nk, and vanished.

She stopped dead and drew back with a chill at her heart. Then she
picked up a stone and cast it on the patch of ground. It vanished even
more swiftly than the fish.

It was one of the bogs the men had spoken of. They had described the
treacherous ground as white, this was yellowish and not very noticeable,
it was also death and another dozen steps would have led her into it.

She advanced cautiously, reached the border line and kneeling down
pushed her hand into the yellow mud. It was like pushing it into a cold
slimy mouth. She could scarcely draw it out again, when she did the mud
was clinging to her hand like a yellow glove.

She came back to one of the rock ponds and washed her hand, it was like
trying to get rid of treacle and, as she washed, she tried to fancy what
would have happened but for the gull, tried to picture herself being
slowly pulled down into that cold darkness and entombed there forever.

Then, skirting the place of danger, she went on, cautiously, examining
carefully the ground before her. She had not gone ten yards when it
seemed to her that a patch right in front of her was ever so slightly
darker and moister looking than the ground she was treading.

She picked up a stone and cast it on the patch. It vanished. Then she
knew the feeling of the man who finds himself ambuscaded.

This place was a death trap, or, rather, a series of death traps, there
might be pits lying in wait for her quite unnoticeable. She turned and
began to retrace her steps, so shaken that she would not trust even the
ground that she had already covered but kept testing it by casting
stones before her.

From a little distance an observer might have fancied her engaged in
some new sort of game.

Near the safety of the Lizard rocks her eyes, closely scanning the
ground before her, caught sight of something. It was a half-burned
match. No one else but Bompard could have dropped that match. He had
started without his tinder-box, had evidently found that match in his
pocket, lit his pipe and walked on. There was only one direction in
which he would have walked unless he had struck inland, which was
improbable. He would have made as she had made to cross to the higher
ground.

Even if he had walked inland he would not have escaped, for, casting her
eyes in that direction she could see yellow patches spreading between
the rocks.

She knew now what had become of Bompard, and with lips dry as pumice
s