Page:The romance of Runnibede (IA romanceofrunnibe00rudd).pdf/119

terrors. While the others spoke in hushed voices, and the horses tossing their heads, jerked at the reins and snatched for mouthfuls of grass, I stared around, mentally measuring, as a nervous boy will do, the chances of a clear gallop in the event of trouble, for there before us, not more than fifty yards off, slumbered a couple of hundred people, men, women and children, wanderers of the Australian bushland.

And, as we paused, sparks started out the smouldering embers, and flickering heavenward, raced each other into oblivion.

"Listen to them snoring," Tom Merton whispered. And what a medey of strange, weird noises came from those sleepers! Some of the notes were deep and long-drawn; some high-pitched and shrill. Some seemed the groans and moans of tortured souls. And all so unearthly, so awesome, that you fancied you were standing in a hostile world filled with all the menaces and terrors of the night. Even the mangy, miserable dogs — and there was a pack of them — slept and snored. And from the lonely trees squirrels chattered as though keeping tryst. Curlews screamed all around. Dingoes howled from the scrub. Mopokes called their dismal note from the shelves of the great rock walls. While over all the everlasting stars twinkled and blinked down at the camp of those primitive, precarious people, just as they had twinkled 4 million years before.

Presently the Governor lifted his voice and called: "King Henry and Combo and Curricomb and Captain!" How the echoes of his voice answered back