THE PEREGRINE FALCON 
a number. 6/025 would never return to 
Rafferty's granaries. 
That meal saved lolar. He kept within the 
tower for a day and a night, and when he 
came out to forage again the frost had broken 
and the snow melted. With the thaw the 
daws and pigeons came back to the tower, and 
the time of starvation was over ; but late one 
afternoon, as he preened himself on a pinnacle 
of the northern parapet, the little door which 
opened on to the leads from the belfry creaked 
on its unaccustomed hinges, and a man stepped 
on to the roof. lolar dashed up, calling shrilly. 
Hitherto he had never seen a man up there. 
In the open country or in the town below he 
would have forthwith put a mile between him- 
self and man, but was not this sanctuary ? 
The man moved across the slippery roofs, 
noting the relics of previous feasts. Among 
the vulgar jetsam of the daws, culled from the 
town's pig troughs, were bronze and blue 
feathers and whitening bones. That was no 
daw's work. The man picked up a feather 
here and there, and lastly stooped to pick up 
the last link in the evidence against lolar the 
little metal ring which had encircled the foot 
of B/D25. 
Seumas Skerritt put the ring into his pocket. 
In his imagination it clinked against a coin 
si 
