“What was that?”
“What fell?” He and Nikias and Andromache all cried together.
“Stones! A great many,” Chryseis answered, lifting a pale face to theirs as they pulled her up. “They nearly fell on our heads, but Iason pushed us back. Iason! What is it? Iason!”
For Iason, flattened against the opening, was cautiously trying to find out what had happened.
“I do not know,” he said, without turning round. “I cannot think. Something must have loosened the stones from the top of the rock above, and they fell. But what? The first rains have not begun yet. Well,” he continued after a moment’s pause, “let us get out! That was all.”
But that was not all! At the step forward which he took, a shower of earth and stones came rattling down on the ledge outside.
He sprang back only just in time.
“But what is it then? What can it be?”
They soon found out. No sooner had the last stone rebounded and rolled over the ledge to the rocks below them, than a loud discordant laugh sounded from above the opening of the cave.
“Come out of your hole, my little cockerels! Come out! You would not have my stones before. Get them on your heads now! Come out! Come out!”