All this time the youngsters had been straining and tiptoeing to get a glimpse at whatever was causing so much interest and excitement amongst those of the pleasure-seekers who were fortunate enough to have a peep. Just then the crowd swayed and split, so that through the opening they had an uninterrupted view of the performers who had drawn about them so many of the sightseers.
They numbered three—an ugly red-haired man, with coarse features and squint eye, armed with a heavy-handled dog-whip; a tall, black-browed, sad-faced woman; and a bear, big, brown, shaggy, and savage-looking.
For one long moment the children gazed at the group as if spellbound. Then, with a ringing cry from Joan and a choking sob from Darby, they instinctively clutched at each other's hands and fled in the direction of the open ground beside the water, coming bang up against their father just as he was sauntering slowly forward to join them.
"Daddy, daddy! the bear, the bear!" screamed Joan, hiding her small, scared face against her father's arm, burrowing her fluffy head beneath his coat like a frightened rabbit.
"Do you know what the people over there are staring at, father?" asked Darby, in a low, strained voice, while his lips quivered so that he could hardly articulate the words. "It's Joe, father, Thieving Joe—Joe Harris and Moll! They've got Bruno with them—the bear, you remember—and he's dancing and capering. But there's foam at his mouth, and his eyes are glittering; for Joe's raging at him just the way he used to do, and lashing him on his legs with the long whip. Oh, it's dreadful!" and the boy shuddered, more at the recollection of past terror than in fear of present danger. His father's strong fingers were folded firmly round his little hand; so he held up his head and tried to feel brave.
"Are you sure?" asked Major Dene, in a queer, tense tone—a tone which Darby had never heard from his father in all his life before.
"Quite, quite sure," answered the boy decidedly. "Do you think I could be mistaken?"
"And I's sure too," added Joan, lifting her head for the first time, and looking timidly about her with wide, tearful blue eyes, as if she expected to see Bruno waiting to play at hide-and-seek with her from behind her father's back. "I'd like to speak to Mrs. Moll, 'cause she heard me say my p'ayers and put me to bed. But I don't want never to see that howid Joe or the dwedful big bear no more. Please pwomise you won't let them come near us, daddy!" she begged in piteous accents.
"Take the children home at once—directly," said Major Dene to Perry, who, breathless and flushed, at this point joined them, with Eric kicking and struggling in her arms, quite cross, because he wanted a longer look at the huge beast, which in his baby eyes appeared neither more nor less than a great big pussy cat.
"Please, sir—" began Perry; but the expression of her master's face checked the words, whatever she had intended to say, on the woman's lips, and obediently she drew the little ones away. It was such a look as his men might have seen in their commander's eyes as he doggedly led them on to avenge some of the blood that has flowed so free and red to enrich the arid plains of South Africa, at the cost, alas! of the impoverishment of many a desolated heart. But none of his home folks had ever seen those frank, smiling eyes snap and sparkle in the way they did now, like broken steel; not one of them would have imagined that those almost boyish features could set in such stern, grim lines as they fell into while he waited for the much and long desired interview with the rascal who had tried to rob him of his children.