No one was able to answer that question. As we went on we shouted out his name, but no reply came, and I began to feel very uneasy. I thought that I had seen him certainly close to the point we had now reached.
I twice fired off my rifle, but listened in vain for the report of his. I now began to regret that we had not brought Toby with us, for he would have been far more likely to find him than we were.
His brothers were almost in despair.
“We had better go back and get Toby,” exclaimed Oliver.
“Something dreadful must have happened. Perhaps he has been bitten by a poisonous snake, or kicked by an emu,” said Ralph.
“Unless a mob of blacks have been hiding in the scrub and tracked us,” I remarked.
“But then I don’t see how they could have overtaken him without our seeing them,” said Oliver.
At last it became so dark that we found it impossible to proceed, and it was proposed to halt until the moon should rise, when we should better be able to find our way.
We accordingly sat down on the ground to wait until the pale luminary of night could give us her light.
She rose even sooner than we had expected.