* ‘Whare’, ‘whorrie’, Maori name for house.
I shifted my feet and presently moved the stool farther away from the fire—it was too hot.
I wouldn’t have liked to camp there by myself, but I don’t think Dave would have minded—he’d knocked round too much in the Australian Bush to mind anything much, or to be surprised at anything; besides, he was more than half murdered once by a man who said afterwards that he’d mistook him for some one else: he must have been a very short-sighted murderer.
Presently we put tobacco, matches, and bits of candle we had, on the two stools by the heads of our bunks, turned in, and filled up and smoked comfortably, dropping in a lazy word now and again about nothing in particular. Once I happened to look across at Dave, and saw him sitting up a bit and watching the door. The door opened very slowly, wide, and a black cat walked in, looked first at me, then at Dave, and walked out again; and the door closed behind it.
Dave scratched his ear. ‘That’s rum,’ he said. ‘I could have sworn I fastened that door. They must have left the cat behind.’
‘It looks like it,’ I said. ‘Neither of us has been on the boose lately.’
He got out of bed and up on his long hairy spindle-shanks.
The door had the ordinary, common black oblong lock with a brass knob. Dave tried the latch and found it fast; he turned the knob, opened the door, and called, ‘Puss—puss—puss!’ but the cat wouldn’t come. He shut the door, tried the knob to see that the catch had caught, and got into bed again.
He’d scarcely settled down when the door opened slowly, the black cat walked in, stared hard at Dave, and suddenly turned and darted out as the door closed smartly.
I looked at Dave and he looked at me—hard; then he scratched the back of his head. I never saw a man look so puzzled in the face and scared about the head.