But as they trended towards the edge of the cliffs the barking grew louder, and was recognisably ’Dolph’s; and so they came to a wide shelving amphitheatre of turf overgrown with furze and blackthorn.  It curved almost as smoothly as the slope of a crater, and shelved to a small semi-circular bay.  There, on the edge of the tide, danced ’Dolph yelping; and there, knee-deep in water, facing him with lowered head, stood a magnificent stag—­yes, the stag of yesterday!  When Arthur Miles caught at Tilda’s arm and proclaimed this, at first she doubted.  But he pointed to the antlers, glinting bright in the sunshine.  He did not know the names for them, but whereas the left antler bore brow, bay, tray, and three on top, the top of the right antler, by some malformation, was not divided at all, and even a child could see this and guess it to be unusual.  He was a noble stag nevertheless.  The sun shone down on his russet-gold flanks as he stood there fronting the dog with his deadly brow-points.  And ’Dolph kept to the edge of the water, leaping forward a little and anon leaping back, and at each leap emitting a futile yelp.

The children stared, wondering how he could have driven so noble a quarry; until, as Arthur Miles called down, he lifted his head and gazed up at them for a moment.  Then he turned slowly, as it were disdainfully, and they divined the truth—­that the long swim of yesterday had broken his gallant strength, and he had come down to the beach to die.  He turned and lurched heavily down into deep water, laid himself gently afloat, and struck out as if heading for the main.  But the main and his own heathery moors lay far distant, a blue-grey line in the haze to the southward.  Perhaps his spirit regained them as his body slowly sank.  The children watched it sink until only the antlers showed above water like a forked bough adrift on the tideway.  They drifted so for a few seconds; then dipped out of sight, and were gone.

The children stood for a full minute gazing at the water where he had disappeared.  Then Arthur Miles whistled to ’Dolph, who came bounding up the slope, and together all three struck inland again, but in silence.  They were awed by the Island and its wonders.

The Island, as they climbed to its grassy chine, gradually revealed itself as a hill of two peaks, united by a long saddle-back.  The most of this upland consisted of short turf, with here and there a patch of stones.  In all the prospect was no single tree, scarcely a furze-bush even—­the furze grew only on the southern slopes, low down; and Tilda strained her eyes vainly for sight of the House.

But in the very dip of the saddle was a gully, much like the one by which they had ascended, but steeper and dipping to the north.  Before they reached it, before she could detect it even, Arthur Miles pointed to where it lay; and they had scarcely turned aside to follow it before a chimney—­a genuine red-brick chimney—­rose into sight above the dying bracken.