Mrs. Orban's words were brave, her whole bearing courageous, but she was more frightened than she had ever been in her life before. It is doubtful whether she really believed her own assertion that nothing more would happen that night, though she tried to. As a matter of fact her prophecy was correct. Scared by the screams of the women, the unpleasant guest must have promptly run away. He was probably alone, and, uncertain as to who was in the house, had fled from the chance of being peppered by a revolver.

It was found in the morning that nothing was missing except the servants' watches, their few small trinkets that were lying on the dressing-table, and Mary's rings. The extraordinary silence with which he had perpetrated the theft, his skill in taking the rings off Mary's hand as it lay outside the coverlet, were not at all unprecedented—the natives were known to be silent and subtle as snakes in their doings.

Mrs. Orban sent Eustace down to the plantation as soon as she knew every one would be astir. Mr. Ashton, the field manager, was suffering from fever, so that it was useless to go to him; but on hearing the story, Robertson, the chief engineer, returned with the boy to look into the matter.

Investigations were in vain; the man had left no tracks around the house, no footprints on the veranda.

The servants were so terrified that they declared they would not stay another night in the house. They wanted to be sent to Cooktown immediately—a five days' journey by sea. Robertson, a big burly Scotsman, roughly told them that such a thing was impossible. They could not get away for another week, when the schooner might be expected to bring provisions. He lectured them on their cowardice in wanting to run away and leave their mistress alone at such a time, but the girls would not listen to reason; they said they would hire horses and ride all the way to the first civilized place they could find.

Then Mrs. Orban tried persuasion. Had they not better wait at least to see whether anything could be heard of their lost possessions? She would offer a reward to any one finding the thief or restoring the stolen goods to their owners—the offer should be made known all over the plantation.

The suggestion carried the day, and the bargain was made. Mrs. Orban felt that at all costs she must keep the maids until Mr. Orban's return, for the work and the solitude would have been too much for her to stand, brave as she had proved herself to be.

The offering of a reward was greatly against Robertson's advice. He pointed out that it would only prove an incentive to further robbery. The plantation hands were an unprincipled lot, and if they discovered that they could get money by stealing things and bringing them back, as if they had discovered them in the possession of some one else, there would be no end to the thefts, and no tangible means of getting hold of the thieves unless they were caught red-handed.

But so anxious was Mrs. Orban to keep the servants that she disregarded Robertson's opinion, and the reward was duly offered. The engineer had one proposal to make, which was accepted. With Mrs. Orban's leave, he said, he, with his wife and two little children, would come up the hill and sleep in the house until Mr. Orban's return. There would be safety in numbers; and if the night visitor came again, some one to deal with him better than by screaming at him.

In spite of the fuller house, and the fact that Robertson's eight-year-old boy was sleeping in Peter's bed that night, Eustace did not feel particularly happy in the hours of darkness before him, after the party had broken up and said good-night.

The door between his mother's room and his own was left open, by way of companionship for them both, but the boy was so overtired as to be restless and unable to go to sleep. To his excited fancy there were unusual sounds about. The creaking of unwarping boards, the soughing of the night breeze round the house, even Sandy Robertson turning round in his bed, with an impatient but sleepy flump at the heat, were noises that set his hair on end and made him feel cold and damp all over again and again. Once or twice he stole from his bed to peer into his mother's room, but she always seemed asleep; or he would look stealthily out of the window, as if he could possibly have seen anything in the dark.

Robertson, with his wife and baby, was in Nesta's room at the other side of the house. It occurred to Eustace that if anything did happen—anything needing immediate action—Robertson was very far away and ungetatable. The boy sat up in bed hugging his knees, making feverish plans as to what he should do supposing the night visitor came again and he should see him.

Unknown to his mother, Eustace had taken the revolver he had been entrusted with the night before to bed with him. He meant to sleep with it under his pillow, but every time he got up to make his investigations he took it, gripped tightly in his hand ready for immediate use.

When the first gray light stole into the room at last, Eustace began to feel drowsy. Almost against his will he lay back on his pillow and fell asleep. He had determined to watch the night through, but a great heaviness overpowered him, and he lay like a log.

It seemed to him he had hardly closed his eyes—indeed, it cannot have been much later, for there was but little difference in the light—when a resounding pistol report rang through the silent house. Eustace awoke with an instant consciousness of having slept on his self-imposed sentry work. He felt queer and oddly shaken as, with a cry of dismay, he sprang out of bed and rushed into his mother's room.

"Oh, what is it?" exclaimed Mrs. Orban, frightened out of her wits by the noise.She stared at Eustace, who stood, revolver in hand, gazing blankly round the room.

"I don't know," he began, stopped abruptly, and added in a choked voice, "Oh, look! look!"

He was staring towards the window. Outside on the veranda, crouching on all fours in the dusk, was a dark figure. With a strange, sudden movement it raised itself and stretched out an arm towards the room—standing lank, tall, and horribly sinister.

Without a moment's hesitation Eustace raised his hand and fired. There was a splintering of glass, a wild howl of pain, and the figure dropped like a stone.

"Eustace," cried Mrs. Orban in a horrified voice, "what have you done?"

"I had to fire first," returned the boy in an odd, sullen tone.

The figure outside moved, and with a succession of dreadful yells began rapidly crawling along the veranda towards the stairs.

At the bedroom door appeared the entire household, Robertson leading the way, his usually ruddy face ghastly with astonishment.

"What on earth is happening?" he asked, staring at Eustace and his mother.

"I've shot something," Eustace faltered. "It is going down the steps—"

Robertson waited to hear no more. Seizing the boy's revolver, he took a short cut through the house for the veranda steps.

"What was it?" asked the frightened women, as they huddled together in the doorway.

"I don't know," Eustace answered—"a black-fellow of some sort. I wonder if I—I killed him."

There had fallen a sudden silence outside; the awful howling had ceased.

Eustace sat down on the edge of his mother's bed feeling sick and shivery. To have killed a man—a white fellow, black-fellow, any sort of fellow; it was horrible!

The most extraordinary sounds arose from the veranda. Had Robertson gone mad, or what could be the matter with him?

"Ho-ho-ho! ha-ha-ha! ho-ho-ho-ho!" he roared.

Every one stood as if paralyzed. There was something terribly uncanny about the laughter. It seemed so ill-timed, so jarring and unkind.

Robertson appeared at the broken window.

"Upon my word, Eustace," exclaimed the Scotsman, "it's the best joke ever I heard or saw. Come and look at your black-fellow and be proud of yourself."

"I can't!" said Eustace, his knees knocking together as he attempted to stand, and he fell back on the bed.

"Oh, what is it, Mr. Robertson?" asked Mrs. Orban.

"Why, it's nothing but a miserable, half-starved dingo-dog that must have prowled up to the house in search of food," Robertson said. "You marked him well—I will say that for you, Eustace. He was dead before I could reach the steps."

"Thank God it was not a human being," exclaimed Mrs. Orban.

"A dingo!" cried Eustace, sitting up suddenly with a perplexed expression in his eyes. "Then who fired the first shot? I mean the one that woke me."The relief faded from Mrs. Orban's face. It was a startling question, an uncomfortable reflection that the first shot had not been accounted for.

"Yes, by the way," she said, "there was that other shot. It seemed to come from Eustace's room, and I was frightened out of my wits. I was thankful to see him safe and sound a minute later."

"I heard two shots distinctly," Robertson said, looking grave; "but of course I fancied Eustace had fired twice at the dingo."

"Not I," said Eustace. "I never saw the beast till I came into mother's room; and I didn't fire till it stood up against the window and looked like a human being."

"H'm," said Robertson. "It strikes me I had better have a look round. Just stay here till I come back."

The women all looked scared. It was not a pleasant idea that the person who fired that first shot was possibly lurking about somewhere in the shadows. They listened breathlessly as Robertson made the tour of the house, momentarily expecting a fresh commotion, the firing of shots and a struggle. Mrs. Robertson was dreadfully upset, and held her two children close; the maids huddled together in a corner. Mrs. Orban stood, revolver in hand, near Becky's bed with such quiet dignity that somehow Eustace was steadied.

The chances were that, finding himself hunted by Robertson, the man would try to effect an escape on to the veranda this way as a short cut to the steps.

If the visitor were the same as that of the night before, it was all important he should be captured—otherwise this disagreeable night raid might be repeated.

But no shots and no sound of a scuffle were heard. Robertson returned to say that he had investigated every nook and cranny that a man might have hidden in, and found no trace of any one having entered the house anywhere.

The little gathering stared about with questioning, bewildered eyes, and no one felt any happier for the news. The fact remained that a shot had been fired by a mysterious being who had apparently vanished into air. For what purpose had that shot been fired? At what? At whom?

"I can't make it out," said Robertson. "There seems no sense in a fellow coming and letting off fireworks in the middle of the night for nothing."

"Perhaps it is a trick of some sort," suggested Mrs. Orban; "some one trying to frighten us. But I don't see that that is possible."

"Nor I," said Robertson. "People aren't in the habit of playing practical jokes without some purpose in them hereabouts. All the same, it doesn't seem much good all of you staying up like this. If you'll just get back to your beds, I'll watch for the rest of the night. It may be a better way of trapping a chap, if he hasn't got clean away by now. That is the most likely thing, of course—his firearm probably went off inadvertently as he was coming round the veranda, and he knew he had done for himself, so made tracks at once. He might come back as soon as he thought the house was quiet again, but I don't expect him."

No one felt much inclined to take Robertson's practical advice. At the same time it seemed foolish to stay up and exhaust themselves for nothing, and Mrs. Orban agreed that every one should go to bed.

Eustace went very reluctantly. He would have liked to stay up and share Robertson's watch like a man; it seemed so childish to be sent to bed after taking part in such an excitement. He wondered what Nesta would have thought of it had she been there.

"Goodness, wouldn't she have been scared!" he reflected. "I do wonder what she would have done."

At least there would be plenty to tell her when she came home. She might be having a jolly time; but Eustace guessed, when it was all over, she would be disappointed at having been out of such adventures as these. There was a sort of glow about the realization that they were such very real adventures—experiences that did not come every day and to every one. The only stupid part about it was having to go to bed.

Mrs. Orban felt no glow in her realization of the situation. She longed for her husband, and wondered how she was going to bear his absence much longer. If this sort of thing were to go on she felt that it would break her nerve entirely.

Having kissed Eustace and sent him away, she felt too restless to get into bed. Sleep she knew would be impossible; and taking a book, she was just sitting down with the set purpose of making herself read awhile, in order to quiet her mind, when a sharp cry reached her from the next room.

"Mother! mother!" Eustace cried, "come here—quick!"

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