Then began a terrible combat. The eagles shrieked, the little ones cried shrilly, the mountaineer shouted and brandished his sword. He slashed the birds with its blade, which flashed like lightning, and only rendered them still more enraged. He struck the rock and sent forth a shower of sparks.
Suddenly he felt a jerk given to the cord that sustained him. Looking up he perceived that, in his evolutions, he had cut it with his sabre, and that half the strands were severed!
Pierre's eyes, dilated widely, remained for a moment immovable, and then closed with terror. A cold shudder passed through his veins, and he thought of letting go both the nest and the sabre.
At that moment one of the eagles pounced on his head, and tried to tear his face. The Savoyard made a last effort, and defended himself bravely. He thought of his old father, and took courage.
Upward, still upward, mounted the cord: friendly voices eagerly uttered words of encouragement and triumph; but Pierre could not reply to them. When he reached the brink of the precipice, still clasping fast the nest, his hair, which an hour before had been as black as a raven's wing, was become so completely white, that Guillaume and Jehan could scarcely recognize him.
What did that signify? the eaglets were of the rarest and most valuable species. That same afternoon they were carried to the village and sold. Old Bernard had the medicine, and every needful comfort beside, and the doctor in a few days pronounced him convalescent.
STORIES ABOUT BEASTS AND BIRDS.
The strength and courage of the lion is so great that, although he is seldom four feet in height, he is more than a match for fierce animals of three or four times his size, such as the buffalo. He will even attack a rhinoceros or an elephant, if provoked. He possesses such extraordinary muscular power, that he has been known to kill and carry off a heifer of two years old in his mouth, and, after being pursued by herdsmen on horseback for five hours, it has been found that he has scarcely ever allowed the body of the heifer to touch the ground during the whole distance. But here is an instance of strength in a man—a different sort of strength—which surpasses all we ever heard of a lion: