r mercy to the horse entered Caius' reason. The spirit-like
laughter had in some mysterious way soothed his heart. He stood still,
detaining O'Shea no longer, and dimly saw the horse and cart climb up
above him. O'Shea climbed first, for his tones were heard caressing and
coaxing the pony, which he led. Caius saw the cart, a black mass,
disappear over the top of the hill, which was here not more than twenty
feet high. When it was gone he could dimly descry a dark figure, which
he supposed to be the boy, standing on the top, as if waiting to see
what he would do; so, after holding short counsel with himself, he, too,
began to stagger upward, marvelling more and more at the feat of the
pony as he went, for though the precipice was not perpendicular, it had
this added difficulty, that all its particles shifted as they were
touched. There was, however, some solid substance underneath, for,
catching at the sand grasses, clambering rather than walking, he soon
found himself at the top, and would have fallen headlong if he had not
perceived that there was no level space by seeing the boy already
half-way down a descent, which, if it was unexpected, was less
precipitous, and composed of firmer ground. He heard O'Shea and the cart
a good way further on, and fancied he saw them moving. The boy, at
least, just kept within his sight; and so he followed down into a
hollow, where he felt crisp, low-growing herbage beneath his feet, and
by looking up at the stars he could observe that its sandy walls rose
all around him like a cup. On the side farthest from the sea the walls
of the hollow rose so high that in the darkness they looked like a
mountainous region.

They had gone down out of the reach of the gale; and although light airs
still blew about them, here the lull was so great that it seemed like
going out of winter into a softer clime.

When Caius came up with the cart he found that the traces had already
been unfastened and the pony set loose to graze.

"Is there anything for him to eat?" asked Caius curiously, glad also to
establish some friendly interchange of thought.

"One doesn't travel on these sands," said O'Shea, "with a horse that
can't feed itself on the things that grow in the sand. It's the first
necessary quality for a horse in these parts."

"What sort of things grow here?" asked Caius, pawing the ground with his
foot.

He could not quite get over the inward impression that the
mountainous-looking region of