Queensland Cousins Part 35

The search-party met in the hall, just as that other search-party had kept doing so many, many years ago, but there was never any news.

"Can there be a secret chamber somewhere else?" said Nesta.

Brenda shook her head.

"I don't think so," she said.

"I wish father would come home," Eustace thought miserably. "He might think of something."

"We had better ask grandfather what is to be done," said Herbert at last in desperation.

It was a last resource. Nothing but the most serious business was allowed to interrupt Mr. Chase's morning, but this had become sufficiently pressing to warrant the intrusion.

In through the folding-doors trooped the anxious-looking searchers, Herbert first.

"Well, I never!" he exclaimed, for there stood Peter as calm as you please, his hands behind him, staring at his grandfather across the broad writing-table.

"Can you ride bareback?" he was inquiring in his shrill treble.

"Bob can; but he said I mustn't try because it is slimy."

"Slimy?" repeated Mr. Chase, with brows bent in perplexity.

"Yes," said Peter, "sliddery, you know. A horse is a very slippery beast for short legs, Bob says."

He went on quite regardless of the intruders, who stood watching in awed silence, because if Mr. Chase did not order Peter out of the room, it was no one's business to do so.

"And who may this Bob be you keep quoting?" asked Mr. Chase--"a bushranger?"

"No, he's our friend," replied Peter. "He is just Bob, you know, who comes to see us. Once Eustace and he were lost in the scrub.

And Bob says Eustace is a--"

"Peter!" exclaimed Eustace.

"I wasn't going to say anything bad," said Peter. "I was only going to tell grandfather how you--"

"Grandfather doesn't want to know," said Eustace, looking red and uncomfortable.

Mr. Chase turned his bright blue eyes on Eustace; they were blue eyes, very like Peter's.

"Perhaps grandfather does," he said firmly.--"Go on, Peter."

"I can tell you better," said Eustace hurriedly. "It is only Bob was lost, and I got lost looking for him; and we thought some natives were going to kill us, but the chief wanted a reward, so he fetched father and Mr. Cochrane to take us home."

Mr. Chase listened quietly. It was a tame little story, without much point to it told like that, but he had watched Eustace's sensitive face narrowly, and he asked no further questions.

"I seem to be honoured with much company this morning," he said instead, looking round the group on the threshold. "What are you all doing, if I may ask?"

"Looking for Peter, grandfather," explained Herbert uncomfortably, certain that Mr. Chase was annoyed. "We've been hunting for him for the last hour."

"I've had the pleasure of his society for about that s.p.a.ce of time," said Mr. Chase. "I have had to give an account of how many black men and how many c.h.i.n.kees I employ about the place; whether I wouldn't rather live in Queensland if I had a hundred pounds of my own; and how long I sleep in the winter. I don't know why he wants to know that, I am sure."

"Oh," said Peter quickly, "because Bob says people in England sleep like dormice in the winter, and have to be wakened by big knockers on the door."

"I see," said Mr. Chase gravely, "your friend Bob seems to know more about England than I do--probably because I sleep right through the winter. Now, if you have asked everything you can think of, perhaps you will take your tribe away with you, Peter Perky."

The twins jumped violently at the name, and stared at the speaker in astonishment. No one but Aunt Dorothy had ever called Peter that.

"I should like to know if you roll up when you sleep, or lie flat,"

Peter said, not feeling at all anxious to go. "Aunt Dorothy always called me a dormouse at night--"

"You can go, Peter," interrupted Mr. Chase hurriedly; "I am busy."

Herbert took the child by the shoulder and marched him out of the room.

"Peter, how could you?" exclaimed Brenda, when they reached the schoolroom.

"How could I what?" demanded Peter, looking puzzled.

"Why, speak about poor Aunt Dorothy before grandfather," said the girl. "n.o.body does; he can't bear it."

"Can't he?" said Peter mildly; "but he asked me a lot of questions about her himself. And I told him how she called me Peter Perky, and all about her saving my life in the wreck."

"What!" interrupted the cousins in a breath; "she did what?"

"Didn't you know?" said Eustace.

"We don't know anything except what that awful cable said," Brenda said in a low, shaky voice.

Between them the twins and Peter told the whole story. Herbert sat at the table, his head buried in his hands. Brenda listened with her back to the speakers, looking away out of the window.

There was a long pause.

"Then," said Herbert huskily at last, "if it hadn't been for Peter, Aunt Dorothy would never have been drowned."

CHAPTER XIX.

THE LAST STRAW.

The words fell like a thunderbolt into the midst of the group.

Eustace moved involuntarily to Peter's side and put a protecting arm round him, as if he had been struck. The little fellow himself looked utterly bewildered.

"How can you say such a wicked, wicked thing?" exclaimed Nesta in astonishment; "just as if it was poor Peter's fault."

"Well, wasn't it?" demanded Herbert bitterly, his face still hidden. "If Peter hadn't been at the other side of the s.h.i.+p--if Aunt Dorothy had not had to go away and find him--but you all got into the boat and went away and left her!"