ir and blew it out like a cloak behind
her. It was still damp, for she had been bathing, and when the wind had
passed it settled again in long, gleaming ripples upon her shoulders. She
pushed it away from her face with an impatient hand.

"Cinders," she said, "if you don't come soon I shall go and find the
Knight of the Magic Cave all by myself."

But even this threat did not move the enthusiastic Cinders. All that
could be seen of him was a pair of sturdy hind-legs firmly planted amid a
whirl of sand. Quite plainly it was nothing to him what steps his young
mistress might see fit to take to relieve her boredom.

"All right!" said Chris, springing to her feet with a flourish of her
towel. "Then good-bye!"

She shook the hair back from her face, slipped her bare feet into
sandals, slung the towel across her shoulders, and turned her face to the
cliffs.

They frowned above the rock-strewn beach to a height of two hundred feet,
tunnelled here and there by the sea, scored here and there by springs,
rising mass upon mass, in some places almost perpendicular, in others
overhanging.

They possessed an immense fascination for Chris Wyndham, these cliffs.
There was a species of dreadful romance about them that attracted even
while it awed her. She longed to explore them, and yet deep in the most
private recesses of her soul she was half-afraid. So many terrible
stories were told of this particular corner of the rocky coast. So many
ships were wrecked, so many lives were lost, so many hopes were quenched
forever between the cliffs and the sea.

But these facts did not prevent her weaving romances about those
wonderful caves. For instance, there was the Magic Cave, for which she
was bound now, the entrance to which was only accessible at low tide.
There was something particularly imposing about this entrance, something
palatial, that stirred the girl's quick fancy. She had never before quite
reached it on account of the difficulty of the approach; but she had
promised herself that she would do so sooner or later, when time and tide
should permit.

Both chanced to be favourable on this particular afternoon, and she set
forth light-footed upon the adventure, leaving Cinders to his monotonous
but all-engrossing pastime. A wide line of rocks stretched between her
and her goal, which was dimly discernible in the deep shadow of the
cliff--a mysterious opening that had the appearance of a low Gothic
archway.

"I'm sure it's h