his hopes were much cast down when he observed that between him and
the eagle there was a space of open ground, so that he could not creep
farther forward without being seen. How was he to advance? What was he
to do? Such a chance might not occur again during the whole voyage. No
time was to be lost, so he resolved to make a rush forward and get as
near as possible before the bird should take to flight.

No sooner thought than done. He rushed down the mountain-side like a
madman. The eagle sprang up in alarm just as he reached the side of a
rounded rock. Halting suddenly, he took aim, and fired both barrels.
The eagle gave a toss of its head and a twirl of its tail, and, sailing
slowly away round a neighbouring cliff, disappeared from view.

A deep groan burst from the poor artist as he exclaimed, "Oh dear, I've
missed it!"

But Sam was wrong. He had _not_ missed it. On climbing to the other
side of the cliff he found the eagle stretched on the ground in a dying
state. Its noble-looking eye scowled for a moment on him as he came up,
then the head drooped forward and the bird died. It measured six feet
four inches from tip to tip of its expanded wings, and was as
magnificent a specimen of the golden eagle as one could wish to see.

With a triumphant step Sam carried it down to the yacht, where he found
his comrades still sound asleep; so he quietly fastened the eagle up
over Grant's bed, with the wings expanded and the hooked beak close to
the sleeper's nose!

The day that followed this event continued calm, but towards evening a
light breeze sprang up, and before midnight the _Snowflake_ cast anchor
in the harbour of Bergen.

CHAPTER THREE.

BERGEN--TALKING, SUPPING, AND SLEEPING UNDER DIFFICULTIES.

The city of Bergen is a famous and a strange old place. In ancient days
it was a stronghold of the Vikings--those notorious sea-warriors who
were little better than pirates, and who issued from among the dark
mountains of Norway in their great uncouth galleys and swept across the
seas, landing on the coasts everywhere, to the terror of surrounding
nations.

They were a bold, fearless set, the Norse Vikings of old. They voyaged
far and wide in open boats round the coasts of Europe, and across the
stormy sea, long before the mariner's compass was invented, and they
discovered Iceland and America long before Christopher Columbus was
born. They had free spirits, these fierce Norwegians of old, and th