Jeconiah reached the recess. He saw and understood the marks of the boxes on the sand. He swung round on Fiona with a snarl like that of a hungry wolf. "You think you're clever, don't you, you and your father," he said. "I suppose you've had the stuff moved. But I'll have it if I go to the middle of the earth for it." It was the old hawker who shouted. He had stood apart, a silent spectator of the scene. And at this moment he called out, in a voice of surprising power for so frail a body: "Look out above you. Jump." Fiona, who had learned to obey, jumped back just in time. But Jeconiah had never learnt to obey any orders but his own. He stood, stupidly staring, as a bit of the roof of the cave bowed downward, gave way, and came cascading about him in a shower of earth and big stones, that filled the air with thick dust. When the dust cleared again, they saw Jeconiah lying on his back in the middle of the cliff fall, motionless, and to all appearance dead. But Fiona was not looking at Jeconiah. She was looking at the place where the roof of the cave had bowed itself before falling; and into her mind came crowding dim forgotten legends, legends of fear and hope. And she was saying over and over again to herself, as though she might miss its purport, that behind the cliff fall, as if impelling and directing it, she had seen a small brown elfin hand. * * * * * It was the old hawker who took charge of the situation. The two men, who at first had looked as if they would run, became amenable when he spoke to them. They carried Jeconiah's body to his boat, and laid it in the stern-sheets. One of the men pointed out that there was no mark at all on his face or head, and that he did not believe he had been struck. "Died of fright, I expect," he said curtly. "Lucky we stood out for wages in advance," said his companion. It looked as if this might be Jeconiah's fitting epitaph. The old man himself went with Fiona in her boat. But he was too feeble to row far, so he landed on the island and went in search of Angus. In due course Angus came down and rowed Fiona home, saying that the old man was going to look after his sheep for him till he returned. It did not occur to Fiona, until they had gone too far to turn back, that it looked as though the old man wished to avoid questions. Her mind was in a helpless whirl in which everything seemed unreal, except the Urchin and that small brown hand. She could not give her father any very coherent account of what had happened; but he went out at once to find a boat and men to search the cave.