Chapter V.
THE ESCAPE.
It was lonesome and dark. An impressive, significant stillness hung over all Nature. The night animals and birds, which ordinarily filled the bush with noises, seemed to have retired to their lairs and nests. No morepoke called, and no scrub-wallaby hopped through the undergrowth.
After each lightning flash a shudder ran through the forest, the branches murmured softly, and the leaves sighed.
Tom thought the matter over, and calculated.
“It’ll take them an hour and-a-half,” he said, “to get down where they want to go. They won’t be more than half-an-hour breakin’ into the bank and openin’ the safe. Then they’ll come up with the tide in an hour. They’ll be in a bigger hurry to get away than they were to go down. That will fetch ’em home some time before twelve o’clock. Je-rusalem!”
“I say,” asked Dave, as the storm began to abate, “do you believe in ghosts?”
“I dunno,” said Tom, peering round the barn; “did you see anything?”
“No,” replied Dave, looking round also; “did you?”