Jack turned to Monica. She had got on to her feet, and was pushing her hair under her hat.
"Monica," he said, "you'd better get home. Gran's dying."
She looked at him, and a slow, wicked smile of amusement came over her face. Then she broke into a queer, hollow laugh, at the bottom of which was rage and frustration. Then her laugh rose higher.
"Ha! Ha! Ha!" she laughed. "Ah ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! ha-ha-ha! Ah! ! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! ha-ha-ha! Ah! ! ! ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Ah! ha-ha! Ha! Ah! Gran's dying! Ha-ha-ha! Is she really? Oh, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! No, I don't mean it. But it seems so funny! Ah! ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Ah! ha-ha-ha!"
She smothered herself into a confused bubbling. The two men stood aghast, shuddering at the strange, hysterical woman's laughter that went shrilling through the bush. They were horrified lest someone else should hear.
Monica, in her cotton frock and long sweeping skirt, stood pushing her handkerchief in her mouth, and trying in vain to stifle the hysterical laughter that still shook her slender body. Occasionally a strange peal, like mad bells, would break out. And then she ended with a passionate sobbing.
"I know! I know!" she sobbed, like a child. "Gran's dying, and you won't let me go home."
"You can go home," Jack said. "You can go home. But don't go with your face all puffed up with crying."
She gradually gained control of herself, and turned away to her horse. Jack went to help her mount. She got into the saddle, and he gave her the reins. She kept her face averted, and Lucy began to move away slowly, towards the home track.
Easu still stood there, planted with his feet apart, his head a little dropped, and a furious, contemptuous, revengeful hate of the other two in his light blue eyes. He had his head down, ready for an attack. Jack saw this, and waited.