"Let your boy get you a meal. You've not had a crumb all day, and you must be starving. It was horribly careless of me not to have thought of it before."
"That is rather a bright idea. Had anything yourself? No, I see you haven't. Well, we'll sup, Laura, before you're packed off to bed. It's five o'clock in the afternoon, but we'll call it supper. Trouble?"
"Oh, Carter?"
"We fit for chop. You kill two tin, one-time."
"Oh, Carter, three tin. Me one, Missy two——"
Bang went a gun, as it seemed to their jangled nerves, close at their elbows. They all started violently, and the girl clutched convulsively at Carter's sleeve.
"Dem Okky cannon," wailed the Krooboy, and burrowed forthwith into the casemate of bedding.
"Not it," said Carter. "It's all right, Laura. It's a steamer's mail gun. I never heard the roar of a loaded cannon till this morning, but once heard, you can't mistake it for blank cartridge."
"Are you sure?"
"Absolutely. I jumped when the thing went off, but then I suppose we're all a bit fagged. Here, Trouble, you shirker, get dem chop one-time, and then find some limes. We shall have the steamer people ashore in ten minutes, and when they hear the yarn they'll want about five cocktails apiece to congratulate us in. Lord! Laura, but I'd give a tooth and two finger nails to have Mr. K. dropping in on us during the next hour or so to see the fine way we've saved O'Neill and Craven's factory from a total loss. I believe he'd raise my screw with such a jump that you and I might get married out of hand. Let's see, what boat's due? I've hardly got your time-table in my head; one gets rusty at Malla-Nulla."