y don't you come on?" he cried.

"I was thinking that we can never get up there."

"Not if you stand still at the bottom," said Vince, laughing; and his
cheery way acted upon Mike's spirits directly, for he began to follow.
It was strange, though, that the laugh which had raised the spirits of
one depressed those of the other; for Vince felt as if it was wrong to
laugh there in that wild solitude, and he started violently as something
rushed from beneath his feet and bounded off to their right.

"Only a rabbit," said Mike, recovering from his own start. "But I say,
Cinder, I never thought that there could be such a wild place as this in
the island. Oh! what's that?"

They were climbing slowly towards a tall ragged pinnacle of granite,
which rose up some ten or fifteen feet by itself, when all at once a
great black bird hopped into sight, looking gigantic against the sky,
gazed down in a one-sided way, and began to utter a series of hoarse
croaks, which sounded like the barkings of a dog.

"Only a raven," said Vince quickly. "Why, I say, Mike, this must be
where that pair we have seen build every year! We must find the nest,
and get a young one or two to bring up."

"Doesn't look as if he'd let us," said Mike, peering round with his eyes
for a stone that he could pick up and hurl at the bird. But, though
stone was in plenty, it was in masses that might be calculated by
hundredweights and tons.

They climbed on slowly, one helping the other over the hardest bits; the
faults and rifts between the blocks of granite, which in places were as
regular as if they had been built up, afforded them foothold; but their
way took them to the left, by the raven, which gave another bark or two,
hopped from the stony pinnacle upon which it had remained perched,
spread its wings, and, after a few flaps to right and then to left, rose
to the broken ridge above their heads, hovered for a moment, and then,
half closing its wings, dived down out of sight.

"Pretty close to the top," cried Vince breathlessly; and he paused to
wipe his streaming face before making a fresh start, bearing more and
more to the left, and finding how solitary a spot they had reached--one
so wild that it seemed as if it had never been trodden by the foot of
man.

They both paused again when not many feet from the summit of the slope,
their climb having been made so much longer by its laborious nature; and
as they stopped, the action of both was the sam