Making Pan keep close at their heels, they cautiously crept through the bramble thickets--Pan tried two or three times to break away, for the scent of game was strong in these thickets--and entered the wild pasture, across which they could not see. The ground undulated, and besides the large ant-hills, the scattered hawthorn bushes and the thickets round the boulders intercepted the view. If any savages appeared they intended to stoop, and so would be invisible; they could even creep on hands and knees half across the common without being seen. Pan was restless--not weary this morning--the scent he crossed was almost too much for his obedience. They reached the boulder unseen--indeed there was no one to see them-- pushed through the bushes, and stood by it. The ponderous stone was smooth, as if it had been ground with emery, and there were little circular basins or cups drilled in it. With a stick Bevis felt all round and came to a place where the stick could be pushed in two or three feet under the stone, between it and the grass. “It’s hollow here,” he said; “you try.” “So it is,” said Mark. “This is where the treasure is.” “And the serpent, and the magic lamp that has been burning ages and ages.” “If we could lift the stone up.” “There’s a spell on it; you couldn’t lift it up, not with levers or anything.” Pan sniffed at the narrow crevice between the edge of the boulder and the ground--concealed by the grass till Bevis found it--but showed no interest. There was no rabbit there. Such great boulders often have crevices beneath, whether this was a natural hollow, or whether the boulder was the capstone of a dolmen was not known. Whirr-rr! A covey of partridges flew over only just above the stone, and within a few inches of their heads which were concealed by it. They counted fourteen--the covey went straight out across the New Sea, eastwards towards the Nile. From the boulder they wandered on among the ant-hills and tall thistles, disturbing a hare, which went off at a tremendous pace, bringing his hind legs right under his body up to his shoulder in his eagerness to take kangaroo bounds. Presently they came to the thick hedge which divided the Waste from the cornfields. Gathering a few blackberries along this, they came to a gate, which alarmed them, thinking some one might see, but a careful reconnaissance showed that the reapers had finished and left that field. The top bar of the gate was pecked, little chips out of the wood, where the crows had been. “It’s very nice here,” said Mark. “You can go on without coming to the Other Side so soon.” After their life on the island, where they could never walk far without coming in sight of the water, they appreciated the liberty of the mainland. Pan had to have several kicks and bangs with the stick, he was so tempted to rush into the hedge, but they did not want him to bark, in case any one should hear.