Queensland Cousins Part 10

Mrs. Orban sent Eustace down to the plantation as soon as she knew every one would be astir. Mr. Ashton, the field manager, was suffering from fever, so that it was useless to go to him; but on hearing the story, Robertson, the chief engineer, returned with the boy to look into the matter.

Investigations were in vain; the man had left no tracks around the house, no footprints on the veranda.

The servants were so terrified that they declared they would not stay another night in the house. They wanted to be sent to Cooktown immediately--a five days' journey by sea. Robertson, a big burly Scotsman, roughly told them that such a thing was impossible. They could not get away for another week, when the schooner might be expected to bring provisions. He lectured them on their cowardice in wanting to run away and leave their mistress alone at such a time, but the girls would not listen to reason; they said they would hire horses and ride all the way to the first civilized place they could find.

Then Mrs. Orban tried persuasion. Had they not better wait at least to see whether anything could be heard of their lost possessions?

She would offer a reward to any one finding the thief or restoring the stolen goods to their owners--the offer should be made known all over the plantation.

The suggestion carried the day, and the bargain was made. Mrs.

Orban felt that at all costs she must keep the maids until Mr.

Orban's return, for the work and the solitude would have been too much for her to stand, brave as she had proved herself to be.

The offering of a reward was greatly against Robertson's advice. He pointed out that it would only prove an incentive to further robbery. The plantation hands were an unprincipled lot, and if they discovered that they could get money by stealing things and bringing them back, as if they had discovered them in the possession of some one else, there would be no end to the thefts, and no tangible means of getting hold of the thieves unless they were caught red-handed.

But so anxious was Mrs. Orban to keep the servants that she disregarded Robertson's opinion, and the reward was duly offered.

The engineer had one proposal to make, which was accepted. With Mrs. Orban's leave, he said, he, with his wife and two little children, would come up the hill and sleep in the house until Mr.

Orban's return. There would be safety in numbers; and if the night visitor came again, some one to deal with him better than by screaming at him.

In spite of the fuller house, and the fact that Robertson's eight-year-old boy was sleeping in Peter's bed that night, Eustace did not feel particularly happy in the hours of darkness before him, after the party had broken up and said good-night.

The door between his mother's room and his own was left open, by way of companions.h.i.+p for them both, but the boy was so overtired as to be restless and unable to go to sleep. To his excited fancy there were unusual sounds about. The creaking of unwarping boards, the soughing of the night breeze round the house, even Sandy Robertson turning round in his bed, with an impatient but sleepy flump at the heat, were noises that set his hair on end and made him feel cold and damp all over again and again. Once or twice he stole from his bed to peer into his mother's room, but she always seemed asleep; or he would look stealthily out of the window, as if he could possibly have seen anything in the dark.

Robertson, with his wife and baby, was in Nesta's room at the other side of the house. It occurred to Eustace that if anything did happen--anything needing immediate action--Robertson was very far away and ungetatable. The boy sat up in bed hugging his knees, making feverish plans as to what he should do supposing the night visitor came again and he should see him.

Unknown to his mother, Eustace had taken the revolver he had been entrusted with the night before to bed with him. He meant to sleep with it under his pillow, but every time he got up to make his investigations he took it, gripped tightly in his hand ready for immediate use.

When the first gray light stole into the room at last, Eustace began to feel drowsy. Almost against his will he lay back on his pillow and fell asleep. He had determined to watch the night through, but a great heaviness overpowered him, and he lay like a log.

It seemed to him he had hardly closed his eyes--indeed, it cannot have been much later, for there was but little difference in the light--when a resounding pistol report rang through the silent house. Eustace awoke with an instant consciousness of having slept on his self-imposed sentry work. He felt queer and oddly shaken as, with a cry of dismay, he sprang out of bed and rushed into his mother's room.

"Oh, what is it?" exclaimed Mrs. Orban, frightened out of her wits by the noise.

She stared at Eustace, who stood, revolver in hand, gazing blankly round the room.

"I don't know," he began, stopped abruptly, and added in a choked voice, "Oh, look! look!"

He was staring towards the window. Outside on the veranda, crouching on all fours in the dusk, was a dark figure. With a strange, sudden movement it raised itself and stretched out an arm towards the room--standing lank, tall, and horribly sinister.

Without a moment's hesitation Eustace raised his hand and fired.

There was a splintering of gla.s.s, a wild howl of pain, and the figure dropped like a stone.

"Eustace," cried Mrs. Orban in a horrified voice, "what have you done?"

"I had to fire first," returned the boy in an odd, sullen tone.

The figure outside moved, and with a succession of dreadful yells began rapidly crawling along the veranda towards the stairs.

At the bedroom door appeared the entire household, Robertson leading the way, his usually ruddy face ghastly with astonishment.

"What on earth is happening?" he asked, staring at Eustace and his mother.

"I've shot something," Eustace faltered. "It is going down the steps--"

Robertson waited to hear no more. Seizing the boy's revolver, he took a short cut through the house for the veranda steps.

"What was it?" asked the frightened women, as they huddled together in the doorway.

"I don't know," Eustace answered--"a black-fellow of some sort. I wonder if I--I killed him."

There had fallen a sudden silence outside; the awful howling had ceased.

Eustace sat down on the edge of his mother's bed feeling sick and s.h.i.+very. To have killed a man--a white fellow, black-fellow, any sort of fellow; it was horrible!

The most extraordinary sounds arose from the veranda. Had Robertson gone mad, or what could be the matter with him?

"Ho-ho-ho! ha-ha-ha! ho-ho-ho-ho!" he roared.

Every one stood as if paralyzed. There was something terribly uncanny about the laughter. It seemed so ill-timed, so jarring and unkind.

Robertson appeared at the broken window.

"Upon my word, Eustace," exclaimed the Scotsman, "it's the best joke ever I heard or saw. Come and look at your black-fellow and be proud of yourself."

"I can't!" said Eustace, his knees knocking together as he attempted to stand, and he fell back on the bed.

"Oh, what is it, Mr. Robertson?" asked Mrs. Orban.

"Why, it's nothing but a miserable, half-starved dingo-dog that must have prowled up to the house in search of food," Robertson said. "You marked him well--I will say that for you, Eustace. He was dead before I could reach the steps."

"Thank G.o.d it was not a human being," exclaimed Mrs. Orban.

"A dingo!" cried Eustace, sitting up suddenly with a perplexed expression in his eyes. "Then who fired the first shot? I mean the one that woke me."

The relief faded from Mrs. Orban's face. It was a startling question, an uncomfortable reflection that the first shot had not been accounted for.

"Yes, by the way," she said, "there was that other shot. It seemed to come from Eustace's room, and I was frightened out of my wits. I was thankful to see him safe and sound a minute later."

"I heard two shots distinctly," Robertson said, looking grave; "but of course I fancied Eustace had fired twice at the dingo."

"Not I," said Eustace. "I never saw the beast till I came into mother's room; and I didn't fire till it stood up against the window and looked like a human being."

"H'm," said Robertson. "It strikes me I had better have a look round. Just stay here till I come back."

The women all looked scared. It was not a pleasant idea that the person who fired that first shot was possibly lurking about somewhere in the shadows. They listened breathlessly as Robertson made the tour of the house, momentarily expecting a fresh commotion, the firing of shots and a struggle. Mrs. Robertson was dreadfully upset, and held her two children close; the maids huddled together in a corner. Mrs. Orban stood, revolver in hand, near Becky's bed with such quiet dignity that somehow Eustace was steadied.

The chances were that, finding himself hunted by Robertson, the man would try to effect an escape on to the veranda this way as a short cut to the steps.

If the visitor were the same as that of the night before, it was all important he should be captured--otherwise this disagreeable night raid might be repeated.