these powerful and refractory ornithological specimens, whose loud,
discordant screams caused me several times to glance involuntarily over
my shoulder at the strip of horizon visible, to assure myself that the
old eagles were not swooping down to the rescue. I was in the more haste
to leave the eyrie that the stench which emanated from the remains of
numerous victims strewn in and about it was something terrific. These
relics, which I had the curiosity to count, consisted of a half-devoured
carcass of a chamois, three pairs of chamois' horns and the
corresponding bones of the animals, the skeleton of a goat picked clean,
the remains of an Alpine hare, and the head and neck of a fawn.

[Illustration: ENTERING THE EYRIE.]

The canvas bag being too small to contain both the eaglets, I was
obliged to hang one of them to my belt, after tying my handkerchief
round his beak. The game secured, I crept cautiously down the slab to
the plank, and fixing the hook of my pole in the indentation of which I
had made use in drawing myself in, I gave the preconcerted two jerks
with the signal-line. Now occurred the first of a series of accidents
which came near resulting fatally to the whole party. Contrary to my
strict injunctions, the men hauling the rope gave a sudden and violent
pull, wrenching the pole from my grasp, and communicating to the plank a
motion like that of a pendulum, which sent me flying out into space,
with the immediate prospect of being dashed by the retrograde swing
against the solid wall of rock. Happily, I preserved my presence of
mind, and grasped instantly the only chance of escape. Tilting myself
back as far as the rope and the ring on my belt allowed, and stretching
out my legs horizontally, I awaited the contact. Half a second later
came a heavy blow on the soles of my feet, the pain of which ran through
my whole frame like the shock of a galvanic battery. Had it been my