Queensland Cousins Part 22

In addition to the keenness of the disappointment and the terror that he was losing his last chance of ever getting home again came the speculation as to what these wild-faced people meant to do with him, and there leaped to his mind a new and very terrible question.

Was it possible that Bob had come this way? Had they met him with spears and boomerangs, and dispatched him before he had time to whip out his revolver? But no. There was still that answering coo-ee to be accounted for. Perhaps they had only bound him and made him prisoner till then, undecided what to do with him. It was possible that on hearing Eustace's coo-ee he had dared the blacks, and attempted those three faint answers. If so, they had cost him his life, and the ultimate silence was explained.

Eustace lay shuddering over the thought. He could only keep his teeth from chattering by holding his jaw tightly in both hands.

How long he lay lost in those miserable thoughts he did not know.

He was roused from his lethargy by a soft kick, and, starting up, he found the woman who fed him the day before beside him offering him food again. She seemed to treat him as if he were a white pig that had strayed amongst them. He was probably a less intelligible creature in her eyes, but she knew that he must at least eat to live.

It was a messy preparation, but he managed to eat some; and all the driest portions of it he could extract unnoticed he slipped into his pockets, laying in provision for possible starvation next day.

Then he lay down again and feigned sleep.

He looked through half-closed lids with longing eyes at the peaceful Bolter. Eustace wondered whether he too had heard those tantalizing coo-ees and ached to respond. What would be poor Bolter's fate here? The blacks make the women of the tribes into their beasts of burden when shifting camp; they do not habitually use horses. The chief was perhaps only keeping Bolter as a valuable addition to the larder when provisions ran short.

Every thought that came to the boy was horrid. He wished he did not have to think, and as dusk fell set his mind to the task of keeping awake after his captors had settled down for the night. It would be fatal to sleep as he had done the night before.

The chief had been away all day, and was not yet come back. It was possible judgment on the prisoner was suspended till his return.

When the great man heard of the coo-ees and Eustace's attempt to answer, probably the boy's fate would be sealed. Escape must be now or never.

Eustace made up his mind that he would start off in the direction whence the coo-ees had come. It was the only guide he had, and a very poor one, as had already been proved by the first cry he had so unfortunately tried to follow.

He waited just as long as he could bear, after silence fell on the camp. There was no question of taking Bolter. He was guarded as on the night before; besides, he would have made too much noise.

Eustace dared not get up and walk himself, or even crawl. He had invented a silent, gliding movement as he lay scheming--by means of strong tufts of gra.s.s he meant to gradually pull his body, snakewise, little by little away from the open into the wood.

As soon as he dared he began his weird progress, quaking at every sound he made lest it should rouse those keen-eared sleepers so close around him. The soft "frou-frou" of the dry gra.s.s beneath him sounded to his excited fancy like the sudden rushing of a torrent.

He was almost overwhelmed by the fear of pulling himself inadvertently up against one of those dark forms, for he did not know where every one was lying. One false move now, and it would mean the end of all things for him.

CHAPTER XII.

THE SECRET OF THE THICKET.

The night was close and still with the silence that intensifies sound tenfold. Eustace thought he could not have had worse luck.

His temptation was to hurry; common sense bade him hold himself in check. Panic urged him to risk everything, and make a bolt for it.

But Bob's precept was ringing in his mind--there were two sides to the question; he might bolt, but where to in the dark? It was useless to dash headlong into trees and make for nowhere in particular. The plan was to get as far away as possible in the dark, unheard, so that by daylight he would be out of sight, and able to quicken his pace to some purpose.

Gliding, halting, scarcely breathing, he pulled himself along, and great beads of perspiration started on his forehead and trickled down into his eyes.

The darkness was useful in one way, but it had its disadvantages.

He had no idea what progress he was making, and it seemed ages before his hand came against what he thankfully realized was the bark of a tree. Almost simultaneously there was a blinding flash of lightning, so vivid that for a full moment the sleeping camp lay revealed, and Eustace had time to grasp the fact that he was well within the outskirts of the wood. The crash of thunder almost overhead brought him to his feet. Now was the time to make some pace, in the dense darkness, under cover of that merciful noise.

Eustace was not the least afraid of thunder and lightning; he was used to tremendous storms, and loved nothing better than to stand out on the veranda to watch one raging round among the hills or out at sea. Now it was a positive blessing. Every flash showed him where he was, and he took care to have a tree trunk between himself and the camp. Then during the thunder bursts he made his way swiftly forward, groping cautiously like a blind man. His spirits rose with the excitement, and all his courage came back to him.

By the time the storm had grumbled itself away into the distance he knew he was well out of sight of the camp, and he dared to sit down to wait for dawn. Without the aid of the lightning it was folly to plunge farther into the scrub.

In spite of a stern resolve not even to let himself doze, the tired boy must have slept awhile, sitting with his back against a tree.

There was just a first glimmer of light penetrating the thick foliage above when he opened his eyes with a sudden definite feeling of something having roused him.

Very much on the alert, instantly he raised his head, and sat listening with held breath. He was beginning to think he must have been mistaken, when there came a sound that made his hair stand on end and his blood run cold. He got up swiftly but softly, and stood, still backed by the tree, staring into the gloom. The sound seemed to come from what looked like a dense thicket not very far to the right, but as yet it was not light enough to distinguish objects from each other.

"Is it some animal, or a native, or what can it be?" Eustace questioned, feeling most horribly shaky.

There was a long pause, and then the silence was once more broken by a deep, heavy groan--something like a long sobbing sigh.

The boy was paralyzed with horror. Besides which, to have moved, to have gone forward, would have been useless in this half light. He could have done nothing, seen nothing. There was nothing for it but to wait till daybreak. He could not bring himself to sit down again; there is always a feeling of being ready for anything when one is standing.

There was another long interval, and then this awful sound came once more--slow, laboured, intensely painful. There could be no doubt that something or some one was suffering inexpressibly not twenty yards away. The voice was like the voice of a man having a nightmare, and trying to call some one to help him. The third time the sound came Eustace almost fancied it contained a word--"Help."

Five times he heard it, and every time it was exactly the same in tone and duration. Each time he became more persuaded that it was a m.u.f.fled cry for help.

The light was coming at last. Soon he would be able to venture forward and find out what horrible secret the thicket held.

The boy sank down on his knees and prayed with all his might for strength to face whatever it might be for at the thought of the ordeal before him he could have turned and fled. He stood up again as white as a sheet, but resolute, and ashamed of the temptation.

"Who is there?" he demanded in a hoa.r.s.e, shaky voice unlike his own.

His throat was parched, his lips dry. He had not spoken a word for two nights and a day; it was scarcely wonderful speech was difficult.

There was no answer for a full minute, and then came that same groaning cry again, not as in answer to the question, but at its own regular interval.

Following the curve of the thicket a little way, behind a thick group of trees Eustace came to a sudden standstill with a cry of dismay; for there, standing almost upright in the thickest of the scrub, was the figure of a man, his bare head bowed down upon his breast so that his face was invisible, his arms hanging down at his sides.

It struck Eustace at once as strange that he should be standing making this terrible sound. It would not have surprised the boy nearly so much to have found him lying down--indeed, that he had expected. Bracing himself to the task, Eustace went closer.

"I say," he said in a loud voice, "what's up?"

The man made neither sign nor movement. Could he be tied there to a stake? the boy wondered. Was he deaf and blind?

"I say," Eustace said, almost shouting now, "can't you see me?"

Fighting down his own horror of the situation, he pressed a little closer, to find the man's shirt torn to shreds, his arms pinioned down to his sides by something that looked like small cords.

"It's the 'wait-a-bit' cane!" Eustace exclaimed aloud, shrinking back sharply with a quick horror of being entrapped by it himself.

Here was an awful state of affairs. A wretched wayfarer caught and held like a fly in a spider's web, and not a soul at hand to help.

To go back to the natives was out of the question. With their reputation for cruelty and hatred of white men it would be worse than useless to appeal to them. What was to be done? What would Bob have done under the circ.u.mstances?

With a gasping cry Eustace crept closer again, and bending low he strained to catch a glimpse of the man's face without going too perilously deep into the thicket.

"Bob," whispered the boy, "Bob, is it you? Oh, speak to me--is it you?"

Little fool that he had been not to think of it before. But somehow these last hours of terror, centred only upon himself and his own means of escape, had blunted his intelligence to everything else--even to the remembrance of Bob. He was mad with himself for it now--so mad that all thought of personal danger fell away from him. He had room for nothing but the realization that this must be Bob indeed standing here helpless and dying of privation.

Oh the folly of having waited for the light! But Eustace stayed for nothing more now--not even to look at the two sides of the question. He dashed against the bushes like a little mad thing, recklessly fighting his way towards the imprisoned man.

"Bob, Bob!" he said in a voice choked with sobs.