In any case she would have to turn back within the next few minutes.
Slowly she pivoted round and looked again from the smiling horizon whereon no ship was visible to the Magic Cave that yawned in the face of the cliff.

The next instant she jumped so violently that she missed her footing and fell from her perch in sheer amazement.
Something--someone--was moving just within the deep shadow where the sunlight could not penetrate! It was not a big drop, but she came to earth with a cry of pain among a mass of fallen stones, whereon she subsided, tightly clasping one foot between her hands.

She had stumbled upon wreckage to her cost; a piece of rusty iron at her side and the blood that ran out between her locked fingers testified to that.
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" she wailed, rocking herself, and then glanced nervously over her shoulder, remembering the mysterious cause of the disaster.
The next moment swiftly she released the injured foot and sprang up.

A man, attired in white linen, had emerged from the Magic Cave.
He stood a second looking at her, then came bounding towards her over the rocks.
Chris shrank back against her boulder.

She was feeling dizzy and rather sick, and the apparition frightened her.
As he drew near she waved a desperate hand to stay his approach.