First in the Field Part 23

"No."

"What? My father said it was a grand place with a glorious view."

"It's built of wood and thatched with bark, and you can see a long way."

"But the mountains?"

"There are mountains; so there are for miles."

"But the river?"

"There is a creek, but this time of the year it is mostly water-holes."

"But it's a beautiful place to live in?"

"Is it?" said the man coldly.

"Oh, I say, you want your breakfast!" said Nic laughingly.

"No; I am not hungry."

"Then what's the matter with you, Leather?"

"Nothing."

"Ah, well, I must go and have my dip."

The man gave him a sour look, and Nic ran on, pa.s.sing the horses grazing together, which were ready to look up and whinny a welcome.

"There," cried, the boy, as he gave each a friendly patting and stroked their cold wet noses; "you're ever so much better companions than old Leather. Now then, finish your breakfast: to-night you will sleep in your warm stable."

The announcement made, of course, no impression upon the horses, which lowered their heads again directly, and went on cropping the succulent coa.r.s.e gra.s.s, while Nic went on to the side of the pool, and began to undress, when his attention was taken by a sudden splash; and as he stood wondering he could dimly see something swimming about toward the other side.

"Must be a big water rat," muttered Nic, commencing to undress; and, confident that there was nothing likely to injure him, he plunged in, had his swim, crept out, rubbed, and was going on with his dressing again behind a clump of wattle scrub, when the splash excited his curiosity again, and turning his head cautiously, he peered down at the pool over which the pale grey light was now growing brighter.

For the first few moments he could see nothing; then a sinuous line of disturbed water showed him where something was swimming.

"'Tis a rat," he said to himself, "and those are ducks just on beyond it. No, it isn't a rat: it's one of those things with the duck's bill that father was talking about. I'll dress quickly and fetch the gun. I might get two or three ducks for supper."

The next moment he thought he would run as hard as he could to the waggon, and avoid being speared, but he did not stir, only stood in a stooping position staring wildly at' a black figure stealing along among the trees on the other side of the pool; and hardly had he realised this fact before another black appeared walking in the track of the first, and then' another and another.

Nic felt paralysed. They might be dangerous, for they were all carrying spears, and were stealing up to the water in the most cautious way.

The next minute he could see at least a dozen, and lowering his head cautiously he dropped upon his knees well out of sight, and finished dressing before softly turning his head again to watch.

The blacks were gone; and, though relieved, the boy was puzzled, for he could not make out how they could have left, as there was the open country just beyond the water-hole, and hardly a bush that could form a hiding-place.

He could not have been deceived. Those must have been blacks, a strong party of them; and it was evident that they had not been seen up at the camp by Leather, or he would have warned him of their presence.

"Would he?" thought Nic. "He's a disagreeable, surly fellow, and I don't wonder, at Brookes bullying him so much. What shall I do?

Perhaps after all they're gone. Oh!"

That last was a low, deep expiration of the breath, for Nic was having his first lesson in the clever cunning of the blackfellows. They were not gone, but cl.u.s.tered together just on the other side of the water-hole, some sixty yards away, right in sight as he peered between the thick branches of the wattle.

Nic felt fascinated for the moment, and was ready to ask himself whether it was real or a trick of his imagination. For there across the water lay about and stuck up in all kinds of gnarled and grotesque shapes what seemed to be a large clump of burned-down and blackened tree stumps; broken branches sent off awkward snag-like pieces, others presented bosses and excrescences; and but for the fact that he had seen the party of blacks creeping up, Nic never could have imagined that they were really there, thrown into these strange imitations of what was likely to be found upon the bank of a water-hole.

But there they were, either acting their part to deceive the wild fowl into coming near enough to be speared or knocked down, or trying to hide themselves from the encamping party.

Yes, dim as the light was, there could be no deception, for Nic at last made out the glint of an eye. It certainly was not a piece of gum gleaming in the dewy morning, but the eye of one of the blacks. Then it was gone.

What should he do? They were so clever that Nic knew it would be the hardest of hard work for a white to beat them with their own weapons; but the boy knew that he must act, and at once.

Dropping silently down, he lay on his breast thinking for a few moments, making his plans.

It was quite three hundred yards to the tree where the fire had been made--a long way for him to go if he were seen, for the naked blacks would be swifter of foot than he. His only course was to crawl from bush to bush; and feeling that for the present he was out of sight, sheltered by the patch of wattle, he began to crawl slowly and as silently as he could toward the waggon.

Nic had never before realised how difficult it was to proceed over wet herbage after the fashion of a caterpillar. But this was the only way for him to get along, and he did his best, moving slowly forward where a savage would have gone on at a little run.

As he crept along it was with a strange quivering of the muscles of his back and loins, a curious kind of shrinking, in expectation moment by moment of the blacks having crept round the end of the water-pool through the dry bed of the river up the side to send a spear flying into him.

But it did not come; and at last, perspiring profusely, he pa.s.sed a detached bush, curved round so as to place it between him and the blacks, and then paused to glance back.

He could not see them; but, to his horror, he found that the bush was not in a line between him and the water-hole, and he had to creep back.

Worse still, he realised now how the ground sloped upward, so that at any moment he might be in full view, and he paused, hesitating about going any farther, when only a few yards beyond he saw that there was a hollow into which he could roll, and in it creep along to the first big trees.

Nic felt that he was risking being seen by his impetuosity, but excitement urged him on, and the next moment he was in the little depression, most probably a dry rivulet bed, which ran down toward the water-hole. But whatever it was it gave him shelter till he could reach the big trees, in and out of whose trunks he threaded his way, well out of sight now, and ran panting up to the fire as his father was angrily saying to Leather:

"Surely you must have seen the black last night."

"Not him, sir," said Brookes; "he won't see nothing that he don't want.

I left 'em together, and he ought to know where he is."

"Well, he has gone," said the doctor sternly; "and hullo, Nic, have you seen a snake?"

"Quick! father, the guns!" panted the boy. "Blacks! the blacks!"

"You mean our blackfellow?"

"No, father, twenty of them, just on the other side of the water-hole, hiding."

"All of you," said the doctor, in a low, firm voice, "into the waggon."

Then the boy heard him mutter, as he held him tightly by the arm: "Good heavens! can they have been to the Bluff?"

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.