Very black indeed the first of the cavities was as he passed; he hardly dared look within the embrasure-like place; no grim muzzle of a gun he beheld, no bursting shell flung forth; only a bat’s soft, noiseless wings striking him in the face as he climbed by on the ledge below. The second hollow was passed too, and now for the third. Binwell stopped the boy, and began to rearrange the cords beneath his arms. “Confound ye,” he said, his fingers trembling over the knots as he lifted his eyes reproachfully to the boy’s face, “ye hev got me plumb upset with yer fool talk—I ’lowed jes’ now I hearn leetle Rosamondy a-callin’ me.” The rocks were vibrating softly—but could the echoes of Keedon Bluffs repeat the fancy of a sound! Skimpy stretched his arm into the cavity as far as it might go, half expecting it to be snatched by the claw of a witch; but no—his empty palm closed only on the clammy air. “Up with ye!” said Jerry impatiently. One moment—and there were the duskily purple mountains, the gray obscurity of the misty intervals, the lustrous darkness of the river, the fair sky, and the reigning moon; then the vault-like blackness of the hollow. The boy scuffled along it for a few moments, “snakin’ it,” he called the process, and feeling like so much pith in the bark. Binwell still paid out the cord as Skimpy crept further and further, and then— What was the matter with the rocks! Endowed with Rosamond’s voice they called him again and again, with dulcet treble iteration that was like the fine vibrations of a stringed instrument all in tune. He listened, paling a little; it was no fancy; he was discovered. He stood his ground for the nonce. What affinity for harm and wrong! The coward might be brave for a space. Another voice; he jerked nervously at the cord on Skimpy’s arm. It was Abner’s voice; he was on the summit of the Bluffs. He too was calling aloud: “Kem up, Jerry, ’tain’t no use. Kem up.” Jerry made no answer; he muttered only to himself, “Ye’ll fall off’n the aidge o’ that Bluff unbeknown ter yerse’f, ole mole!” Abner began anew and all the echoes were pleading and insistent. “Kem up, Jerry! Ye’ll be deesgraced fur life, and hyar’s leetle Rosamondy a-waitin’ fur ye!” Jerry was standing breathless, for Skimpy within was suddenly motionless. Then the cord grew slack in his hand, for the boy was coming out backward. Binwell gave no heed to the commotion on the summit. A heavy, clanking metallic sound had caught his ear—it was the money-box of the Squire which the boy was dragging out, every moment coming nearer to that clutching, quivering hand.