And then it was that Montagu's horror-stricken gaze had identified the object at which they had been gazing.

In strange foreboding silence they urged on the boat, while Eric at the prow seemed wild with the one intense impulse to verify his horrible suspicion.

The suspicion grew and grew:--it _was_ a boy lying in the water;--it was Vernon;--he was motionless;--he must have fallen there from the cliff.
Eric could endure the suspense no longer.

The instant that the boat grated on the shingle, he sprang into the water, and rushed to the spot where his brother's body lay.

With a burst of passionate affection, he flung himself on his knees beside it, and took the cold hand in his own--the little rigid hand in which the green blades of grass, and fern, and heath, so tightly clutched, were unconscious of the tale they told.
"Oh Verny, Verny, darling Verny, speak to me!" he cried in anguish, as he tenderly lifted up the body, and marked how little blood had flowed.
But the child's head fell back heavily, and his arms hung motionless beside him, and with a shriek, Eric suddenly caught the look of dead fixity in his blue open eyes.
The others had come up.