The children huddled together, listened, pale and terrified, till all was silence again. Then Iason pushed them aside and advanced to the opening.
“Listen!” he said, “I have just thought of it. Perhaps the officers we saw are still on the shore. Now that the man is not there I shall get outside and call to them.”
“No! No, Iason! Stop! Iason!…”
But before any of them could stop him, Iason was squeezing himself round the side of the rock. He was out all but one leg, when a stone bigger than any of those that had been thrown before, bounded against the rock, and struck him on the side of the head. He fell forward with a smothered “Ah!” and the others with a scream of fear rushed to the blocked entrance.
Iason was lying half in and half out, and the short fair hair was dabbled with blood.
Nikias and Pavlo were for trying to push out the rock, but Andromache stopped them.
“No! No!” she cried, “we can drag him in without that.” And by combined pulling and pushing they succeeded in getting Iason safely inside. He opened his eyes and said, “It is nothing,” but he closed them again.
Chryseis lifted his head to her knees and looked round desperately.
“We must wash the place in the water from the stream,” she said, “but I have no handkerchief.”
Andromache, the practical, lifted up her frock and tore a big strip from the white petticoat underneath.