A chorus of agreement brought a flicker of light into the gloom of
Hugh's face.
"I have been the biggest ass in the world," he said. "If there is a bigger it would comfort me to meet him."
Two brown hands were promptly outstretched, but Hugh shook his head: "Wait till you hear." He paused for a moment, looked nervously from side to side and then behind him:
"I'm a murderer. Probably I shall be hanged. Unless I poison myself first."
"Hugh!" Prudence exclaimed sharply, "don't make these horrible jokes.
You know how Mamma hates them."
"It isn't a joke, worse luck," Hugh groaned; "it's beastly true. Thank goodness Mamma is out of the way. Perhaps it can be hushed up so that she will never know the truth about the way I died."
A look of consternation settled upon every face; whatever Hugh had done, it was plain that he was exceedingly unhappy.
"Tell us," Jerry commanded briefly.
Hugh sat up. "I may as well," he agreed dejectedly. "You'd better hear it from me than from some old policeman. I suppose one will be stalking up the path soon." He was silent again for a minute, and then started once more:
"It was this way. When we went up first it was perfectly glorious—you never can imagine how lovely Adelaide looks from the air, with the hills round and the sea in the distance and almond-blossom all over the place. Oh—if only this thing hadn't happened I could tell you all sorts of things, but now I can't think of anything. It was near the end. I was awfully keen on trying an experiment—two experiments in fact. I wanted to see how near I could hit a given spot if I aimed at it with a stone, and I wanted to see how much the stone would deflect in falling. Perhaps it's only one experiment really, but it struck me as being two at the time. You see, if Australia ever goes to war we might want to shoot from balloons, or one might drop a ball of explosives with a fuse attached or something. I thought about it when that Russian scare was on, but I never thought I'd get the chance to try. So I got a good, smooth, round stone, nine-and-a-half ounces, and wrapped it up in a handkerchief and took it up. I knew a good place to aim at—the tree in Mr. Macgregor's Burnt Oak field. I knew the field was empty; it is being ploughed up for some experiment that Mr. Macgregor wants to try—blow all experiments! And to-day he gave his men a holiday to come and see the balloon. We were about fifteen hundred feet up and going slowly. I could see the oak and its shadow quite plainly. So I let the stone drop."