It was the sound of heavy boots on stones, and it was brought to him by the wind, as it seemed, from far below.
Some one was coming after them--perhaps more than one.

He thought he heard a voice.
He leapt fissure after fissure like a young roe, fled to the top of the Downfall and looked over.

Did the light show through the tarpaulin?
Alack!--there must be a rent somewhere--for he saw a dim glow-worm light beyond the cliff, on the dark rib of the mountain.
It was invisible from below, but any roving eye from the top would be caught by it in an instant.

In a second he had raced along the edge, dived in and out of the blocks, guiding his way by a sort of bat's instinct, till he reached the rocky stairway, which he descended at imminent risk of his neck.
'Put your hand ower t'leet, Louie, till I move t'stone!' The light disappeared, David crept in, and the two children crouched together in a glow of excitement.
'Is't Uncle Reuben ?' whispered Louie, pressing her face against the side of the rocks, and trying to look through the chink between it and the covering stone.
'Aye--wi a lantern.

But there's talkin--theer's someone else.