They went back, searching every nook and corner of the cave, turning the light into every crevice, under every rock, making a minute examination of the rock barrier; and there was no sign. And then Fiona broke down. "He is drowned," she said, and just sat and sobbed. After a few moments the old man came and sat down beside her. In his gentle voice he said that the Urchin could not possibly be drowned. The water was quite shallow at the edge, and he was a good swimmer, was he not? And even if he had not been, the swell would have rolled him ashore. He himself had no doubt that all would come right. Fiona ceased sobbing and turned on him. "Do you know where he is?" she demanded bluntly. "How would I know when you do not know?" said the old man. "Could I see what you could not see?" And then "Listen." Down the waterway came voices, and the sound of oars. It was in fact Jeconiah's boat entering the cave. Fiona caught at the straw. "He may have swum out to the other boat," she said. But there was no one in the other boat but Jeconiah and his two men. They had powerful lanterns, and the boat was full of sacks. Jeconiah himself was purple with suppressed rage and impatience. The moment he could get ashore, he waddled up to Fiona and shook the map of the cave in her face, exclaiming, "Remember, if you have found anything it belongs to me and I claim it." Fiona had only one thought in her mind at the moment, and the foolish impertinence of the little fat man was to her merely so much unnecessary sound. Her answer was "Have you seen the Urchin? We have lost him. Did he not swim out to your boat?" She was almost sobbing again. "Confound the brat!" said Jeconiah roughly. "I've not come here to play hide-and-seek with a parcel of children. Tell me at once what you've found." Fiona straightened herself, and looked at Jeconiah as though he were some noxious reptile. "There was nothing here to find," she said. "And this cave belongs to my father. And anything in it he gave to the Urchin." "Well, he's not here," said Jeconiah brutally, "and I am. Who finds, keeps." And calling to his men to bring the lights, he set off, between stumbling and crawling, for the rock barrier. One of the men had the decency to stop a moment and tell Fiona that they had seen nothing of any boy; Jeconiah turned and abused him for a laggard. With a good deal of difficulty the two men hoisted and shoved Jeconiah over the rock barrier. Once over, he took a light himself, told the men to wait where they were, and after a good look at the map set out for the recess where the Urchin had found the doubloon. Fiona followed him; there was some vague idea in her mind of protecting the Urchin's property; behind that there was still a faint subconscious hope that in some way or other the Urchin would suddenly reappear, and laugh at her terrors.