He was now out of sight from the other side of the great depression, and was just congratulating himself upon his selection of a hiding-place and look-out combined, when he recalled the sounds he had heard during a former visit.
“Why, it must have been caused by something falling down here,” he argued, and he looked outward, to see that this was one of the narrowest, deepest and most savage-looking gullies he had seen, the place being giddy to look down and impressing him with the belief that the greatest care was necessary for anyone to move about; and as he dropped down upon his knees it was with a feeling of relief and safety, for accustomed though he was to climbing about upon the cliffs, this one particular spot looked giddy and wild.
To his great satisfaction he found that he could follow the crack right down to the sea and obtain a good view without being seen, unless anyone had followed his example and climbed; but what most took his attention was that though he had been climbing about the place often in search of the eggs of rare birds, he had never been there before, or noted the existence of such a deeply-split cavity in the cliffs.
“I must have been able to see it from off the sea,” he argued, but gave himself up to the thought directly after that ridges and hollows had a completely different aspect when seen from below.
“I should know it now directly if I were sailing by and looked up, of course. I fancy I can recollect this steep wall-like bit down below where I’m sitting.”
He started the next moment, for a great gull had come gliding up from behind and passed so closely over his head that he was startled by the faint whizz of its outspread wings, while the bird itself was so startled that it uttered a hoarse cry of alarm and plunged down head foremost like a stone.
“Why, that must have been the kind that made that cry like a hail,” cried Aleck, as the bird disappeared into the depths of the gully, while he had hardly realised the thought before there rose from below a faint, hoarse cry.
“I thought so,” he said; “those birds have different cries and they sound strange, according to where you are.”
He did not finish his words, for all at once the peculiar cry arose again, and this time it seemed to come from out of the deep jagged hollow, and certainly from the other side.
“How strange!” said the lad, with a feeling akin to dread running through him. “That can’t be a bird.”