As they traveled north, returning to the same spot where they had spotted the white-tailed eagle during the day, Michiko, with her sharp eyes, suddenly stopped and whispered, "Stop!”
"What's wrong?" the two siblings asked at the same time.
"Look!" Michiko reached out and pointed to the left, only to see that thirty meters away, two people with shotguns in their hands were crouching behind a rock, looking up from time to time.
"That's strange, what are they doing?" Alice was confused.
Ronnie tapped his head, "I know, they should be falconers."
"Falconers? what are falconers?"
"A falconer is someone who specializes in catching falcons."
Michiko looked scornful, "Your explanation is so redundant, it's as if you didn't say anything."
Ronnie explained further, "These people take the eagles they catch and sell them for money, I heard that a white-headed sea eagle is worth at least forty Bira coins."
"Ah ... so valuable!" Michiko's mouth opened wide in shock when she heard the price Ronnie quoted.
"Sister, let's hide behind the rocks on that slope over there and watch them quietly," Ronnie said and ran to a rock where he was hidden and easy to watch, the two women had no choice but to follow. Maybe because they were too excited or too nervous, the two women just walked behind the boulder, they were startled when they stepped on something soft under their feet and almost screamed in shock. "Shhh!" Ronnie made a silent gesture, then crouched down to inspect it.
"Is it a snake?" Michiko asked with a slight tremor in her voice.
"No, it's a tree vine."
The three of them crouched down together, not daring to make any more noise. As time passed, Ronnie began to get a little impatient, sticking his head out from time to time to check, and Michiko pulled him by the back of his shirt in a death grip, afraid that he would suddenly run out. Alice, on the other hand, picked up a stone from the ground, ready to defend herself. At that time, one of the two men lit a cigarette, sat on the ground to smoke, he had just smoked half a cigarette, suddenly heard "calling" call, the white-headed sea eagle returned to the nest, the smoking man hastily put out the cigarette. The other man raised his rifle, pointed to the sky, pulled the trigger, "bang" a shot, hit the sea eagle, it flapped its wings a few times, trying to struggle to fly up, the man added a shot, "wooing" a wail, it fell from the air. The two hurried over, took out the prepared net bag, grabbed the sea eagle and stuffed it into the mouth of the bag, tied a knot in the mouth of the bag, and headed north.
"Ronnie, shall we follow them?" Alice couldn't help but think of Ronnie as her backbone at this point.
"Go!" Ronnie stood up and was about to rush out when he realized his clothes were being tugged at, "Michiko, why are you always pulling on my clothes?"
"I'm afraid you'll run away on impulse, don't be ungrateful," Michiko said in a bad mood, but did not let go.
Ronnie had no choice but to let her pull him, and his movements became sluggish. However, they knew that the two falconers were going to the place where they had seen the red tent during the day, so they weren't in a hurry. Of course, they also had to keep a distance from them, or else they would easily expose themselves. After walking around for a while, they finally reached the straw hat rock, and the three of them hurriedly sat down. Alice carefully moved her body and looked at the bottom of the cliff, only to see one of them take out a lamp from inside the tent, and the surrounding area was instantly lit. The other man took the sea eagle out of the net bag, tied a rope around its legs, and stepped on the bottom of the rope. Then he gave it a push, and in a moment the sea eagle woke up. It flapped its wings and tried to fly away, but it was pulled by the rope and couldn't fly, it tried several times without success, it gave up running and let out a miserable yelp. "These people are so hateful!" Alice cursed in a low voice.
Ronnie tried to stick his head out a few times to see what was going on down there, but he was held back by Michiko's grip, and he angrily whispered in her ear, "Michiko, I'm going to make you look good one day."
"What can you do to me? can you beat me?" Michiko snorted coldly.
Ronnie was speechless for a moment, realizing that he might not really be able to beat the girl in front of him, she was a head taller than him. Alice also got tired of watching and shrank back. "Sister, what's going on down there?"
Alice immediately recounted what she had seen and when it came to the pitiful sound the sea eagle made. Ronnie and Michiko cursed at the same time in a low voice, "What two pieces of garbage!"
"Are we going to watch here now? or go home?" Alice asked again.
"Wait a little longer, it's best to wait until they go to bed."
"Okay then." Alice nodded. The three of them sat back and waited quietly, and soon Ronnie and Michiko had fallen asleep, and the two of them lay down with their heads in their hands, with only Alice remaining awake. After about an hour, the lights dimmed down there. "Ronnie, Michiko!" Alice gently shook them awake, "they've gone to bed, let's go back too!" she said.
Ronnie opened his eyes in confusion, stood up and rubbed his sleepy eyes, looked at Alice and said, "Sister, don't disturb my sleep. "as he said that, he started to lie down again.
"Get up, I have an idea I want to discuss with you," Alice pulled him up.
"What is it?" Ronnie sat up helplessly, by this time Michiko had also woken up.
"While they sleep down there, how about we take their speedboat? that way we can get back to the mainland," Alice said seriously to the duo.
Ronnie's eyes lit up at the words and suddenly his sleepiness disappeared as he said excitedly, "Awesome, that's a great idea! let's go, let's go to the beach right now."
As soon as Michiko heard that the siblings were leaving the island, she was a hundred times more reluctant in her heart, but she could only follow. The three of them went straight to the beach and soon saw a speedboat parked on the sand, they didn't dare to approach it directly and lay down on the grass fifty meters away from it. "You guys wait here, I'll go over and take a look first," Alice said as she crawled out of the grass like a cat and tiptoed towards the speedboat. Michiko and Ronnie stared at her with tense expressions, afraid that she might be in danger. As they watched her jump onto the speedboat, she had just put her hands on the steering wheel when a shrill alarm sounded. The three of them were startled at the same time, and Alice shouted, "Run!" she quickly got out of the speedboat and ran fast, catching up with the two of them in a matter of two seconds, and as soon as the three of them met, they immediately ran toward the center of the island. It didn't take five minutes for the two falconers to come running out from the direction of the big rock with guns in their hands. They saw that the speedboat was still there, and the two of them muttered a few words and went back. Luckily it was night and they didn't notice the footprints Ronnie's trio had left on the beach. After a long time, the three knew that the crisis was over before they dared to speak, "Ronnie, your face is so blue with fear, it's funny,” Michiko covered her mouth and laughed softly.
"Don't tell me, yours doesn't look good either, it's still my sister who stays calm in a crisis."
"Looks like the speedboat is locked, we can't open it," Alice said regretfully.
"Why don't I try?" Ronnie pointed at himself.
Michiko was worried at the sound of that and eagerly pulled him back, "Don't go!"
"Let me try, this might be our only chance to get off this island," Ronnie struggled and tried to shake off Michiko's hand. Unfortunately, she was usually stronger than him, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't break free.
"Michiko, let him try, they live at least three minutes away from the beach, that's enough time for us to escape, we should be fine," Alice advised from the side.
"Alice, aren't you afraid that they'll be hiding off to the side, waiting for us to walk into a trap," Michiko said worriedly.
Alice thought so and tried to convince Ronnie, but unexpectedly he had already broken free of Michiko's control and ran towards the beach while the two of them were talking. Michiko saw him run out and cried in a hurry, she wiped away her tears and immediately chased him out, Alice saw the two running and also hurried to follow. The weather was good that night, and in the light of the moon, Ronnie rushed to the beach and climbed into the speedboat to see how to unhook the alarm device. He looked around and found a thin wire under the steering wheel with a connector on it, he picked it up and tried to pull the wire off. As soon as he did, the alarm went off again and he cursed, "Damn it!” When she heard the alarm, Michiko didn't run back, she kept going, reaching out her hand and trying to pull Ronnie, stamping her feet nervously, "Hurry, hurry!"Ronnie was short and struggling to get off the boat. The two of them clasped hands and immediately ran back. This time was much faster than the last time, the two falconers heard the alarm and rushed over in less than two minutes, they just happened to see a back drilling into the island, one of them raised his gun and fired. The three ran even faster when they heard the shots, and when they reached a fork in the road, Alice said to the two Ronnies, "Let's split up! I'll lead the way."
Ronnie ironed his face and gasped for air, "Sister, running separately has a greater chance of getting hit by them, we'd better run together as a trio."
"Good!" Alice followed the advice and the three of them started running. At this time, Ronnie's mind played an important role, he could clearly remember all the places on the island, and based on the path to determine the direction of the two people's pursuit, he successfully avoided their pursuit time and again. The duo turned around and fired five or six shots without hitting them even once. In this way, the five people played hide-and-seek until the middle of the night. The two men got a little tired and stopped. One of them smiled lewdly and said: "Do you see? it seems that two of them are girls, it would be great if we could catch them, we'd have companies at night."
"They are too cunning and familiar with this island, it won't be easy to catch them."
"Yes, it's too dark now and I'm tired,we'll look for them tomorrow, now go back and rest!"
At that moment, Ronnie's trio was lying on their backs in the bushes opposite the front door of the house, the same place the duo had found and searched an hour ago. The duo saw that no one was in the house, smashed a few things and left. Ronnie and the three of them didn't notice that the two had gone back and were still lying in the bushes, and when it was almost dawn, Ronnie said, "Those two are bound to find us if they keep finding us during the day.”
"Then what? this island is so small, there's nowhere to hide," Alice asked with deep concern.
"Let's bury ourselves under a pile of sand and just expose our noses to breathe, they definitely won't find us unless they're close by."
"Well then, let's go right now," Alice nodded.
The three of them ran straight towards the south beach, walking and stopping, looking back from time to time, afraid of running into those two men. The journey was quite smooth, and they finally arrived at the beach safely.