But how to warn him and tell him that he was sure Brookes must have been always watching, and knew pretty nearly if not surely of his hiding-place?
Nic felt that he could not go to the cavern tunnel, nor even approach it. Brookes would for certain be on the look-out, and the trouble would be made worse.
The governor had said that Nic should have a week for consideration, and three days glided by rapidly without an allusion being made by the doctor, who took Sir John about with him for long rides, and in every way expressed his satisfaction at the state of affairs about the station.
“You’ve done wonders, Nic,” he said; but the boy felt no better. There was that sensation of being half guilty always to the front, and there were times when he felt as if he would rather the seven days had come to an end, the subject been broached again, and the horrible suspense over.
“I can’t do anything,” he said to himself. “It is like going more and more against father’s orders to warn poor Frank; but what can I do?”
It was the evening of the fourth day, and as Nic was hanging about the garden outside the fence, listening to Lady O’Hara’s cheery voice and his sister’s answers, while the governor and Doctor and Mrs Braydon were seated in the sunlit verandah, Janet suddenly stood before him.
“Nic,” she said in a low voice, and her face was very pale, “you and I are both sorry for that poor fellow Leather?”
“Yes.”
“Lady O’Hara has been telling me that there will be a party of mounted police here to-morrow on purpose to hunt down escaped convicts.”
“So soon?” said Nic excitedly.