The wind was rising and moaning round the chimney, but above this sound they could hear a long-prolonged "Coo—oo—ee!"
"That's a white man's voice," said Craig; "we're safe."
The door and fort was at once opened, and a minute after five squatters entered.
"Sorry we came so late," they said; "but we've been and done it, and it took some time."
"What have you done?" said Craig.
"Fired the woods all along the gullies among the hills."
"Is that fair to the blacks?"
"Curse them!" exclaimed the spokesman. "Why do they not keep back? The law grumbles if we shoot the dogs, unless in what they please to call self-defence, which means after they have speared our beasts and shepherds, and are standing outside our doors with a nullah ready to brain us."
Craig and Archie went to the door and looked towards the hills.
What a scene was there! The fire seemed to have taken possession of the whole of the highlands from east to west, and was entwining wood and forest, glen and ravine, in its snake-like embrace. The hills themselves were cradled in flames and lurid smoke. The stems of the giant gum trees alone seemed to defy the blaze, and though their summits looked like steeples on fire, the trunks stood like pillars of black marble against the golden gleam behind them. The noise was deafening, and the smoke rolled away to leeward, laden with sparks thick as the snow-flakes in a winter's fall. It was an appalling sight, the description of which is beyond the power of any pen.