her
side of the rocks, and they walked round quietly. They were only
curious, there was nothing to fear. In the dim starlight they saw a man
on horseback advancing towards them.

"Hallo!" called out Stanesby, as he came quite close, "who the devil are
you?"

The horse was done. They could hear his gasping breath, and the man bent
forward as if he too had come far and fast, but he did not answer, and
as he came closer Turner saw he was a blackfellow.

Stanesby saw it too, and saw more, for he recognised his own black boy
Jimmy.

"Good God! Jimmy, is it you?"

There must be something wrong, very wrong indeed, that would bring a
black-fellow, steeped in superstitious fears of demons and evil spirits,
out at dead of night.

"Jimmy!" Stanesby caught him by the shoulder, and fairly pulled him from
his horse, "What's the meaning of this?"

Jimmy did not answer for a moment. He was occupied with his horse's
bridle, then he said carelessly, as if he were rather ashamed of making
such a fuss about a trifle.

"Myalls pull along a hut."

"My God!" cried Turner. It seemed like the realisation of his worst
fears.

But Stanesby refused to see any cause for alarm.

"And you 've ridden like blazes, and ruined the mare, to tell us rot
like that. What if they do come up to the hut? They've been there
before."

The answer was more to his companion than his servant, but Jimmy
answered the implied reproach.

"Blackfellow burn hut," he stated.

"Nonsense!"

"This fellow sit down along a bush," he went on stolidly.

"Well--if you did! I wish to heaven you had stopped alongside your
confounded bush before you ruined my mare."

"Bungally you!" said Jimmy, who was no respecter of persons, meaning
"you are very stupid." "Blackfellow put firestick in humpy and--"

"Good God! Stanesby, I knew it. The myalls are going to burn down the
hut, and this beggar's got wind of it."

Jimmy nodded approvingly.

"All gone humpy," he said, stretching out his hands as if to denote the
deed was done.

"But the girl, Jimmy, the girl!"

"Poor gin tumble down."

"I--Jimmy," Stanesby caught him by the shoulder, and shook him
violently, and Turner knew by the change in his voice that his fears
were roused at last, "how did you know this? When did you hear it?"

"Sit down along a bush," said Jimmy again. His vocabulary was limited.

"But when--when? It must have been all right when you left?"

"Blackfellow pull along a humpy to-night