iff, close on their right, rang out
the report of a gun. The song ceased abruptly, lost in the echoes that
beat from cliff to cliff, and amid these echoes the children heard a
noise of falling stones, followed by a heavy splash.

Annet had sprung to her feet. Linnet and Matthew Henry, too, had picked
themselves up, though more slowly.... A wisp of smoke drifted by the
rock to their right. When they turned their eyes upon the Mermaid's
Rock the singer had vanished.

Annet caught Matthew Henry by one hand; Matthew Henry stretched out
another to Linnet. The three scrambled up to the cliff-top, and thence
raced homeward, panic-stricken, across the darkening fields.

CHAPTER XXV

MISSING!

_"Sir,--I am directed by the Secretary of State for War to
acknowledge receipt of your letter of the 19th ultimo, the
contents of which shall receive his attention._

_"I am, sir,_

_"Your obedient servant,_

"J. FLEETWOOD CUNNINGHAM."

The Commandant, from long disuse, had forgotten the formalities of
official correspondence. His hand shook as he tore open the long
envelope, expecting to read his fate, and in the revulsion, as his eyes
fell on the few lines of acknowledgment, he caught at the table's edge
and sank into his chair with a sudden feeling of faintness.

For a few hours, then--possibly for a few days--he was respited. He put
the letter aside and walked out, to take his afternoon stroll around
the fortifications and steady his nerves.

By the Keg of Butter Battery he halted for a long look across the Sound
and towards Saaron. Unconsciously for a week past, he had fallen into a
habit of halting just here and letting his eyes travel towards Saaron.
It was just here that Vashti had seated herself the first morning, and
had asked him the fatal question, "For what, then, do they pay you?" He
remembered the words, the inflection of scorn in her tone. Here at his
feet on a cushion of wild thyme lay the stone she had prised out
absently, while she spoke, with the point of her sunshade. Just here,
too, she had taken leave of him on the night of her escapade, the night
when (it was bliss to remember) she had recanted her scorn, had asked
his forgiveness.

For a whole week he had not seen her. Was she careless, then, of the
answer?--of what resulted from the train she had fired?... But, after
all (the Commandant told himself), she had no need to concern herself
about it. She had but set him i