“Well,” said Etheldene, “I wouldn’t like to be lost in a place like that. I’d rather be bushed where I am. But I think, Mr Brown, you are laughing at me. Are there any snakes in Whitechapel?”
“No, thank goodness; no, miss. I can’t stand snakes much.”
“There was a pretty tiger crept past you just as I was talking though,” she said with great coolness.
Harry jumped and shook himself. Etheldene laughed.
“It is far enough away by this time,” she remarked. “I saw something ripple past you, Harry, like a whip-thong. I thought my eyes had made it.”
“You brought it along with the wood perhaps,” said Craig quietly.
“’Pon my word,” cried Harry, “you’re a lot of Job’s comforters, all of you. D’ye know I won’t sleep one blessed wink to-night. I’ll fancy every moment there is a snake in my blanket or under the saddle.”
“They won’t come near you, Mr Brown,” said Craig. “They keep as far away from Englishmen as possible.”
“Not always,” said Bill. “Maybe ye wouldn’t believe it, but I was bitten and well-nigh dead, and it was a tiger as done it. And if I ain’t English, then there ain’t an Englishman ’twixt ’ere and Melbourne. See that, miss?” He held up a hand in the firelight as he spoke.
“Why,” said Etheldene, “you don’t mean to say the snake bit off half your little finger?”