with that strange cry, so well
known to all Australians--"Coee."

A man was now heard approaching through the darkness, now splashing
deep into some treacherous moss hole with a loud curse, now blundering
among loose-lying blocks of stone. Lee waited till he was quite close,
and then seizing a bunch of gorse lighted it at his fire and held it
aloft; the bright blaze fell full upon the face and features of George
Hawker.

"A cursed place and a cursed time," he began, "for an appointment. If
you had wanted to murder me, I could have understood it. But I am
pretty safe, I think; your interests don't lie that way."

"Well, well, you see," returned Lee, "I don't want any meetings on the
cross up at my place in the village. The whole house ain't mine, and we
don't know who may be listening. I am suspected enough already, and it
wouldn't look well for you to be seen at my place. Folks would have
begun axing what for."

"Don't see it," said George. "Besides, if you did not want to see me at
home, why the devil do you bring me out here in the middle of the moor?
We might have met on the hill underneath the village, and when we had
done business gone up to the publichouse. D----d if I understand it."

He acquiesced sulkily to the arrangement, however, because he saw it
was no use talking about it, but he was far from comfortable. He would
have been still less so had he known that Lee's shout had brought up a
confederate, who was now peering over the rocks, almost touching his
shoulder.

"Well," said Lee, "here we are, so we had better be as comfortable as
we can this devil's night."

"Got anything to drink?"

"Deuce a swipe of grog have I. But I have got some real Barret's twist,
that never paid duty as I know'd on, so just smoke a pipe before we
begin talking, and show you aint vexed."

"I'd sooner have had a drop of grog, such a night as this."

"We must do as the Spaniards do, when they can't get anything," said
Lee; "go without."

They both lit their pipes, and smoked in silence for a few minutes,
till Lee resumed:--

"If the witches weren't all dead, there would be some of them abroad
to-night; hear that?"

"Only a whimbrel, isn't it?" said George.

"That's something worse than a whimbrel, I'm thinking," said the other.
"There's some folks don't believe in witches and the like," he
continued; "but a man that's seen a naked old hag of a gin ride away on
a myall-bough, knows better."

"Lord!" said George.