Queensland Cousins Part 17

"Electric bell?" exclaimed the children with blank faces.

"Oh, you dear new chum," said Mr. Orban, bursting into peals of laughter, accompanied by Bob, "that isn't an electric bell; it's a cicada."

"A cicada!" repeated Miss Chase.

"Yes; a kind of gra.s.shopper, or cricket, you know," Mrs. Orban explained, looking much amused. "He is up there in the roof. I am afraid you will have to stop, for as long as you go on so will he."

"How very ill-mannered of him," said Miss Chase.

"Let's play something instead," said Peter, who was getting sleepy, but would not own it.

He was not really fond of music--Bob's comic songs excepted.

The game was begun, and going merrily, when suddenly there rose on the night air such an appalling howl that Miss Chase started and turned pale. To her astonishment, when she looked round the table, she found that no one but herself was at all disturbed by the sound.

"You to play, I believe, Miss Chase," said Bob, who sat opposite her.

She put down her card, and at that moment the agonized cry came again, apparently from immediately under the veranda. Dorothy gripped her hands tightly together, and again looked round on the unmoved faces. Again the cry resounded.

"Surely," she said, looking appealingly at Bob, "there is something or some one in dreadful pain outside."

Bob laughed.

"I thought you seemed upset, but I didn't like to mention it," he said. "That's nothing but a dingo howling. There'll be a whole pack of them at it presently, I dare say. I'll go out and disperse them as soon as the game is over."

"What is a dingo?" inquired Miss Chase.

"Don't you know that, Aunt Dorothy?" asked Peter in tones of contemptuous astonishment. "Well, it's the commonest thing here."

"Peter," said Bob gravely, "do you know what a top hat and a frock coat are like?"

Peter shook his head in bewilderment.

"Don't you?" said Bob, mimicking the small boy's tone. "Well, they're the commonest things in England. I am surprised at your ignorance!"

Peter reddened.

"But I've never seen them," he said.

"Nor has Miss Chase ever seen a dingo," said Bob calmly.--"It is the wild dog of the Bush, Miss Chase. They come prowling round the house at night, looking for food."

The howling grew worse and worse. Bob quietly sauntered out on to the veranda. There were a few shots, and the noise changed to yelps as the dingoes scurried in terror down the hill.

"Don't be worried if you hear them in the distance most of the night," said Mrs. Orban. "I am afraid it will take you some time to get used to our noisy hours of darkness."

When Miss Chase tried to settle down to sleep she remembered these words, and it seemed superfluous to her that she should have been wished "good-night" by every one. A good night was impossible. The dingoes howled persistently in the woods below, and quite close there was the incessant "croak-croak-croak-croak" of tree-frogs, together with many other inexplicable and weird noises.

Nesta slept placidly through it all; but not till there came a lull just an hour or so before dawn did the weary stranger drop into oblivion.

It did not seem to her she had been asleep five minutes, and there was only the faintest glimmer of light in her room, when she was awakened by something new. Just under her window there was a strident laugh.

"Ha-ha-ha!" Then another, "Ha-ha-ha!"

Miss Chase listened in bewilderment.

"What extraordinary people," she thought, glancing enviously at the undisturbed Nesta. "Who on earth can be out at this time?"

She supposed that it must be some of the plantation hands prowling about outside; but she wondered at her brother-in-law allowing them to behave in such a tiresome way when people were wanting to sleep.

"Ha-ha! ha-ha!" jeered the voice outside, as if mocking at her annoyance. Then followed a chorus of chuckles, and Miss Chase sat up in bed, and strained her ears to catch the joke, if possible.

But no words reached her. There was a little pause as if some one might be speaking, and then another burst of delighted chuckles, so very funny that they were quite infectious, and Miss Chase smiled in spite of herself.

"Ha-ha! ha-ha! ha-ha-ha-ha!" laughed the voices. Now certainly there were more than one.

"This is too ridiculous," thought Miss Chase, beginning to chuckle softly to herself. "What can they be saying or doing out there?"

At last the hilarity became so boisterous that her curiosity got the better of her, and slipping on a wrapper she opened the window and crept out on to the veranda.

To her surprise there was no one to be seen--not a soul was about either on the veranda or below, though she leant right over, and strained her eyes to catch a glimpse of these queer people.

It was comparatively deliciously cool outside, the grayness before dawn a pleasant contrast to the tropical glare that was positively hurtful to the new-comer's eyes. Going to the corner of the veranda, she gazed away and away towards the now deep gray sea, lying like a bath of mist beyond the dense black of the trees in the valley.

"What a queer, unreal world it seems," she was thinking, "and yet to little Peter this is all reality, and England nothing but a dream."

"Ha-ha!" said a voice from immediately below, so loudly as to sound almost insulting.

Miss Chase jumped, looked about in astonishment--and saw no one.

"Ha-ha! ha-ha-ha!" repeated the mocker.

"I wonder if he sees me, and is laughing at me now?" thought the girl.

She gave a little s.h.i.+ver. It was not a very pleasant sensation to feel herself spied upon by an unseen watcher, and she began to beat a hasty retreat towards her own window again.

"Ha-ha!" laughed the unseen one, with such a note of triumph that now she was certain the humour was at her expense. It annoyed her, and at the same time it rather frightened her. Was it possibly a madman?--for a.s.suredly the chuckles became madder and madder as they increased. Besides which, what sane person would be out of bed and giggling at such an hour? The thought of a lunatic or two at large lurking round the house was discomforting indeed. In England, with fast-barred doors and windows that are supposed to be una.s.sailable, it would not be pleasant; but here--where what might be called the "front door" was nothing but the flimsiest of French windows, the windows themselves utterly powerless to keep any one out--the English girl found this new suspicion particularly disagreeable. She wondered whether she ought not to go and rouse Mr. Orban. Perhaps he ought to be warned, she reflected, so as to be ready in case these maniacs burst into the house, intent on the mischief they were so evidently gloating over in antic.i.p.ation.

"I wish I knew what to do," she thought in great agitation.

"Ha-ha! ha-ha-ha-ha!" responded the laughers with maniacal glee.

"Why, Aunt Dorothy," exclaimed Nesta, as Miss Chase entered the room in a hurry, "what have you been doing?"

Nesta was sitting up in bed. She had evidently awakened, and discovering her aunt's absence, was wondering about it. It comforted Miss Chase to have some one to speak to; but, determined not to frighten the child, she said as steadily as she could,--

"I was only trying to find out what those people are laughing at out there. It seems such a strange time to be so amused. I suppose they must be some of the coolies going to work."

"People!" repeated Nesta blankly.