them search for them there. That is why, with the exception of birds and a few animals such as wild cats, pythons, and snow leopards, the heights are free of beasts of prey. Even the yak, who takes the place of the cow, does not climb so high very frequently or in large numbers. One or two mountain goats one sees occasionally, but nothing larger, and so our night was free of any dramatic experience. But this was amply compensated for by the piercing cold that possessed and shook our bodies in the early dawn. Sleep was out of the question, so I sat up, and wrapping all the blankets of my bedding around me, watched and listened. The stillness was intense—like a drum whose skin had been so stretched that even breathing on it would make it groan. I felt hemmed in by the piercing soundlessness from every direction. Now and then like an explosion came the crackling of some dry autumn leaves as a soft-footed wild cat leaped on them from the branch of a tree not far away. That sound very soon sank like a stone in the ever rising tide of stillness. Slowly one by one the stars set. The rising tide of mystery that was reigning everywhere deepened, when like the shaking of lances something shivered in the eagle's eyrie. There was no doubt now that the day was breaking. Again rose the same sound from the same place. The eagles were preening their wings as a man stretches himself before fully waking from sleep. Now I could hear a rustle near by that I thought must be the two eagles coming forward on the front ledge of their nest. Soon came other noises. Storks flew by overhead, strange birds like cranes shouldered the sky. And nearby the bellow of a yak tore the stillness asunder as if he had put his horn through the skin of a drum. Far down, birds called one another. At last fell a white light on the Kanchinjinga range. Then Mokalu appeared with an immense halo of opal back of his head. The lower ranges, as high as Mont Blanc, put on their vesture of milk-white glory: shapes and colours of stone and tree leaped into sight. Orchids trembled with morning dew. Now the sun, like a lion, leaped on the shoulder of the sky, and the snow-bastioned horizons bled with scarlet fire.
Ghond and Radja, who had been awake already, stood up; then the latter, a well-trained priest, chanted the Sanskrit Vedic prayer to Savitar—the Sun:
O thou blossom of eastern silence,
Take thy ancient way untrodden of men.
Go on thy dustless path of mystery,
Reach thou the golden throne of God,
And be our advocate
Before His Silence and His compassionate speechlessness.
The prayer frightened the eagles, unaccustomed to human voices. But ere they were excited to fury our little ritual was over and we hid ourselves under the stunted pine. The eagles, left without any breakfast, looked out and scanned the sky for a sign of their parent. They gazed below where flocks of parrots and jays flew, small as humming birds. Wild geese came trailing across the snowy peaks where they had spent the night on their journey southward. Soon they too grew small as beetles and melted into space. Hour after hour passed, yet no sight of the big eagle! The full-fledged eaglets felt hungrier and hungrier, and began to fret in their nest. We heard a quarrel going on in the interior of the eyrie which grew in intensity and noise till one of them left home in disgust and began to climb the cliff. He went higher and higher. Up and up he walked without using his wings. By now it was past midday; we had luncheon, yet still there was no sight of the parent birds. We judged that the eagle left in the nest was the sister, for she looked smaller than the other eaglet. She sat facing the wind, peering into the distance, but she too grew down-hearted. Strange though it may sound, I have yet to see a Himalayan eagle which does not sit facing the wind from the time of its birth until it learns to fly, as a sailor boy might sit looking at the sea until he takes to navigating it. About two in the afternoon that eagle grew tired of waiting in the nest. She set out in quest of her brother who was now perching on the top of a cliff far above. He too was facing the wind. As his sister came up his eyes brightened. He was glad not to be alone and the sight of her saved him from the melancholy thought of flying for food. No eagle-child have I seen being taught to fly by its parents. That is why younglings will not open their wings until driven by hunger. The parent eagles know this very well and that is why when their babies grow up, and the time has come, they leave them and go away.
The little sister laboriously climbed till she reached her brother's side but alas, there was no room for two. Instead of balancing themselves on their perch, the sister's weight knocked her brother almost over. Instantly he opened his wings wide. The wind bore him up. He stretched out his talons, but too late to reach the ground. He was at least two feet up in the air already, so he flapped his wings and rose a little higher. He dipped his tail—which acted like a rudder and swung him sideways, east, south, east. He swung over us and we could hear the wind crooning in his wings. Just at that moment a solemn silence fell on everything; the noises of insects stopped; rabbits, if there were rabbits, hid in their holes. Even the leaves seemed to listen in silence to the wing-beats of this new monarch of the air as he sailed higher and higher. And he had to go away up, for only by going very far could he find what he sought. Sometimes eighteen hundred to three thousand feet below him, an eagle sees a hare hopping about on the ground. Then he folds his wings and roars down the air like lightning. The terrible sound of his coming almost hypnotizes the poor creature and holds him bound to the spot listening to his enemy's thunderous approach, and then the eagle's talons pierce him.