He knew, he _must_ have known, that the chances were at least even that the eagle would desert the branch above in either assault or flight.
Hervey's chance was the chance of a moment, and it lay just in this: in getting far enough out on the branch before it broke to catch the branch above before it sprang up and away from him.

Also he must trust to the slightly heavier branch above not breaking.
It would be impossible to say by what a narrow squeak he saved himself in this dare-devil maneuver.

His one chance lay in lightning agility.
Yet, first and last, it was an act of fine and desperate recklessness--the recklessness of a soul possessed and set on one dominating purpose.

This was Hervey Willetts all over.

And because he had a brain and the eagle none or little, he thus used his very enemy to help him accomplish his purpose.
In that very moment when Tom Slade heard with a shudder the appalling sound of that splitting branch, something beside the brown nest was also dangling from the branch which the baffled eagle had suddenly deserted.
Right close to the swaying nest the boy hung, his limbs encircling it, his two hands locked upon it, trusting to it, just trusting to it.