The mystery of Nellie’s disappearance was thus satisfactorily solved.
She had fallen into an old rabbit-burrow.
The harmless little creatures, whom she had imagined to be making desperate assaults on her legs and about to eat her up, too, were probably even more frightened than she was!
“Oh—oh, that’s one of those ferocious wild animals, little missy, eh?” chuckled the Captain. “I see, young lady.”
“Yes, but they frightened me,” pleaded poor Nell. “They moved about under my feet, jumping up at me, I thought; and it was so dark down there that I didn’t know what they might be. You would have been frightened too, I think, sir!”
She added this little retort to her explanation with some considerable spirit, a bit nettled by the Captain’s chaff.
“Well, well, my dear, perhaps you are right,” he replied good-humouredly. “I also have a confession to make, missy. Just before Rover cantered up, with you holding on to his tail like Mazeppa lashed to the back of the fiery untamed steed of the desert, a blackbird flew out of your blackberry thicket, brushing past my face, and do you know it startled me so that I jumped back, losing my hat. So, you see, I got a fright too!”
“I see’d yer, sir,” said Dick, the Captain looking round as if awaiting comment on his action. “I see’d yer done it!”
“And so did I,” cried Bob, the appearance of whose face had not been improved by his struggles with the thorny bushes as he tried to force his way through them to Nellie’s rescue. “I saw you too!”
“You young rascals!” exclaimed the Captain, shaking his stick at them. “I thought you were looking at me! I suppose you’ll be going and telling everybody you saw the old sailor in a terrible funk, and that I was going to faint?”