CHAPTER SEVEN.
THE YOUNG ENEMIES.
Eden recovered his presence of mind on the instant, and looking coolly up at Nick Garth, who had shouted at him so insolently, he replied haughtily: "What is it to you, sir?
Be off!" Then, entirely ignoring Ralph, who was looking down, breathless with rage and exertion, he carefully withdrew the egg from the nest, in spite of the pecking of the young ravens, and transferred it to the lining of his cap.
After this he took off his kerchief, and began to twist it up tightly to make an apology for a line with which to tie together the young ravens' legs.
The two men on either side of Ralph looked at him, as if wondering what he would say.
"Now, then, it's of no use to peck: out you come, my fine fellows.
Quiet, or I'll wring your necks." As Mark spoke, his right hand was in the nest, feeling about so as to get four legs together in his grasp, but this took some little time, and a great deal of fluttering and squealing accompanied the act.

But as he worked, Mark thought hard, and of something else beside ravens.

How was he to get out of this unpleasant fix, being as he was quite at his enemy's mercy?
But all the same, with assumed nonchalance, he drew out the fluttering ravens, loosened his hold of the shrub with his left hand, and trusted to his powers of retaining his balance, in spite of the birds' struggles, while in the coolest way possible he transferred the legs from his right hand to his left, and proceeded to tie them tightly.
"There you are," he said.

"I think that's safe." Then, to Ralph's astonishment, the lad began to hum over his song again about the ravens as, completely ignoring those above, he took hold of the bush again, and leaned forward to gaze down into the dizzy depths as if in search of an easy path, but really to try and make out, in his despair, what would be his chance of escape if he suddenly rose to his feet and boldly jumped outward.

Would he clear all the trees and come down into the river?
And if the last, would it be deep enough to save him from injury at the bottom?
Where he had crossed was only ankle deep, but there was a broad, still patch, close up under the cliff, for he had noticed it as he came; but whether he could reach it in a bold leap, and whether it would be deep enough to save him from harm, he could not tell; but he was afraid that if he missed it he would be broken upon the pieces of rock which had fallen from above.
That way of escape was too desperate, and the more repellent from the fact that the beech-trees below prevented him from seeing what awaited him.
He busied himself in pretending to examine the knot he had made about the birds' legs, and then, raising his sword-belt, he passed one young raven inside, leaving the other out, so that they hung from his back, not in a very comfortable position for them, but where they would not be hurt.