the towans behind him.

He turned. No one was in sight. The house lay behind the
sand-banks, the first ridge hiding even its chimney-smoke. He gazed
along the beach, where the perpetual haze of spray seemed to have
removed the light-house to a vast distance. A sense of desolation
came over him with a rush, and with something between a gasp and a
sob he turned his back to the sea and ran, his boots dangling from
his shoulders by their knotted laces.

He pounded up the first slope and looked for the cottage. No sign of
it! An insane fancy seized him. These silent moving sands were
after _him_.

He was panting along in real distress when he heard the baying of
dogs, and at the same instant from the top of a hummock caught sight
of a figure outlined against the sky, and barely a quarter of a mile
away; the figure of a girl on horseback--a small girl on a very tall
horse.

Just as Taffy recognised her, she turned her horse, walked him down
into the hollow beyond, and disappeared. Taffy ran towards the spot,
gained the ridge where she had been standing, and looked down.

In a hollow about twenty feet deep and perhaps a hundred wide were
gathered a dozen riders, with five or six couples of hounds and two
or three dirty terriers. Two of the men had dismounted. One of
these, stripped to his shirt and breeches, was leaning on a
long-handled spade and laughing. The other--a fellow in a shabby
scarlet coat--held up what Taffy guessed to be a fox, though it