"Never mind; I may meet him some day when it is not three to one, and then he shall find that the wolf's cub can bite." Then, conscious that his every movement was watched, he cautiously rose to his feet, made an effort to ignore the presence of lookers-on, and began to climb sideways along the ledge, by the route he had come.
Still he had no intention of going up, knowing full well that he would only be giving himself up to insult, and perhaps serious injury, taken at a disadvantage, as he felt that he must be; but calmly, and in the most sure-footed way, sidled along, with the ledge getting more and more narrow, but the hand-hold better.
In this way he passed the spot where he had lowered himself down, and reached a slight angle, by which he expected, from long experience in cliff-climbing, to be able to descend to the next.
He was quite right, and it proved to be easier than he had expected; but a looker-on would have shuddered to see the way in which the lad clung to the rough stones, where the slightest slip would have sent him down headlong for at least three hundred feet before he touched anywhere, and then bounded off again, a mere mass of shapeless flesh.
Mark knew of his danger, but it did not trouble him, for his brain was too much occupied by the presence of young Darley; and as he descended he felt a slight flush of pride in doing what he was certain his young enemy dare not attempt.
In a moment or two he was standing safely--that is, so long as he held on tightly with his fingers in the crack above--upon the next ledge, a few inches wide, and his intention had been to go on in the same direction, so as to be farther from his watchers; but he was not long in finding that this was impossible, and he had to go back till he was well beneath Ralph Darley, and saw that he must go farther still before he attempted to descend to the next rest for his feet.
"It will take a long time to get down like this," he thought; "and perhaps he'll send below to meet me at the bottom.

Perhaps that is what he has already done.

But never mind; I shall have done as I liked, and not obeyed his insolent orders.

Let him see, too, that I'm quite at home on the rocks, and can do as I like.

Wonder whether I shall get Master Rayburn's egg down safely! Not if they throw a stone down upon my head .-- Now for it." He had reached another comparatively easy place for descending from the course of blocks on which he stood, when he suddenly found himself embarrassed, not by the egg, but by the young birds, which nearly upset his equilibrium by beginning all at once to struggle and flap vigorously with their half-fledged wings.
The lad's first impulse, as he clung to the ledge, was to tear the birds from his belt and throw them down; but his spirit revolted from the cruelty of the proceeding, and his vanity helped to keep the trophies of his daring where they were.
"It would look as if I was afraid," he said to himself; and lowering one foot, he felt for a safe projection, found one, and his other foot joined the first.