‘Why, it’s deserted,’ exclaimed Daisy, as they found [217] ]themselves amongst the empty gunyahs. ‘They’re gone, dogs and all.’
‘Off on some hunting expedition, I expect,’ replied Fortescue, laughing. ‘They look at me in a comically disgusted manner of late since I left off getting bushed so regularly.’
It was too dark to see the water, but they stood for a long time listening to the swish of it as it ran full-lipped from one steep high bank to the other, telling with eerie mutterings and whisperings, and curious little complaining noises, and low hoarse threatenings of what it would presently do, and the mischief it would work, but in language all untranslatable by its hearers.
‘What a sweet little lady it is,’ said Fortescue to himself as, later, he sat on the edge of his bed staring straight before him into a pair of tender, steadfast eyes conjured out of the darkness. ‘
I wonder if she does? I’m nearly sure of it, thank heaven! Why, she is worth coming here and roughing it like this, and being called “Barton’s Jackaroo” twenty times over for!’ and he laughed gently. ‘Fancy a prize like that hidden away amongst these solitudes. I wonder what her father will say? Anyhow, I won’t put it off any longer. I’ll ask him to-morrow.’
With which resolution he laid down and went to sleep, still thinking on Daisy Barton.
He awoke with a start, and lay listening to noises in his room, the remnants, as he imagined, of some grotesque dream.
Gurglings there were, and agonised squeakings and [218] ]scrapings, with, now and then, ploppings and splashings as of many small swimmers. Then something cold, wet and hairy, crawled over his hand.
Shaking it off with an exclamation, he jumped out of bed, and with the shock of it, stood stock still for two minutes up to his knees in water.
Then, striking a match, he saw that his room was awash, and that all sorts of articles were floating about it, drawn hither and thither by the current which swelled and eddied between the old slabs. Up a corner of blanket, touching the water, swarmed a great host of ants, tarantulas, beetles and crickets, whilst drowning mice, lizards, and heaven knows what else, swam wildly round and round and gratefully hailed his bare legs as a harbour of refuge. Hastily rubbing them off, and getting into some wet clothes, he opened the window and looked out. A wan moon shed a feeble light upon one vast sea of turgid water. Nothing in sight but water—water, and the tops of the trees quivering above the flood! No wonder the river talked to itself last night! The scene was enough to make even a man with a backbone quail and feel a bit nervous.