dy
too far off for our bullets to reach them.

"Missed again!" exclaimed Ned. "I believe the fellows must bear charmed
lives; or my musket has taken to shooting crooked."

As we could not hope to overtake the robbers, I told Burton how anxious
I was to return and look for Edith and Pierce,--although I hoped that,
frightened by the appearance of the bushrangers, they had hidden
themselves.

"I think not, sir," said Tom Nokes, one of our men. "Soon after you
went off in the boat, I saw the young people starting away together
along the shore; but thinking their mother had given them leave to go, I
didn't look after them."

This intelligence was so far satisfactory, that it made me believe they
could not have been seen by the bushrangers--who, indeed, could scarcely
have been such ruffians as to injure them. I therefore hurried back to
my mother; but she, having been asleep all the morning, did not even
know that the children had gone away. She expressed her anxiety on
hearing what Nokes had said, as at all events they ought by this time to
have returned. Not wishing to alarm her more, I expressed my belief
that they would soon appear. On leaving her, however, I proposed to
Burton and Harry to take the boat and pull along the shore, while Nokes
volunteered to go on foot in the same direction.

Having landed our fish, we at once pulled away; but no signs did we see
of Edith or Pierce. The sun was setting as we rowed down the river. As
the bar was smooth, we crossed it without hesitation, and continued our
course along the shore, as close in as the coral reefs would allow us to
get. Every now and then I stood up to examine the shore, but nowhere
were the children to be seen. The tide had risen, too, and in several
places washed the very base of the cliffs. This alarmed me much, for I
dreaded lest the tide might have entrapped them as they were making
their way back.

"We needn't fear that, Master Godfrey; for they both have got sense, and
will have managed, I hope, to reach some place of safety," observed
Burton.

Again we pulled on, when just under the highest part of the cliff I
caught sight of an object in the water which attracted my attention. At
first I thought it was a rock, covered with seaweed moved by the surging
water. We paddled in as close as we could venture without running the
risk of knocking the bottom of the boat against the coral, and then I
made out a horse and a human figure lying to