Chapter Twelve.
Missing!—The search—How Tom was besieged in a cave—The return home.
“Why, here come the boys!” exclaimed Major Flinders, as he and his friend Weston sat round the camp fire, on the banks of the Gamska River, smoking their after-supper pipes and chatting over old times. “I hear the sound of their horses’ gallop.”
“But you did not expect to see them much before noon to-morrow,” said Mr Weston in a tone of surprise. “They would never have returned so soon! You must be mistaken, Mat.”
“There are horses galloping in this direction, that I’ll swear to,” rejoined his friend, who had risen to his feet and was listening attentively. “And what’s more, they’re coming towards us at a tremendous pace. What say you, Keown?”
Kneeling down, Patrick Keown placed his ear to the ground; and after a lengthened pause, replied: “They’re horses, shure enough, sorr; but, by the beat of their gallop, I fear there’s never a sowl on their backs. No, sorr, there’s no doubt about that,” he presently added. “And they’re slackening pace now.”
At that moment, as if to prove the truth of the ex-sergeant’s words, two riderless horses cantered quickly up, and halted a few paces from the camp fire; they were those upon which Tom and George had ridden after the hartebeest in the morning!
The Major and Mr Weston stared at each other in consternation.
The horses were covered with sweat and dirt, and their distended nostrils and heaving, foam-flecked flanks bore silent but convincing testimony that they must have travelled some distance at a stretching gallop; whilst one of them—George’s grey—had an ugly wound on his near shoulder.