“Hah!” ejaculated the lad, as his right arm was swung round by the violence of the raven’s stoop, and the unfortunate bird had shared its mate’s fate, for with the rush it had not only pierced itself through and through, but swept itself off the blade, wrenching the holder’s shoulder, and falling, fluttering feebly, downward, till it too passed from sight.
“Well done, brave birds!” panted the lad. “Seems too bad: but it has saved no end of lambs. Who’d have thought that they would fight like that? Why, they could have beaten me off. Lucky I brought my sword. Phew! it has made me hot,” he muttered, as he wiped the blade carefully; and after a little wriggling to find the hole in the scabbard, thrust the weapon home. “They will not come at me again; so now for our young friends.”
He began to feel the nest again, making the young birds squeal hoarsely, and peck at him viciously as well; but after the parents’ attack, this seemed trifling, and, to his great satisfaction, he found that there was an egg as well.
“Must get that down safe,” he said. “Old Master Rayburn will be so—”
He did not finish his sentence, for at that moment a hoarse voice shouted: “Hallo, below! What you doing there?” And looking up, to his horror he saw three heads against the sky, as their owners lay on the cliff and looked down at him; one of the faces being that of Ralph Darley, the others, those of two of the enemy’s men.
Chapter Six.
Nick Garth makes a Find.
“Hi! Nick! Nick, I say, hallo!” Ralph Darley ran as he shouted at a couple of his father’s men, who were descending the slope on the eastern side of the castle, each shouldering a short sharp pick, of the kind in common use for hewing stone.