“But where—what to do? Wait till father comes home?”
“No. What can he do? Dillon will send me to the chain gang as a dangerous man; and I am now, boy—I am, for it shall only be my dead body they shall take.”
“Leather!”
“No, Nic. Frank Mayne, an honest man. Home with you, boy!”
“But you?”
“I? There’s room enough yonder. To begin a new life of freedom—a savage among the blacks.”
There was a smart blow of the open hand delivered on the horse’s neck, and the startled beast sprang forward into a wild gallop, which the boy could not for the moment check. When he did, and looked round, there was the darkness of the night, the cry of some wild bird; the baying of the dogs had ceased, and he was quite alone.
“He can’t be far,” thought the boy, and he whistled softly again and again, but there was no reply. He tried to pierce the darkness, but it was very black now, and he noticed that the stars had been blotted out, and directly after there came pat; pat, pat—the sound of great drops of rain, the advance-guard of a storm.
It would have been useless to try and follow the convict, and at last Nic let his impatient horse move on at a walk, then it cantered, and then galloped straight for the Bluff, as if trying to escape from the pelting rain, while it quivered at every flash and bounded on as the lightning was followed by a deafening roar.
“There’ll be no trail to follow,” cried Nic exultantly; “it will all be washed away, and he’ll shelter himself under some tree. But hurrah! I shall see him again. Let old Dillon flog the whipping-post, or, if he’s disappointed, let him have old Brookes.”