The young man looked up cheerfully. 'My dear aunt,' he said, 'I don't despise our friends the bush robbers, or whatever they call them. I think them very ugly customers. Some of the shearers we had the row with last year would be truly formidable with arms in their hands. But I am a consistent fatalist in these matters. One man gets shot in such an affray; around another the bullets rain harmless. If I am fated to drop, I shall do so, and not otherwise.'

'And what are we to do all the time?' inquired Pollie, with an air of disapproval. 'Go to bed and sleep? Just as if any one could, with a battle coming off next door. I suppose we must stay quiet till it is all over? What a dreadful thing it is to be a woman!'

'Very likely there won't be any engagement at all; it may not come off,' said Harold. 'So I would not advise you to lie awake on the chance of it. You may lose your rest for nothing. In fact, the chances are six to four—firstly, that they'll surrender directly they see us prepared to receive them; secondly, that they won't come into the barracks at all. They may turn back, like dingoes suspecting a trap.'

'Pray Heaven it may be so!' said Mrs. Devereux. 'I am not unwilling to take my share of the risk and loss for the country's good. But oh! if it should turn out to be a false alarm, how thankful I should be!'

The evening passed off without much to distinguish it from other evenings, momentous as was the contingent finale. Mrs. Devereux was absent and preoccupied. Pollie was alternately in high spirits or depressed and silent. Atherstone and Bertram talked in a matter-of-fact sort of way about things in general, but made no further allusion to the subject which engrossed their thoughts.

At ten o'clock the ladies retired, rather to the relief of the young men. Mrs. Devereux did not omit, however, to again urge upon Bertram the necessity of caution and prudence.

'I shall not risk my precious person unwisely,' he said, a little impatiently; 'but why do you not warn Atherstone here in the same maternal manner? I know you regard him as an old and valued friend. Is he so much more experienced than I—who have done a little soldiering, you will recollect—or is my life more precious than his in your eyes?'

'Harold knows very well,' said the widow simply, 'how I feel towards him. But he can take care of himself among these people, whereas you, my dear Bertram, are at a disadvantage. I do you no injustice when I compare you with my darling husband, who lost his life, as you may do to-night, from contempt of his adversary and want of proper caution.'

'Harold, you are to take care of yourself, and Bertram too. Do you hear?' called out Pollie, who was in the passage. 'You are to tell him what to do, for of course, being newly arrived, he will know nothing. You mustn't be angry, Bertram. All you Jackaroos (as the Queenslanders call you) are the same; you leave cover and get shot down like an owl in the daylight, for want of the commonest woodcraft. So don't be obstinate, or I shall be obliged to come down and stand alongside of you. Good-night! Good-night! That is one apiece.'

When the young men entered the room at the barracks, they found the sergeant and Mr. Gateward sitting over the fire smoking. The young constable was on guard outside, in case the attack might come off earlier than was anticipated.