"They would come through the house," said the boy. "This fellow has come up the veranda steps. I heard them creak."
A lifetime in great solitude sharpens the hearing to the most extraordinary extent. Children born and brought up in the wilds often have this sense more keenly developed than any other. The Orban children seemed to hear without listening—sounds which, even when she was told of them, Mrs. Orban, with her English training, did not catch till several minutes later.
But now the pad-pad-pad of bare feet was unmistakable—a pad-pad-pad, then a halt, as if the visitor stopped to listen.
Below in the scrub—that wild thick undergrowth among trees, harbouring so many strange creatures—there were hoarse cries, and now and then the howl of a dingo, so horribly suggestive of a human being in an agony of pain.
The pair on the veranda clung together for an instant—one only.
"I must go to Becky," whispered Mrs. Orban, recovering herself.
But Eustace held her down.
"Oh, don't—don't for one moment," he implored; "wait and see what it is."
"Pad-pad-pad" came the steps, nearer and nearer. A shadow fell aslant the corner of the veranda—the shadow of a man thrown by the light from the drawing-room side window.
