Still Eustace took no notice.
"Perhaps you will be sorry some day," Nesta said with a little gulp, and turned away to Becky, who was calling her.
Eustace was apparently engrossed in his book, but not a word did he see on the page he stared at so intently. He had done a stupid thing, and he regretted it, for the mischief was past remedy now. Quite unintentionally he had made Nesta as nervous as he was himself, and he knew that nothing he might say would reassure her. He was quite right that there was no use in talking about it; he felt sure that his father would say he ought not to have said so much, and he was vexed with himself for his carelessness. Silence seemed the only course open to him—silence on the subject for the present, and for the future a great, whole-hearted resolve to play the man come what might.
CHAPTER II.
BOB.
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.