"Where are you going?" shouted Caius. "What are you going to do?"

He need not have shouted, for the wind was swift to carry all sounds
from his lips to O'Shea; but the latter's voice, as it came back to him,
seemed to stagger against the force of the wind and almost to fail.

"Where are we going? Well, we're going roight up towards the sky at
present, but in a minute we'll be going roight down towards the other
place. If ye just keep on at that side of the cart ye'll get into a
place where we'll have a bit of shelter and rest till the moon rises."

"What is the matter? What are you turning off the road for?" Caius
shouted again, half dazed by his sleep and sudden awakening, and wholly
angry at the disagreeable situation. He was cold, his limbs almost numb,
and to his sleepy brain came the sudden remembrance of the round valleys
in the dune of which he had heard, and the person who lived in them.

His voice was inadequately loud. The ebullition of his rage evidently
amused O'Shea, for he laughed; and while Caius listened to his laughter
and succeeding words, it seemed to him that some spirit, not diabolic,
hovered near them in the air, for among the sounds of the rushing of the
wind and of the sea came the soft sound of another sort of laughter,
suppressed, but breaking forth, as if in spite of itself, with
irresistible amusement; and although Caius felt that it was indulged at
his own expense, yet he loved it, and would fain have joined in its
persuasive merriment. While the poetical part of him listened, trying to
catch this illusive sound, his more commonplace faculties were engaged
by the answer of O'Shea:

"It's just as ye loike, Mr. Doctor. You can go on towards The Cloud by
the beach if you've got cat's eyes, or if you can feel with your toes
where the quicksands loy; but the pony and me are going to take shelter
till the moon's up."

"Well, where are you going?" asked Caius. "Can't you tell me plainly? I
never heard of a horse that could climb a wall."

"And if the little beast is good-natured enough to do it for ye, it's as
shabby a trick as I know to keep him half-way up with the cart at his
back. He's a cliver little pony, but he's not a floy; and I never knew
that even a floy could stand on a wall with a cart and doctor's medicine
bags a-hanging on to it. G'tup!"

This last sound was addressed to the pony, which in the darkness began
once more its astonishing progress up the sand-hill.

The plea fo