“See!” said the man with the sharp sight, “there they lie, all down this steep, and along yonder valley, and over that high mountain! it will take three months to traverse that valley.”
“But it is impossible to follow along there at all!” cried all the men. But Berthold said they must find their way somehow.
While they were looking about to find a path to descend by, they saw a great eagle soaring round and round, flapping her wings, and uttering plaintive cries.
“I’ll tell you what’s the matter,” said the man with the sharp hearing: “one of her eggs has fallen down this ledge, and it is too narrow for her to get it out; I can hear the heart of the eaglet beating through the shell.”
“Eagle,” said the prince, “if I take out your egg, and give it to you, will you do something for me?”
“Oh, yes, any thing!” said the eagle.
“Well, that is a hot, sunny ledge,” said the prince; “your egg won’t hurt there till we come back—I have seen in my travels some birds which hatch their eggs entirely in the hot sand. Now you take us all on your back, and fly with us along the track wherever you see the pigeons’ feathers, and wait a few minutes while we complete our business there, and then bring us back; and then I’ll take your egg out of the fissure for you.”
“That’s not much to do!” said the eagle; “jump up, all of you.”
So they all got on the eagle’s back, the prince taking care so to arrange his men that the great neck and outstretched wings of the eagle should hide them from the Devil’s sight, should he have happened to be outside his house.
It took the eagle only two or three hours to reach the journey’s end, and by this time it was night.