How the three hearts beat! Old Bernard lay shivering in the cold fit, and each of his sons longed to risk his own life, to save that of his father.
The lot fell on Pierre, who had discovered the nest; he embraced the sick man.
"We shall not be long absent, father," he said, "and it is needful for us to go together."
"We will tell you as soon as we come back."
Guillaume took down from the wall an old sabre, which had belonged to Bernard when he served as a soldier; Jehan sought a thick cord which the mountaineers use when cutting down trees; and Pierre went toward an old wooden cross, reared near the cottage, and knelt before it for some minutes in fervent prayer.
They set out together, and soon reached the brink of the precipice. The danger consisted not only in the possibility of falling several hundred feet, but still more in the probable aggression of the birds of prey, inhabiting the wild abyss.
Pierre, who was to brave these perils, was a fine athletic young man of twenty-two. Having measured with his eye the distance he would have to descend, his brothers fastened the cord around his waist, and began to let him down. Holding the sabre in his hand, he safely reached the nook that contained the nest. In it were four eaglets of a light yellowish-brown color, and his heart beat with joy at the sight of them. He grasped the nest firmly in his left hand, and shouted joyfully to his brothers, "I have them! Draw me up!"
Already the first upward pull was given to the cord, when Pierre felt himself attacked by two enormous eagles, whose furious cries proved them to be the parents of the nestlings.
"Courage, brother! defend thyself! don't fear!"
Pierre pressed the nest to his bosom, and with his right hand made the sabre play around his head.
Then began a terrible combat. The eagles shrieked, the little ones cried shrilly, the mountaineer shouted and brandished his sword. He slashed the birds with its blade, which flashed like lightning, and only rendered them still more enraged. He struck the rock and sent forth a shower of sparks.
Suddenly he felt a jerk given to the cord that sustained him. Looking up he perceived that, in his evolutions, he had cut it with his sabre, and that half the strands were severed!