aken. She
smiled the least little bit, but Meg said, "Don't," and writhed.

Two of the men had gone on superfluous errands for help; the others
stood some distance away, talking in subdued voices.

There was nothing for them to do. The brown man had been talking--a
rare thing for him.

He had soothed the General off to sleep, and laid him in the bunk
with the blue blanket tucked around him. And he had made a billy
of hot strong tea, and asked the children, with tears in his eyes,
to drink some, but none of them would.

Baby had fallen to sleep on the floor, her arms clasped tightly
around Judy's lace-up boot.

Bunty was standing, with a stunned look on his white face, behind
the stretcher. His eyes were on his sister's hair, but he did
not dare to let there wander to her face, for fear of what he should
see there. Nellie was moving all the time--now to the fence to strain
her eyes down the road, where the evening shadows lay heavily, now
to fling herself face downward behind the hut and say, "Make her
better, God! God, make her better, make her better! Oh! CAN'T You
make her better?"

Greyer grew the shadows round the little but, the bullocks' outlines
had faded, and only an indistinct mass of soft black loomed across
the light. Behind the trees the fire was going out, here and there
were yellow, vivid streaks yet, but the flaming sun-edge, had dipped
beyond the world, and the purple, delicate veil was dropping down.

A curlew's note broke the silence, wild, mournful, unearthly. Meg
shivered, and sat up straight. Judy's brow, grew damp, her eyes
dilated, her lips trembled.

"Meg!" she said, in a whisper that cut the air. "Oh, Meg, I'm
frightened! MEG, I'm so frightened!"

"God!" said Meg's heart.

"Meg, say something. Meg, help me! Look at the dark, Meg. MEG,
I can't die! Oh, why don't they be quick?"

Nellie flew to the fence again; then to say, "Make her better,
God--oh, please, God!"

"Meg, I can't think of anything to say. Can't you say something,
Meg? Aren't there any prayers about the dying in the Prayer Book?--I
forget. Say something, Meg!"

Meg's lips moved, but her tongue uttered no word.

"Meg, I'm so frightened! I can't think of anything but `For what
we are about to receive,' and that's grace, isn't it? And there's
nothing in Our Father that would do either. Meg, I wish we'd gone
to Sunday-school and learnt things. Look at the dark, Meg! Oh, Meg,
hold my hands!"