Audrey, set at rest from this last great fear, escaped from her questioners, and retreated to Effie and the empty hut, saying reproachfully,—
"How just like Edwin! But they might have told me what they were going to do."
It seemed a moment's reprieve. There was nothing more to be done. Audrey sank upon the bed of fern leaves, weary and wet and worn, unable any longer to resist the craving for a little sleep.
The sailors lit a fire on the open grass beyond the hut, and grouped themselves round it to talk and rest. The poor fellows who had been dragged to shore, clinging to the rope, found their shoeless feet cut and bleeding from the sharp edges of the oyster-shells with which the sands were studded. But when an hour or more passed by, the sunless noon brought with it sharper pangs of hunger to them all.
No cart had returned, no boundary rider had put in an appearance, and the men began to talk of a walk over the grass to find the mansion. They were all agreed as to the best course for them to pursue. They must turn "sundowners"—the up-country name for beggars—tramp across to the nearest port, begging their way from farm to farm. They knew very well no lonely settler dare refuse supper and a night's lodging to a party of men strong enough to take by force what they wanted.
The embankment with its swinging fence, the shepherd's hut where the girls were sleeping, told them where they were—on the confines of a great sheep-run. Their route must begin with the owner's mansion, which could not be very far off, as there was no food in the hut, and no apparent means for cooking any, so Audrey had told them. But now the storm was dying, the captain rose to look round the hut for himself. He was wondering what to do with the Christchurch boy he had undertaken to land at another great sheep-run about twenty-five miles farther along the coast It was of no use to take him back with them, a hundred miles the other way. He hoped to leave him at the mansion. The owner must be a wealthy man, and would most likely undertake to put the boy on board the next steamer, which would pass that way in a week or ten days.
So he called to the boy to go with him, and explained his purpose as they went. They waked up Audrey, to ask the owner's name.
"Feltham," she answered, putting her hand to her head to recall her scattered senses; between rabbiters and sailors she was almost dazed.
To be left alone again in that empty hut, without food, without her brothers, was enough to dismay a stouter heart than hers. The captain spoke kindly.
"I want to see you all safe in this sheep-owner's care before I leave you," he said. "It was stupid in those brothers of yours to go off with the cart, for you are too exhausted to walk."