“Tchah! you’d want a lot o’ pikes tied together, and then you wouldn’t do it. I’ll show you. There’s plenty of big bits o’ stone up yonder, and you can drop ’em on his head, and send him down into the water.”
“Yes,” cried Ralph breathlessly, as he climbed the steep ascent; “but I should like to catch him alive, and keep him in a cage.”
“Would you, sir? Well, that wouldn’t be amiss. Sir Morton would like to see him, and you could tease him. Down in one o’ the dungeons would be the place, till you got tired on him, and you could kill him then.”
“Yes, but to think of his being on the cliff here!”
“Ay, it do seem a game,” said the man, chuckling, and showing some ugly yellow teeth.
As they reached about half-way up, they caught sight of one of the ravens, shooting high above the top of the cliff, and instead of darting away at their approach, it only made a circle round, and then descended like an arrow.
“Tackling on him,” cried Ram Jennings.
“Ay, and there goes the other,” cried Nick. “Come on, master, or they’ll finish him off before you can get there. Real wild, they birds is, because he’s meddling with their booblins. ’Bout half-fledged, that’s what they be.”
“Make haste, then,” cried Ralph; and as they hurried on as fast as the steep ascent would allow, they saw the ravens rise and stoop, again and again. Then only one reappeared, and a few moments later, neither.
“We shall be too late,” cried Ralph excitedly. “They must have killed him, and are now tearing his eyes out.”