'In that case, I have the honour to wish your lor—I mean to wish you, Mr Heggarstone, a very good evening.'
As he spoke I heard him buckle the straps of his portmanteau, and then I slipped noiselessly down the passage towards the kitchen. A moment later his step sounded upon the gravel and he was gone.
On the Thursday following he left the township, and we saw no more of him. Whatever his errand may have been, never once during his lifetime did my father say anything to me upon the subject, nor did I ever venture to question him about it. Perhaps, as he said, there is something behind it all that I am happier in not knowing. So far as I have ever heard such skeletons are generally best left in undisturbed possession of their cupboards.
After that we resumed the same sort of life as had been our portion before his arrival.
This monotonous existence continued undisturbed until the time of the great flood, which, as I have said before, is even remembered to this day. It occurred at the end of a wet season, and after a fortnight's pouring rain, which continued day and night. Never was such rain known, and for this reason the ground soon became so thoroughly saturated that it could absorb no more. In consequence the creeks filled, and all the billabongs became deep as lakes.
In order to realise what follows you must understand that above the township, perhaps a couple of miles or so, three creeks joined forces, and by so doing formed the Cargoo River, on the banks of which our township was located. There had been heavy rain on all these creeks, and in consequence they came down bankers, united, as I have just said, and then, being penned in by the hills and backed up by the stored water in the billabongs, swept down the valley towards the township in one great flood, which carried everything before it. Never shall I forget that night. The clouds had cleared off the sky earlier in the evening, and it was as bright as day, the moon being almost at the full. I was having my supper with old Betty in the kitchen when suddenly I heard an odd sort of rumbling in the distance. I stopped eating to listen. Even to my childish ears the sound was peculiar, and as it still continued, I asked Betty, who was my oracle in everything, what she thought it meant. She was a little deaf, and suggested the wind in the trees. But I knew that this was no wind in trees. Every moment it was growing louder, and when I left the kitchen and went through the house to the front verandah, where I found my father standing looking up the valley, it had grown into a well-defined roar. I questioned him on the subject.
'It is a flood,' he answered, half to himself. 'Nothing but water, and an enormous body of it, could make that sound.'
The words were scarcely out of his mouth before a man on horseback appeared round the bend of the hill and galloped up the path. His horse was white with foam, and as he drew up before the steps he shouted wildly,—
'The flood is coming down the valley. Fly for your lives.'
My father only laughed—a little scornfully, I thought—and said, in his odd, mocking voice,—