“Johnny.”
He spoke it so softly it could not have been heard ten yards away.
He listened. No answer.
“Johnny,” a little louder this time. Still no answer.
“Johnny Thompson!” His lips were at the jagged opening now. His voice sounded out like the roar of a great beast in the hollow enclosure. A bat beat the air with its wings.
Still no answer.
The old man rose to his feet. On his face was a look of fear, the fear that had gripped him here as a boy. His voice trembled, his words came out through chattering teeth as he called again and again:
“Dorn! Dorn! Dorn!”
And this time there came an answering call.
After a long day of weary search Dorn had seated himself on a stone parapet to watch the sun, a fiery red ball slowly sinking toward the sea. As he sat there it seemed to him that the sun of hope for a little valley that he and Johnny and the Professor had learned to love, was sinking never to rise with another morn.