shelter of its drooping bark eaves.

Bending cautiously round the slabs, she watched, as the gin, with a
swift wriggling motion like that of a snake, drew herself along the
sunken earth floor beneath the eaves and then, softly raising herself
to the level of the padlock, put in the key. There was a muffled
grating of iron under the gin's hand, as the padlock unclosed and the
hasp dropped, then a creak of the door on its hinges, while it opened
and shut behind the undulating shape in the aperture. Then a low
throaty ejaculation--the black's call of warning. And now with a
quickness incredible, the wriggling movement of two blanket-shrouded
serpentine shapes round the hide-house--in and out among the grass
tussocks and the low herbage, now hidden for a moment by friendly gum
shadows in the dimness, now dark moving blurrs upon the lesser
darkness, and now altogether invisible....

Lady Bridget knew that in five minutes, once they could be upright
again, the fugitives would have reached the gully, and after that the
gidia scrub. Then security from the terrors of a white man's gaol would
be almost assured to them.

Lady Bridget waited--waited, it seemed to her an eternity, in reality
it was barely over the five minutes she had mentally given the two
blacks for their escape. That five minutes had been full of alarms, and
she could feel her heart thumping, so tense was the strain. She had to
consider the possibility of Harris being awakened; also, of Maule's
return and an attempt on his part to free the hide-house prisoner. Also
there was the danger of the clouds breaking before she had done her
work.

She heard a movement of the sleeper in his bed below the open window
opposite. Harris might have been aroused, and perhaps have stirred
without awakening.... But the snoring had ceased.... She did not think,
however, that he could be fully awake.... Presently the snoring
recommenced.

She crept very slowly along the earthen floor, drawing her hands along
the slabs as she went. A splinter from one of them ran into her
finger--but that did not matter. Now she touched the door, which lay
back towards her, for the blacks had not waited to close it. She pushed
it very softly, holding her breath at the creak of the hinge and
listening intently for the recurrent snore which sounded through the
window only three paces from her.

At last the thing was done--the padlock fastened, the key turned in the
lock, and now in her pocket.