"Ay, ay, lad," cried Fred.
"Somebody else been heah las' night sah, gaddering flowers foh true."
"Who? what, Quambo?"
"Dunno, sah; surely de debil himse'f, sah."
That night all hands went along the beach and waited quite a long time, but the kelpie failed to put in an appearance.
Next evening it was suggested they should hide in the bush—not certainly in the grove itself. So here once again they waited and watched.
Nothing came out of the sea; but before they had been in hiding for half an hour they heard noises in the trees that convinced them the creature was there. Almost at the same time the dog barked loud and angrily, and something dropped with a dull, heavy thud to the ground.
As if by one impulse, but with Quambo firmly holding the dog by his collar, lest he might force the fighting with the awful unknown, they dashed forward. The creature could be distinctly seen against the background of sand, and strange to say it assumed various shapes, and moved but slowly away, as if in anger. At one moment it was the tall, dark kelpie-like monster waving its arms in the air, next it took the appearance of a huge frog, and immediately after rolled seaward in the form of a gigantic wheel. There was the same splashing noise when it took the water as before, and though they sat on the beach for a fall hour after this it made no further signs.
The kelpie, as Fred persisted in calling it, appeared many times after this, always coming from the pandanus grove, and it was not until one bright and radiant moonlight night that our heroes found out what it actually was.
They had been out after flying-fish, Quambo being in the boat, when it occurred to them to land near the grove. The boat was pulled cautiously near to the beach, and while Fred and Frank lay on their oars the giant negro stood forward in the bows with his terrible lance.