mystery of the mists below into a sea of pure amber. A tiny falcon--a
merlin--shot up out of the mist, hung for a moment, whilst the sun
transformed his wings to purple bronze, and fell again, vanishing
instantly. Next, a cock-grouse, somewhere below the amber sea, crowed
aloud to proclaim the day, and a raven mocked at him hoarsely.

Then, and not till then, the Chieftain awoke. The Chieftain showed as a
chocolate, golden-brown, wedge-shaped mass of feathers, perched on a
lonely pinnacle of rock, and, his appalling, razor-edged claws being
hidden under the overhanging feathers of his legs, he was scarcely
striking. Next moment he opened his eyes, and was no longer mean, for he
was a golden eagle, and the eyes of a golden eagle are terrible. In them
are written hauteur, pride, and arrogant fierceness beyond anything on
this earth; there is also contempt that has no expression in speech. He
shot out his neck, clapped his talon-like beak, and gazed out, over the
mist that hid Loch Royal, to the south shore of the loch, where lived his
son. The loch was, as it were, their frontier, the boundary-line that
divided the hunting-grounds of father and son, and it was seldom crossed
by either bird.

A little wind rose somewhere in a mountain gorge, and went shrieking
down, rending the mist asunder, as a man rends carded wool. And behind
the wind slid Chieftain, who know the value of a hidden descent. He shot
through the rent, racing down with the sun's rays to earth, and surprised
a cock-grouse at his breakfast, nipping off the tender heather-shoots
daintily one by one. So swiftly did Chieftain fall that the grouse never
knew what had killed him; he was dead--in a flash. The great eagle swept
on with the grouse in his claws, and, without stopping, beat upwards
again.

Suddenly, without any warning, a bullet came singing over the rolling
heather, and passed, with a whine, close to Chieftain's head. Later came
the blasting report of a rifle. As for Chieftain, he gave one amazed
scream of outraged and startled dignity, dropped his grouse, and went;
and when an eagle goes in that way, it is like the passing of a rocket.

A few minutes later Chieftain was whirling round high up among the crags,
calling imperiously for his wife, as a king might call. And she came,
she came, that huge, fierce bird, with a trickle of blood dripping down
her neck, and a fire in her eye that was unpleasant to behold. She, too,
had been