Eustace was right: their father would not have gone to Brisbane had it not been necessary; but this was not because Mr. Orban was troubled by any fears for the safety of his family. He had lived so long in North Queensland that he was used to the solitude, and thought nothing of the dangers surrounding them. It distressed him to have to go away simply because he knew that his wife would be terribly nervous without him. Fifteen years in the colony had not accustomed her to the loneliness of their position.

Besides the two engineers, and the field manager, Mr. Ashton, who all lived at the foot of the hill, the Orbans had no white neighbours nearer than five miles off. The field hands were coloured men of some five or six different races, chiefly Chinese or Malays—the good-for-nothing riff-raff of their own countries come to seek a living elsewhere.

There was no society, no constant dropping in of friends, nothing to relieve the monotony of daily life. But none of this did Mrs. Orban mind; she was always busy and content by day. It was only of the night-time she was afraid, when strange-voiced creatures were never silent an hour, weird cries from the scrub pierced the air, and there arose from the plantation below wild sounds, sometimes of revelry over a feast, the beating of tom-toms, and wailing of voices as the natives conducted their heathen worship, or indulged in noisy quarrels likely to end in bloodshed between antagonistic tribes.

But though for some reasons the coolies were not pleasant neighbours, the house on the hill had nothing to fear from them. Their worst feature was their utter uselessness in any real danger, coming from quite another quarter. Though they might serve him solely for their own benefit, and were for the most part thieves and rogues, the coolies had no desire to harm the white man personally.

But wandering stealthily through the woods, homeless and lawless, is a race that hates the white man—the aborigines of Australia. Civilization has driven them farther and farther north, for the Australian black-fellows cannot be tamed and trained—their nature is too wild and fierce to be kept within bounds except by fear and crushing. They are treacherous and savage, and most repulsive in appearance. Though spoken of as black, they are really chocolate-brown, but so covered with hair as to be very dusky.

Being very cunning in their movements, it is always difficult to know where they are, and there are often such long lapses between the times they are heard of, that most people forget their existence as a matter of any importance. But Mr. Orban knew that his wife was haunted by a very constant horror of them—a dread lest one night the blacks should make a raid upon their plantation, as they had been known to do upon other white men's dwellings.

What neither Mr. nor Mrs. Orban realized was how much Eustace and Nesta knew of certain terrible events happening from time to time in just such isolated homes as their own. It was from the two young white maidservants the children heard tales they listened to with a kind of awful enjoyment by day, but which were remembered at night with a shudder. The creaking of the wooden house in which they lived as the boards contracted after the tropical heat of day, and the weird sounds rising from the plantation below, held a hundred terrors to be ashamed of in the morning.

Eustace and Nesta never spoke of these night panics to any one, least of all to each other—they seemed so silly when broad daylight proved there had been absolutely nothing to be cowardly about.

By some unspoken rule Peter was never allowed to hear these stories. He was always considered so very much younger than Eustace and Nesta that even the servants had the sense not to frighten him. So Peter's spirits were not damped by the thought of their father's departure, and he knew nothing of the queer little tiff that had taken place between Eustace and Nesta.

It is very odd how people can quarrel over a matter upon which they are perfectly agreed; but they frequently do, especially when it has anything to do with fear.

Nesta went to bed that night still in the sulks, with an air of "You'll be sorry some day" about her every attitude. Eustace seemed inseparable from his book, and disinclined to talk. He went heavily to bed, more troubled than ever because, though his mother was unusually merry, making much of all the presents from England, and showing great interest in them, he saw she was very white, and there was still a strange look about her eyes. He suspected her gaiety to be only put on for their amusement, and he felt sorrier and sorrier for her.

But a good night's rest did wonders for both children, and they came in to breakfast in better humours. Nesta forgot to be tragic when she heard her father and mother discussing what material should be brought from Brisbane for the girls' new dresses. New clothes were a rare event for the Orban children, and always caused a good deal of excitement.

Eustace had been up early, and everything looked so calm, peaceful, and ordinary about the place that he was inclined to be more than half ashamed of his outburst the day before. "After all," he argued, "nothing ever has happened to us—why should it now? The black-fellows have never come this way. Why should they, just because father is away? How could they get to know of his going? Besides, the plantation isn't so awfully far off."

He had stood on the veranda and stared down at the sugar mill lying at the foot of the hill, where Robertson and Farley lived; at Mr. Ashton's house, and all the familiar, odd-shaped huts in which the coolies lived. It was all just as he had seen it every day of his life, and nothing had ever happened—why, indeed, should it now?

Mrs. Orban's interest in the new dresses was certainly not feigned."Now, Jack," she was saying as Eustace entered the room, "don't—don't go and ask for dusters. It is that pretty pink and blue check zephyr I want—pink for Becky, and blue for Nesta."

"Well, dear, you must confess it is just like duster stuff—now, isn't it?" demanded Mr. Orban with a laugh.

"O daddy, not a bit!" Nesta exclaimed. "What a horrid thought!"

"Some of mother's dusters are very pretty, young woman," said her father. "I wouldn't mind having shirts made of them myself."

"I should object very much," Mrs. Orban said with a laugh; "you would look like a coolie. But let us talk sense again."

Talking sense meant talking business, which on this occasion was the making out of a list of really rather dull things wanted in the house.

Daily life begins early on a sugar plantation. It was now only half-past six, and the house had been astir since half-past four; the children playing, Mrs. Orban working about the house, and Mr. Orban away down on the plantation. The comparative cool of the morning was the best time for any sort of activity. Later, as the fierce December sun rose higher, even the children became listless and disinclined to race about.

After breakfast, when Mr. Orban went back to work, Mrs. Orban gave the children lessons—the only teaching they had ever had. At eleven Mr. Orban returned for early dinner.

To our English ideas the routine seems strange; but the Orban children were used to it, and had no realization of how different was life in their parents' old home. It did not seem at all funny even to the twins to have tea at five, and go to bed at half-past six or seven. They were generally very ready for sleep by then, after their long, exhausting day.

"I say, father," Eustace said suddenly, after a long meditation while business was being discussed, "I can stay up to dinner with mother when you are away—can't I? It will be awfully dull for her if I don't."

"And me too," said Nesta, who never allowed it to be forgotten that, being the same age as Eustace, she claimed the same privileges.

"Rot," said Eustace; "you're only a girl."

"And me too," chimed in Peter.

"Oh, you silly baby," said Eustace impatiently, "what good would you do?"

Peter's delicate face became scarlet.

"I could play games with mother quite as well as you," he said with an angry frown.

"Mother doesn't want amusing like that to keep her from being dull," Eustace declared. "She wants somebody who can talk sensibly like father, and be grown up."

Nesta gave a little derisive laugh.

"Like father!" she repeated; "that is funny. I suppose you think you could be just like him. Why don't you ask him to let you smoke one of his pipes at once?"

"Don't be silly, Nesta," Eustace retorted.

"It's you who are silly," Nesta said, "thinking only boys can be grown up or of any use."

"When you have quite done snapping each other's heads off," interposed their father in his deep, quiet voice, "perhaps you will allow me to speak. As a matter of fact, the mother thinks of going to bed with the cocks and hens herself."

"To bed with the cocks and hens!" repeated Peter, with an expression of blank surprise in his blue eyes.

Now the cocks and hens many of them roosted under the house, which was built on pillars, and set some distance above the ground. It was not an attractive spot at any time, for here there also lived many strange creatures, snakes amongst them.

"Well, not exactly in the henhouse, Peter," said his father, with a twinkle in his eyes. "I dare say she will sleep as usual in her own bedroom. I was referring more to the hour at which she says she means to go to bed—not very long after you."

"Still you will have dinner—won't you, mummie?" Eustace said.

"Certainly," Mrs. Orban answered with a smile; "and I don't think it would be a bad plan for you and Nesta to stay up for it, if you will promise not to get up quite so early in the morning. We will have dinner directly after Peter and Becky are in bed; but we won't sit up late ourselves, any of us."

Mrs. Orban certainly showed no signs of nervousness to-day; the strained expression had left her eyes; she was laughing and talking quite naturally.

"I suppose," thought Eustace, "she was partly upset by the parcel from England."

"Father," Nesta exclaimed, "I'm certain I hear a horse coming up the hill. Who can it be at this time of day?"

"Don't know, I'm sure," said her father; "it might be one of a dozen people. You had better go and sing out 'friend or foe' over the veranda; but I dare say it isn't a horse at all. More probably it is old Hadji with the mail bag that ought to have come with the parcel yesterday."

But the three elder children had disappeared out on to the veranda and were leaning over, straining their eyes down the road that wound up the hill from the plain.

It was a very rough road, with ruts in it sometimes two or three feet deep. During the rains little better than a bog, it was now burnt hard as flint.

There was nothing to be seen though a mile of road was visible, lost now and then among bends; but the children listened breathlessly, and at last Eustace said,—

"It is two horses and a four-wheel buggy, and it has only just begun the hill. Let's go in and tell father."

"Oh, what a bother it is so far off!" Nesta exclaimed, with a sigh of impatience. "We shall have to wait ages to find out who it is."

"Who do you think it can be, father?" Peter asked, as Eustace explained what he believed to be coming.

"How should I know?" Mr. Orban answered with mock seriousness.

"It might be a magician with milk-white steeds, or a fairy godmother, Peter, in a coach made out of pumpkins," said Mrs. Orban.

"O mother!" Peter cried impatiently, "don't be silly—"

The sentence was never completed; it finished in a howl of mingled pain and rage. "What on earth is the matter now?" asked Mr. Orban.

"Eustace ki-ki-kicked me," stormed Peter, making a dive at his brother with doubled fists; but his father caught him and held him pinioned.

"I can pretty well guess why," said the big man severely. "If he hadn't, I should have spanked you myself. How dare you say 'don't be silly' to your mother?"

Peter hung his head.

"I didn't mean—" he began.

"I should just think you didn't mean it," said his father. "You'll kindly remember you've no right by birth to be a cad, and it is caddish for a gentleman to speak like that to a lady—whether he is ten years old or a hundred."

"Besides," said Eustace, looking furiously at the small culprit, "mother couldn't be silly if she tried."

Peter's humbled expression changed.

"It wasn't for you to kick me," he spluttered resentfully; "I'll kick you back."

"Oh, if you like to be a donkey," began Eustace in a lordly tone.

"Who was donkey first?" demanded Peter.

"I guess," said Nesta, who was accustomed to these scenes, "the buggy may be in sight at the first bend by now. I'm going to look."

Eustace followed.

"Well, Peter, what comes next?" asked Mr. Orban, without letting go the child's wrists.

Peter looked over his shoulder towards his mother—the blue eyes were swimming with tears, there was a choke in his voice. "I'm sorry, mummie," he gasped.

The next moment he was clasped in his mother's arms, there was a manful struggle with gathering tears, and then like an arrow from a bow Peter was off to the veranda with every intention of thumping Eustace soundly. But the news that greeted him there put the recent fray right out of his mind.

"It is a buggy, Peter," said Nesta, "and I believe Bob Cochrane is driving it."

Now the Cochranes were the Orbans' nearest neighbours—the family that lived only five miles away. It consisted of a father and mother and this young fellow Robert, who was six-and-twenty, the idol and greatest admiration of the Orban children's hearts. In their eyes there was nothing Bob could not do; his shooting, his driving and riding, his jokes, his ways—everything about him was wonderful. A visit from Bob was a splendid event, no matter what the hour of the day.

Bob had a sister who was about the twins' age, and Nesta's only friend.

"It looks just like Bob's driving," said Eustace.

Then they waited with eager faces, too excited to speak, till suddenly they all cried at once,—

"It is Bob—it is—it is—it is!"

Mr. and Mrs. Orban came out on to the veranda, Becky toddling behind.

"There is no doubt about it," said Mr. Orban as he watched the jolting, bumping carriage toiling up the terribly steep hill that was almost too much for the horses, fine beasts though they were.

"How strange of him to come in the buggy instead of riding, as he is alone," said Mrs. Orban."Yes," chimed in Nesta, "that was just what I was thinking. Bob always—always rides, excepting—"

She paused to think whether she had ever seen Bob driving before, and Eustace finished her sentence for her.

"Excepting when he doesn't," he said.

"Goose," said Nesta tartly.

"Or, more correctly speaking, 'gander,'" said Mr. Orban. "Well, we needn't squeeze our heads to a pulp trying to guess what we shall learn from Bob without the slightest trouble in another twenty minutes at most."

When Bob Cochrane came within earshot he was greeted with such a chorus of yells that not a single word could he hear of what the children were trying to say. He grinned back good-humouredly, waved, and whipping up his horses, came as fast as he could under the veranda. Then he gathered the meaning of the noise.

"What have you come for, Bob?" shouted the three.

"What have I come for?" he repeated, with his particular laugh which had a way of setting every one else off laughing too as a rule. "Well, upon my word, that is a nice polite way to greet a chap. I had better be off again."

He was big, fair-haired, and gray-eyed, not handsome, but far too manly for that to matter. As Manuel the Manila boy ran round the house to take charge of the horses, Bob got down from the buggy and sprang up the veranda steps in contradiction of his own words. He was surrounded at the top by the children, all talking at once. Without an attempt at answering, he picked up Becky, who adored him with the rest, and passed on to Mr. and Mrs. Orban.

"I apologize for the disorder," Mr. Orban said, "but they have been working themselves up into a fever of expectation ever since they first heard the buggy wheels. Seriously though, I hope nothing is wrong at home. Your mother isn't ill, is she? You haven't come to fetch the wife as nurse, or anything?"

Such friendly acts as these were the common courtesies of their simple colonial life. But Bob only laughed now.

"Oh, nothing wrong at all," he replied. "Mater is right enough; it is only Trix who is the trouble now. She doesn't seem to pick up after that last bout of fever, and she is so awfully depressed and lonely, mother thought if you would let me take a couple of the children—Nesta and another—back with me for a week, it might brighten the kiddy up. Could you spare them, Mrs. Orban?"

"With pleasure," began Mrs. Orban readily, when Nesta started a sort of war-dance with accompanying cries of delight.

"When you have quite done!" said Bob, with a solemn stare that quelled the disturbance after a moment. "I shan't have an ear to hear with by the time I get home, at this rate. Well, who is the other one to be? You, Eustace?"

Eustace coloured deeply. There was nothing he would have liked better. To go to the Highlands, as the Cochranes' plantation was called, was the greatest pleasure that could have been offered him—the treat had only come his way about twice in his life. It meant so much—rides with Bob, shooting with Bob, long rambles always with his hero.

"I should like to awfully," he said, and stopped, looking beseechingly at his father.

"Why, what's the matter, old chap?" asked Bob in a kindly voice. "You're as limp as if all the starch had been boiled out of you. Come along if you want to, of course. Peter can come another time, if it's afraid of being selfish that you are."

"But it isn't that," Eustace said with difficulty. "I mean I can't. You see, father is going away, and I couldn't leave mother."

Bob darted a quick look at Mr. Orban.

"Are you really going away?" he asked—"any distance, I mean?"

"Unfortunately, yes," Mr. Orban said gravely. "I have to be away about a fortnight or three weeks. I go the day after to-morrow."

Bob looked serious.

"Oh, I say," he said, "I'm sorry."

To Nesta, standing there in the sunshine, with a great big pleasure ahead of her, the words conveyed nothing beyond a civil sympathy with the annoyance it must be to Mr. Orban to have to go away on business. To Eustace, who must stay behind, there was something underlying those few words that brought back all the fears of the day before.

"It is a nuisance, but it can't be helped," Mr. Orban said; "business won't wait."

"I am sorry," repeated Bob, with that same strange solemnity, "because I can't offer to come and stay here while you are away. Father is going away too, and of course I couldn't leave the mater and Trix. If only it hadn't happened just now—"

"It is very good of you to think of it, Bob," said Mrs. Orban, "but of course we shall be perfectly safe. I think I would rather you took Peter, though," she added in a lower tone. "Eustace is more companionable. I can spare one of the twins, but not both at once."

"Of course," agreed Bob.

He was strangely unlike his usual cheerful self, but he roused himself, as every one seemed to be looking at him, and added, "Could the children be ready to go back with me soon?"

"Stay till the heat is over, and drive home in the cool with them," suggested Mr. Orban. "I'll say good-bye for the present; I'm due at the plantation."

Eustace was left alone with Bob, for the others went with their mother to watch her preparations for their departure.

"Well, old man," questioned Bob from the depths of a cane chair, where he had flung himself for a quiet smoke, "what's up?"

Eustace stood staring at him.

"I say," he said with some difficulty, "it's beastly about father going, isn't it?"

"Rather," said Bob carelessly. "Mrs. Orban will feel awfully dull."

"That isn't the worst of it," said the lad mysteriously.

"Really?" questioned Bob indifferently, as he packed his pipe with great apparent interest.

"You know it isn't, Bob," Eustace broke out desperately."Do I?" questioned Bob lazily, but with a shrewd glance at the thin, pale face before him. "Why, what's the trouble?"

"It's the black-fellows," Eustace said in a half whisper.

Bob raised his eyebrows a little, and was again attentive to his pipe.

"Indeed?" he said; "what about them?"

"They are all round us in the scrub; you never know where they are," Eustace said with a gulp.

"They always are, and one never does," said Bob lightly. "I don't see that it matters. Are you in a funk about them?"

The cool question brought crimson to Eustace's cheeks.

"No," he said sturdily, "but they are a fearfully low grade lot, and—and they have done some awful things in lonely places, out of revenge, on white people."

Bob looked up sharply.

"What do you know about it?" he asked in a voice that sounded almost stern.

"The servants—Kate and Mary—have told us stories," Eustace explained.

"Oh, they have, have they?" Bob positively snorted in indignation. "Then they deserve to be sacked."

He was silent a long time, puffing out volumes of smoke, then he said suddenly,—

"Look here, Eustace, don't get stupid and frightened about the black-fellows. Your father has never done them any harm; they have nothing to revenge here, for he hasn't interfered with any of them.""But Kate says that doesn't matter," Eustace said dismally. "She says they have a deadly hatred against all white people."

"Kate is an ignorant goose," growled Bob; "much she can know about it! Why, my father has had black-fellows in his employment for years, and they've been all right. Don't you listen to Kate's nonsense."

There was silence awhile, then Bob went on,—

"But I tell you what I'll do, if it will be any comfort to Mrs. Orban. I'll come over nearly every day and hang about the place as if I were living here. How would that do?"

"I should like it, of course, and I believe mother would," said the boy slowly.

"Of course you would be all right anyhow," Bob said bracingly.

"Of course," repeated Eustace with less certainty, hesitated, then went on haltingly, "but supposing—of course I believe you, Bob—but just only supposing one night some black-fellows did turn up, what should you do?"

"I should shoot them," Bob said promptly.

"But if you were me?" questioned Eustace.

"Oh, if I were you," repeated Bob thoughtfully. "Well, of course, you wouldn't shoot them—they wouldn't be scared enough of a chap your size. On the whole, I think if I were you I should scoot down the hill as hard as I could go for Robertson, Farley, and Ashton. They would soon settle matters."

"But that would be leaving mother to face them alone," objected Eustace.

Bob stared solemnly for one moment, then broke into a laugh."Cheer up, old boy," he exclaimed; "you look as if you had a whole tribe at your heels this minute. Why, what has happened to you? I thought you had more spirit than to be scared by a pack of silly maids' stories."

The laugh was so genuine, the look in Bob's eyes so quizzical, that Eustace felt suddenly abashed, and as if he had been making a stupid fuss about nothing. With all his heart he wished he had not mentioned the subject to Bob—Bob whose opinion he valued above all others, except, perhaps, his own father's.

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