A MOONLIGHT DISTURBANCE.
"Aunt Dorothy's cows" became as great a family joke as "Aunt
Dorothy's lunatics;" indeed, scarcely a day passed that the
household was not amused by some quaint mistake of hers. Every one
chaffed her, especially Bob; and as the two patients rapidly
recovered, the house-party was a merry one. In spite of the thought
of parting with his family so soon, Mr. Orban was in much better
spirits; the cane had been safely cut, the good crop had been
spoiled neither by fire nor the rainy season coming too soon, and
the crushing was well in progress.
"Oh dear," exclaimed Nesta one morning at breakfast, "I am so sorry
you are getting well, Bob."
"Very kind of you, I'm sure," said Bob with deliberate politeness.
"One is always so glad of one's friends' good wishes."
Every one laughed except Nesta.
"Well, you know what I mean," she said. "Of course the minute you
are well you will go, and the house will be duller than ever
without you."
"Very prettily put for the rest of us, dear," said Miss Chase. "I
am sure we feel much complimented."
"I don't know what you mean," said Nesta in bewilderment. "I didn't
mean to compliment any one."
"You achieved it, however," said Bob. "You called them a pack of
dull dogs not fit to live with. Of course they feel charmed with
your opinion."
"Oh, I didn't," said Nesta.
"You inferred it," said Miss Chase. "However, we forgive you.
Fortunately we shan't be able to die of dullness entirely, because
there will be so much to be done preparing for the voyage."
"I vote Bob stays with us till we go," said Eustace.--"He would be
jolly useful, wouldn't he, mother?"
"Really, Eustace," remonstrated Mrs. Orban with a laugh, "I am
ashamed of you. Is that the way you treat your friends?"
Eustace reddened and looked uncomfortable as the laugh went round.
Glancing deprecatingly at Bob, he found that he was not even
smiling. It did seem a cheeky way of putting it.
"I beg your pardon," he began, when Bob interrupted quickly.
"No, don't. I was only thinking what a jolly thing you had said.
What are friends for if they are not to be made use of?"
"That is rather a dangerous theory to propound," said Mr. Orban.
"Supposing your friends take advantage of it--what then?"
"A real friend never would take advantage of it," said Bob with
certainty; "that is just how you can test him. The chap who will
take nothing from you, but only give, is a patronizing bounder; the
fellow who will give nothing to you, but only take, is a mean
beggar; the man who will give and take equally is your chum. Hold
on to him when you've got him."
"An excellent definition, Bob," said Mr. Orban, with a genial
smile. "We shall certainly never let you go."
There was a second's pause, then Bob said quietly,--
"Thank you, sir. I guess I shall hold on to all of you too."
It took Nesta to the end of breakfast to unravel the meaning of the
sudden gravity that had fallen over the party, and then she was not
sure of herself.
"Why, you silly," said Eustace, to whom she appealed in private,
"don't you see?--Father as good as said it--Bob is the right kind
of chap to have for a chum. And so he is. I guess I know that
better than any one."
"I don't see why you should," exclaimed Nesta jealously. "We all
know Bob; he isn't anybody's in particular. He said himself he
meant to hold on to _all_ of us, not just one person only."
Her tone was "snubby" in the extreme, but Eustace was utterly
silent for a moment.
Nesta did not know it; he would never know it himself; but there
was a big difference in Eustace nowadays. He had not gone through
great experiences untouched; some things in life leave an indelible
impression.
"Yes," he said thoughtfully, "I'm glad he said that."
Nesta was so astonished at getting no response to her assertion
that she exclaimed,--
"Said what?"
"Why, that he will hold on to us," Eustace said.
"Well," Nesta remarked, again with a touch of superiority, "of
course we all knew that without his telling us."
Eustace eyed her with a quietness that somehow irritated the girl.
She could not understand him at all, and nothing annoyed Nesta so
much as to discover she was not understanding something that was
perfectly clear to somebody else.
"Didn't you know it?" she asked sharply.
"Of course," said Eustace dreamily.
"Then what do you mean?" Nesta demanded.
"I was thinking about going to England," was the seemingly
irrelevant reply.
"What has that got to do with it?" said Nesta.
"Everything," Eustace said. "If we had been going to stay here for
ever and ever I shouldn't have thought so much about it. As it is,
it means a lot that good old Bob won't forget us."
"Why, how stupid you are to-day," Nesta exclaimed. "Did you think
he might in 'a year and a day,' as mother calls it?"
"How do you know it will be only 'a year and a day'?" Eustace said
almost roughly. "How do you know we shall ever come back?"
"Eustace!" cried Nesta, staring at him as if she thought he must
have suddenly gone mad.
"Well?" he said briefly.
"But this is home--and father is staying here," the girl argued.
"We couldn't stay in England for ever."
"I don't know," said Eustace. "I've got an awfully queer feeling
about going ever since it was settled. And it seems to me Bob has
it too."
"Oh, stuff!" said Nesta bracingly. "Bob only says it to tease Aunt
Dorothy."
"He said just the same things before Aunt Dorothy came," was the
response. "That is nothing to go by."
"Well, neither are your queer feelings," said Nesta. "I haven't
any. I don't see why we should stay in England. What is to make
us?"
"Suppose we were left there to go to school?" suggested Eustace,
watching her narrowly.
Nesta stared at him blankly. It was evidently a new idea to her.
"Do you think we might be?" she said; then her expression broke,
and she smiled. "It would be just splendid, wouldn't it?" she
added.
Eustace was silent a moment.
"You wouldn't mind leaving Trixy?" he said.
"Well, I should come back again," Nesta answered, feeling somehow
annoyingly rebuked, "and I should have such loads and shoals of
things to tell her and show her. All about the girls and my
clothes, you know--"
"Oh," exclaimed Eustace in a tone of disgust, "that is all girls
care about--talking, and showing off."
"It isn't," Nesta said quickly. "I should like the learning."
"Well, I shouldn't," admitted Eustace frankly; "I hate learning. It
is only games that make school worth going to, and that isn't
enough to make up for other things."
"What other things?" asked Nesta curiously.
"Oh, never mind," said Eustace impatiently; "I don't want to talk
about it."
But Nesta did exceedingly; she wanted to talk of nothing else; till
at last Eustace went off in desperation down the hill to watch the
sugar crushing, saying something about, "It isn't as if people
could come back to Queensland for the holidays," and "Everything
would be different when they were all grown up."
"I don't know what is the matter with him," Nesta said to herself
in perplexity. "I do believe he doesn't want to go at all. And I'm
sure he is wrong about our staying there. No such luck!"
Bob did stay on after he was quite well and strong, and he entirely
justified Eustace's prophecy. He proved most useful; nothing
apparently could have been done without him. "But for Bob," said
Mrs. Orban, "I don't believe we should ever be ready in time."
It was he who saw to the soundness of the travelling boxes, to the
making of a packing case; he who had advice and assistance to give
to every one, and who was certainly the life and spirit of the
party in the evenings when other people seemed tired or out of
heart. Eustace was not at all in good form. Mrs. Orban was at times
inclined to have grave misgivings as to the wisdom of the step, and
of course felt leaving her husband. Mr. Orban himself, though he
insisted on the trip, was naturally a little sad at the prospect.
Even Aunt Dorothy--the witch--had her moments of sadness that her
visit should be drawing so rapidly to a close. Only to Nesta and
Peter did the time seem to drag and hang heavy, as if it would
never pass.
"You'll have to come back with them, Miss Chase," said Bob a few
evenings before the great departure.
"I wish I could," she said; "but I am quite sure mother and father
won't see the force of that."
"Well, I think you ought to--don't you, Mrs. Orban?" Bob said.
"Miss Chase hasn't had half enough Colonial experiences yet."
"The few you have given me have been sufficiently vivid to count
for a good many though," said the girl merrily. "I don't know that
I really want any more."
"One doesn't always want what is good for one," said Bob. "Besides,
there is another way of looking at it--isn't there, Nesta? It has
been proved you are a witch. You ought to be brought back by main
force to be punished for whisking these good people all off to
England with you."
"So she ought," said Nesta gleefully. "She must be burned at the
stake. We'll make you come."
"We will, Aunt Dorothy," cried Peter, ready for the fray; "and if
you won't, we'll get Bob to come and fetch you."
"Will you really, Peter Perky?" retorted Aunt Dorothy. "I should
like to see you. Why, Mr. Cochrane wouldn't set his nose inside
England for all the witches in the world."
"Well, no, perhaps not for all the witches in the world," said Bob
thoughtfully; "they might prove rather too much for me. But what a
lot of nonsense we talk, to be sure."
The nonsense had the effect of sending Miss Chase to bed quite
unusually meditative, and, do what she would, she could not get off
to sleep for wondering whether she ever would come back to
Queensland again. It seemed of all things most impossible, and yet,
as she argued, who would ever have thought of her coming at all
this time only a year ago?
She had become accustomed to most of the night sounds that had at
first puzzled and sometimes frightened her, and by day there was
something about the life that delighted her--it was so free, such
an open air existence! "They seem to me to sweep all their worries
with the dust over the edge of the veranda," she thought. "I think
England will feel a little stiff and shut in after it."
It was a bright moonlight night. A deluded cock at about midnight
awoke and fancied it must be day. He crowed so loudly over his
discovery that he roused a great enemy of his, who replied in husky
irritation and no measured terms that he was a fool. But the
mischief was done--some half-dozen young cockerels took the matter
up as a joke, and crowed persistently in spite of all remonstrance
from the rest of the poultry.
Miss Chase put her head under the bedclothes and tried to shut out
the sound, but in vain. Besides, it was far too hot to sleep with a
buried nose and mouth. Resolutely keeping her eyes tight shut, she
set her mind upon nothing but sleep. She must have lain like that
for quite ten minutes, when suddenly her eyes unclosed in spite of
her, just as if they were worked by a spring, and she was as wide
awake as ever. At least so she fancied the first instant, but the
next she thought she must be dreaming. There had been no
sound--nothing but Nesta's regular breathing--and yet at the other
side of the room, standing with his back towards her, was the
figure of a man.
Her first impulse was to call out, her second prompted caution, and
she pinched herself hard to make sure whether she was awake or
not. There was no doubt about it--she was not asleep; the pinch
hurt considerably, and the man was still there. He was apparently
examining the things on her dressing-table minutely, and she
guessed he was looking for valuables. Knowing the story of the dark
visitor who had frightened every one so before her arrival, Miss
Chase had followed the general rule and left nothing of any value
lying about, though no one thought a thief would venture into the
house now that it was so full. Here he certainly was, however, and
the question was, "What ought she to do?"
Miss Chase lay absolutely still, her heart beating to suffocation,
her mind working rapidly. There was no saying that this was the
same man. He might be of a much more desperate and vicious
character. Had she been alone she might have risked screaming for
help, but there was also Nesta to be considered; she dared not
expose the child to a knock on the head to silence her.
The man took a slow tour of the room, peering into nooks and
corners in a stealthy, silent way that was most eerie to watch.
Miss Chase bore it until at last he went towards Nesta's bed with
that cat-like, sinister gait. The horror of his approaching the
helpless sleeper at the other side of the room was too much for the
girl's strained nerves. His back was towards her; he fancied her
asleep. Slipping her hand under her pillow she drew out a small
revolver, then sat up softly and took careful aim. There was a
report, a howl of fear and pain, and the man turned to gaze wildly
round the room. Nesta sprang from her bed with a terrified yell and
rushed to her aunt, who sat, still pointing her weapon at the
intruder, with a look of grim determination in her eyes.
With a heavy groan the man started towards the window, limping
pitifully. He disappeared out on to the veranda, leaving a trail of
blood across the uncarpeted floor.
"Now go for your father," said Miss Chase, giving the trembling
girl a push. "Tell him what has happened."
Nesta needed no second bidding, but she had not reached the door
before it opened and Mr. Orban dashed in.
"Through there," said Miss Chase, pointing towards the window.
"Follow the blood track. He can't go fast. I winged him."