her arms
about like a semaphore, indicative of impatience, contempt mingled with
pity and warning.

Luckily for us, the belt of scrub was not of great extent; Lizzie had
already reached its edge, and was peering cautiously through, and we
were struggling along, each after his own fashion, when bang went a
carbine, the bullet of which we distinctly heard whistle over our
heads, and turning round we got a glimpse of Jack, the roughrider, hung
up in a vine, one of whose tendrils had fired off his weapon; and had
just time to hear him exclaim, "If I'd only been mounted, this wouldn't
have happened," before we broke cover, and all further concealment
being now unnecessary, rushed recklessly on to the encampment.

But we were too late to capture any of the men, for I need hardly tell
the reader that never had we intended to make use of the curt arguments
that Lizzie had relied upon for cutting off the abrupt exit of her
quondam friends; it would be quite time enough to commence a system of
reprisals when it was ascertained that the blacks had actually been
guilty of any atrocity. At present it was mere surmise on our part,
and putting altogether on one side the natural reluctance to shed
blood, an aggressive policy would have been an unwise one, engendering,
as it infallibly would, a bad feeling against any other luckless
mariners whom the winds and the waves might in time to come cast upon
the inhospitable shores of Hinchinbrook Island.

The sudden report of Jack's carbine, which occasioned a momentary halt,
and the few seconds required to burst through the scrub, afforded
sufficient time for the male portion of the encampment to make their
escape at speed, in different directions, some taking to the water,
where they were picked up by the fishermen in the canoes; others diving
into the nearest cover, and being lost to sight without hope of
recovery. The women and children followed the tactics usual on such
occasions, and flung themselves into a heap, similar in colour and
contour to that described in a previous chapter, when we searched the
Herbert River. The same thing took place again exactly; we sat down in
a circle round them, waiting for the deafening "yabbering" to die away,
which "yabbering" burst forth in all its pristine discord, whenever one
of the party made the slightest movement. Time and patience, however,
had the desired effect, restoring tone to their not over sensitive
systems, and at the expiration o