aculous
that he had not met with worse injuries from so great a fall; only the
soft sand and the smoothness of the walls had saved him. But this same
smoothness was the chief hindrance to his escape. There was not a
loophole of any sort or kind by which he could raise himself--not a twig
or ledge to give him a hold. With increasing anxiety he scanned the
walls still more closely, but, even though his eyes had become
accustomed to the gloom, it was too dark to make out a single projecting
edge, or the minutest crevice which could raise his hopes of escape. In
despair, and with a sickening sense of dread, he sank down again on the
sand. If Thomas had wished to put him out of the way, he could not have
done so more completely, thought the boy, with bitterness.

CHAPTER VIII.

As time went on and Alan did not return, Marjorie stood up to listen,
wondering what she ought to do. Should she wait, or go at once in search
of him? Before she had made up her mind, however, her hesitation was
brought to an end by a violent bang--a sound she knew only too well.
Springing up the bank, she made her way as rapidly as the brushwood
allowed to the ruin, remembering with dismay that Estelle and Georgie
had been on the roof. When she got there, no one was to be seen. Georgie
had gone away, very deeply hurt that Estelle should have left him in his
sleep, from which he had been startled by the crash of the closing door.
It was some time before Marjorie found him--safe, though
resentful--sitting on a heap of swept-up leaves in the carriage-drive,
talking to one of the gardeners.

She was in too great a hurry to listen to her little brother's
complaints, and only stopped a moment to ask where Estelle was.

'Gone home, I suppose,' returned Georgie, not in the most gentle of
voices. 'Didn't I tell you she was nowhere to be seen when I woke up?'

'If it was anybody else but Estelle, I should be afraid of her being
shut into the ruin, as the door must have been open; but she never
disobeys. So it's all right, and I must rush after Alan.'

Off she went at the top of her speed. She could get to the Smugglers'
Hole more quickly if she ran round by the path to the cliffs. Without
reasoning over it, she understood instinctively that the men would go
there, and Alan after them. With the fleetness of a lapwing, she flew
along the path through the Wilderness, and reached the cliff as the
first flush of sunset was beginning to crimson the wes