“I think not, sir,” said Tom Nokes, one of our men. “Soon after you went off in the boat, I saw the young people starting away together along the shore; but thinking their mother had given them leave to go, I didn’t look after them.”
This intelligence was so far satisfactory, that it made me believe they could not have been seen by the bushrangers—who, indeed, could scarcely have been such ruffians as to injure them. I therefore hurried back to my mother; but she, having been asleep all the morning, did not even know that the children had gone away. She expressed her anxiety on hearing what Nokes had said, as at all events they ought by this time to have returned. Not wishing to alarm her more, I expressed my belief that they would soon appear. On leaving her, however, I proposed to Burton and Harry to take the boat and pull along the shore, while Nokes volunteered to go on foot in the same direction.
Having landed our fish, we at once pulled away; but no signs did we see of Edith or Pierce. The sun was setting as we rowed down the river. As the bar was smooth, we crossed it without hesitation, and continued our course along the shore, as close in as the coral reefs would allow us to get. Every now and then I stood up to examine the shore, but nowhere were the children to be seen. The tide had risen, too, and in several places washed the very base of the cliffs. This alarmed me much, for I dreaded lest the tide might have entrapped them as they were making their way back.
“We needn’t fear that, Master Godfrey; for they both have got sense, and will have managed, I hope, to reach some place of safety,” observed Burton.
Again we pulled on, when just under the highest part of the cliff I caught sight of an object in the water which attracted my attention. At first I thought it was a rock, covered with seaweed moved by the surging water. We paddled in as close as we could venture without running the risk of knocking the bottom of the boat against the coral, and then I made out a horse and a human figure lying together half in the water. The man was motionless, and apparently dead; but the horse was still faintly struggling, trying to keep its head above the surface.
“That must be one of the bushrangers,” I exclaimed.
“No doubt about it,” said Burton; “but how he came to fall over the cliff it is hard to say.”
“Can we not reach him and see if he is still alive?” I asked.
“No man could have fallen from that height and kept the breath in his body,” said Ned; “nor, indeed, escape breaking all his bones, unless he had come down on the top of his horse. Depend on it, he’s dead; and so will the poor horse be in another moment—see! its head has already sunk under the water. If we hadn’t to look for the children we might try to get at him; but it would lose much time, and we might chance also to injure the boat.”
“By all means then let us pull on, and continue our search for Edith and Pierce,” I answered; and we again took to our oars.