"Of course it is, you chump!" Penny shouted. "Can't you see we've found them? That message is J-O-N, which is short for Jonathan... We've found them, Peter. All we've got to do is to get into the house somehow and rescue them... Peter! PETER! What's wrong, Peter? What is it?"

Peter was still leaning back against the trunk of a tree with her hands over her eyes and did not answer.

"Peter! What's wrong?"

Slowly Peter lowered her hands and Penny hated the dazed look on her face. She looked straight ahead, as if she was hypnotized, at the two rectangles of light below them and said in a strained voice:

"Don't go, Penny. Stay here with me a sec. I am scared, Penny... I've been here before."

"Don't be an ass, Peter," Penny said uneasily. "Of course you have. You know you have."

"I mean this has all happened to me before. I know it has. I remember the trees and the wind and the cold, and I remember you, though I don't remember the lighted windows... Penny, I've been here before at this very time... I remember now, Penny... There ought to be a fire! Look behind you, Penny! Is the heather on fire?"

Penny turned at the note of urgency in her voice and then felt her scalp tingle with fear as she saw a belt of red and orange flames and billowing smoke sweeping down towards them from the top of the hill.

Peter was still too bewildered by her strange experience to move, and Penny tugged at her sleeve.

"Peter! We can't stay here... The flames are coming straight at us... Come on, Peter... We must get down to the house, and they'll have to let us in."

"I remember it all," Peter said quietly. "I didn't know who you were, Penny - not then, I didn't."

"What do you mean, Peter - not then?"

"Oh, I don't know, really, except that this has happened to me before... Sorry, Penny. I sound crazy, I know, but don't look so worried. There's nothing the matter with me, really... Let's show those boys what we can do," and side by side they ran down the rough track towards the great double gates.

When at last they reached the flat space in front of the gates the girls turned at the same time to see whether the fire was gaining. From that moment everything happened so quickly that it was not until long after that they pieced the order of events together. But neither of them ever forgot that astonishing scene as they stood alone with the closed gates of the house at their backs and the great fire roaring down towards them.