About eleven o’clock they turned back. Lestrange was nowhere to be seen, but he often went wandering in the woods, and Kearney, having put the spears aside, set to work preparing the midday meal.
When it was ready and the fish cooked to a turn, Lestrange had not yet come back. However, he was sometimes late, and the child was hungry, so they set to, the sailor grumbling to himself like a housewife whose cooking has been slighted.
“Wonder where he can have got to,” said Mr. Kearney to himself. “Tomfoolin’ about in them woods.”
After the meal he sat down with his back to a tree and lit a pipe. The pipe finished, he lay on his back with his hands behind his head, looking up at the leaves moving gently in the wind. Next moment he was asleep.
He slept several hours, and when he awoke Lestrange had not yet come back. He was nowhere to be seen, and Kearney, now seriously alarmed, after a glance into the house, stood looking about him, now towards the lagoon, now towards the woods. Then, seeing Dick, who had roused from sleep and was playing about, he caught the child by the hand and made towards the trees.
The act was unconscious; it was as though the sudden sense of loneliness had made him seize the child’s hand for companionship.
Dick, nothing loath, and divining some new game, trotted beside him till they reached the trees, amidst which Mr. Kearney plunged, child in hand.
He halted after a few yards and began to shout: “Hi! Are ye there?—Are ye there?—Hi!—Hi!” The child, laughing, took up the call, his small voice sounding through the woods:
“Hi—hi—hi!”
No answer.