He went on listening long after he got into bed, for he could not sleep, he was so certain there must be bad news, as neither Mr. Cochrane nor his father returned.
He must have dozed fitfully through the night, but it seemed a terribly long one. Every time he opened his eyes he was wide awake in a minute to the remembrance of what had happened. When he awoke at last to find the sun rising, he could lie still no longer, he was haunted by such restless thoughts. He dressed and went downstairs into the open air.
"Supposing Bob had gone off the track for some reason, and lost his way," ran his thoughts. "Supposing he was wandering about seeking it all night up to this very minute! Supposing he had been waylaid and surrounded by black-fellows!—Sinkum Fung had declared they were camping in the neighbourhood. No, Eustace would not think of that—one white man against a tribe of blacks: it was too terrible! And yet supposing he had been, and no one found out!" Thoughts are sometimes dreadfully uncontrollable things.
"I believe I will go for a ride," he said to himself. "I might just go down to the creek—I won't cross it—but just as far as there, to see if they are in sight. I can do that easily, and be in to breakfast."
He found a man near the stables whom he got to saddle Bolter, then off he started down the slope across the river, and away over the uninteresting stretch of flatness till he again reached the river bank. There he paused, staring towards the mangrove swamp with the same chilled feeling he had experienced the day before. It was the terrible dread that the depths of the woods might hold something ghastly—Bob living, but in awful distress of mind or body; Bob dead!
There were no signs of his father or Mr. Cochrane; no sounds but those of nature. They certainly could not have found Bob at Gairloch. The only alternative seemed the scrub.
Suddenly Eustace threw back his head, and in a shrill treble gave vent to a prolonged Australian "coo-ee."
"If he is there," argued the boy, "of course he will answer. How silly of me not to think of that before."
He could hardly believe his ears for joy, but there was instantly an answer—so faint that he only caught a bit of it; still he heard it.
In wild excitement he coo-eed again, his very loudest this time; and again came the reply, scarcely more distinct, and more like a cry than a coo-ee.