here was no use in talking about it; he
felt sure that his father would say he ought not to have said so
much, and he was vexed with himself for his carelessness. Silence
seemed the only course open to him--silence on the subject for the
present, and for the future a great, whole-hearted resolve to play
the man come what might.

CHAPTER II.

BOB.

Eustace was right: their father would not have gone to Brisbane had
it not been necessary; but this was not because Mr. Orban was
troubled by any fears for the safety of his family. He had lived so
long in North Queensland that he was used to the solitude, and
thought nothing of the dangers surrounding them. It distressed him
to have to go away simply because he knew that his wife would be
terribly nervous without him. Fifteen years in the colony had not
accustomed her to the loneliness of their position.

Besides the two engineers, and the field manager, Mr. Ashton, who
all lived at the foot of the hill, the Orbans had no white
neighbours nearer than five miles off. The field hands were
coloured men of some five or six different races, chiefly Chinese
or Malays--the good-for-nothing riff-raff of their own countries
come to seek a living elsewhere.

There was no society, no constant dropping in of friends, nothing
to relieve the monotony of daily life. But none of this did Mrs.
Orban mind; she was always busy and content by day. It was only of
the night-time she was afraid, when strange-voiced creatures were
never silent an hour, weird cries from the scrub pierced the air,
and there arose from the plantation below wild sounds, sometimes of
revelry over a feast, the beating of tom-toms, and wailing of
voices as the natives conducted their heathen worship, or indulged
in noisy quarrels likely to end in bloodshed between antagonistic
tribes.

But though for some reasons the coolies were not pleasant
neighbours, the house on the hill had nothing to fear from them.
Their worst feature was their utter uselessness in any real danger,
coming from quite another quarter. Though they might serve him
solely for their own benefit, and were for the most part thieves
and rogues, the coolies had no desire to harm the white man
personally.

But wandering stealthily through the woods, homeless and lawless,
is a race that hates the white man--the aborigines of Australia.
Civilization has driven them farther and farther north, for the
Australian black-fellows cannot be tamed a