Chapter Eighteen.
“That isn’t thunder.”
“Hi! Rouse up! Black fellows!” shouted Rifle, and his brother and cousin started up in bed, ready for the moment to believe him, for there was a black face peering in at their window.
“Get out!” cried Tim, hurling a boot at his cousin, who dodged it, while as soon as Norman had grasped the fact that the face belonged to Shanter he made a rush at his brother, who laughingly avoided it, and then hurrying on their clothes, they went out to find the captain and Uncle Jack, each with a double gun in the hollow of his arm.
“Seen anything, father?” cried Norman.
“No, my boy, all peaceable, and Shanter says there are no black fellows near.”
“Baal black fellow,” said that gentleman. “See plenty mine bunyip, baal come again.”
Here he burst into a roar of laughter, and began imitating the action of a myall black creeping up to the storehouse, going close up to the flour-tub, and looking in before uttering a wild yell, darting back, tumbling, getting up, falling again, rolling over and over, and then jumping up to run away as hard as he could.
He came back panting and grinning in a minute or two, looking from one to the other as if for applause.
“I hope he is right,” said Uncle Jack; “but we shall have to be more careful.”