“It’s a red squirrel,” whispered Mark. “That’s a different sort.” In summer the squirrels are thought to have redder fur than in winter. Mark stopped now, and Bevis went on by himself; but the squirrel saw Pan, who had run along and came out beyond him. Bevis shot as the squirrel rushed up a tree, and his arrow struck the bark, quivered a moment, and stuck there. “The savages will see some one has been hunting,” said Mark. “They are sure to see that arrow.” In a few minutes they came to some hazel bushes, and pushing through these there was a lane under them in a hollow ten feet deep. They scrambled down and followed it, and came to a boulder-stone, on which some specks sparkled in the sunshine, so that they had no doubt it was silver ore. Round a curve of the lane they emerged on the brow of a green hill, very steep; they had left the wood behind them. The trees from here hid the New Sea, and in front, not far off, rose the Downs. “What are those mountains?” asked Mark. “The Himalayas, of course,” said Bevis. “Let’s go to them.” They went along the brow, it was delicious walking there, for the sun was now much lower, and the breeze cool, and beneath them were meadows, and a brook winding through. But suddenly they came to a deep coombe--a nullah. “Look!” said Mark, pointing to a chimney just under them. The square top, blackened by soot, stood in the midst of apple-trees, on whose boughs the young green apples showed. The thatch of the cottage was concealed by the trees. “A hut!” said Bevis. “Savages!” said Mark, “I know, I’ll pitch a stone down the chimney, and you get your bow ready, and shoot them as they rush out.” “Capital!” said Bevis. Mark picked up a flint, and “chucked” it--it fell very near the chimney, they heard it strike the thatch and roll down. Mark got another, and most likely, having found the range, would have dropped it into the chimney this time, when Bevis stopped him. “It may be a witch,” he said. “Don’t you know what John told us? if you pitch a stone down a witch’s chimney it goes off bang! and the stone shoots up into the air like a cannon-ball.” “I remember,” said Mark. “But John is a dreadful story. I don’t believe it.” “No, no more do I. Still we ought to be careful. Let’s creep down and look first.” They got down the hillside with difficulty, it was so steep and slippery--the grass being dried by the sun. At the bottom there was a streamlet running along deep in a gully, a little pool of the clearest water to dip from, and a green sparred wicket-gate in a hawthorn hedge about the garden. Peering cautiously through the gate they saw an old woman sitting under the porch beside the open door, with a black teapot on the window-ledge close by, and a blue teacup, in which she was soaking a piece of bread, in one hand. “It’s a witch,” whispered Mark. “There’s a black cat by the wall-flowers--that’s a certain sign.”