at what fell
from above must needs be their prey, and two great eagles were
wheeling high overhead, waiting. I heard the kites screaming to one
another from above the eagles, and from the woods came the call of
the buzzards. They knew more than I.

Now the ealdorman could not bring Elfrida round, and he thought it
best to take her hence. So he had her lifted to him on his horse,
and went slowly and carefully down the hill toward the village with
her. I had told him all that had happened by this time, and I was
to bring word presently to him of how the search went.

So I and those two friends who had first come sat there on the
cliff top waiting in silence for the coming of the man with his
ropes. All that could be said had been said.

Here and there on the face of the cliff some yew trees had managed
to find a holding, and their boughs were broken by the passage of
the horse at least through them. But there were no shreds of
clothing on them, as if Erpwald had reached them. That might be
because the weightier horse fell first. It seemed to me in that
moment of the fall that he was between the horse and the cliff as
he went over the edge, for the forefeet of the horse struck his
legs and threw him backward, and the last thing that I minded was
seeing his head against the horse's mane in some way. That last
glimpse will bide with me until I forget all things.

It seemed very long before our friends came back with the ropes.
Backwards and forwards in front of us flew untiringly two ravens,
now flying across the gorge, and then again almost brushing us with
their wings as they swept up the face of the cliff from below. We
thought they had a nest somewhere close at hand, for it was their
time.

"If Erpwald were dead," I said presently, "those birds would not be
so restless. It is hard to think that they know where he is and how
he fares; but at least they tell us that he is not yet prey for
them."

Backward and forward they swept, until my eyes grew dazed with
watching them, and then suddenly they both croaked their alarm
note, wheeled quickly away from the cliff's face, and fled across
the gorge and were gone.

Then was a rattle of stones, and a shout from some one in the track
below, and I started and saw a head slowly rising above the edge of
the cliff as if its owner had climbed up to us. White and streaked
with blood was the face, but it was not crushed or marred, and it
was Erpwald's.

"Lend me a hand," he