“Take your coats with you.” said Bess. “It gets chilly on the top at this time o’ day.”

Colin and Susan roamed all over Stormy Point. and beyond, but there were so many rocks and boulders, any of which could have hidden the gates, that they soon tired of shouting “Abracadabra!” and “Open, Sesame!” and instead lay down to rest upon a grassy bank just beneath the crest of a spur of the Edge, and watched the sun drop towards the rim of the plain.

“I think it’s time we were going, Colin,” said Susan when the sun had almost disappeared. “If we don’t reach the road before dark we could easily lose our way.”

“All right: but lets go back to Stormy Point along the other side of this ridge, just for a change. We’ve not been over there yet.”

He turned, and Susan followed him over the crest of the hill into the trees.

Once over the ridge, they found themselves in a dell, bracken and boulder filled, and edged with rocks, in which were cracks, and fissures, and small caves; and before them a high-vaulted beech wood marched steeply down into the dusk. The air was still and heavy, as though waiting for thunder; the only sound the concentrated whine of mosquitoes; and the thick sweet smell of bracken and flies was everywhere.

“I… I don’t like this place. Colin,” said Susan: “I feel that we’re being watched.”

Colin did not laugh at her as he might normally have done. He, too, had that feeling between the shoulder-blades; and he could easily have imagined that something was moving among the shadows of the rocks; something that managed to keep out of sight. So he gladly turned to climb back to the path.

They had moved barely a yard up the dell when Colin stopped and laughed.

“Look! Somebody is watching us!”

Perched on a rock in front of them was a bird. Its head was thrust forward, and it stared unwinkingly at the two children.