white line of their teeth as they slightly drew their lips apart
in the excitement of waiting the order to advance. Every man was armed
with bow and arrows, and from their wrists hung by a thong a heavy
waddy, a blow from which was sufficient to crush in any man's skull.

"They're coming now," I said in a low voice, the words escaping me
involuntarily. And then I breathed again, for the tall savage,
evidently the leader, said something to his men, who stood fast, while
he walked boldly across the stream beneath the overhanging bushes, and
one of these began to sway as the chief tried to draw himself up.

I glanced at the doctor, being sure that he would fire, when, just as
the chief was almost on a level with the floor of the cave, there was a
rushing, scratching noise, and the most hideous howling rose from just
in front of where I crouched, while Gyp leaped up, with hair bristling,
and answered it with a furious howl.

The savage dropped back into the water with a tremendous splash, and
rushed up the slope after his people, not one of them stopping till they
were close to the top, when Jimmy raised his grinning face and looked
round at us.

"Um tink big bunyip in um hole, make um all run jus fas' away, away."

He had unmistakably scared the enemy, for they collected together in
consultation, but our hope that they might now go fell flat, for they
once more began to descend, each one tearing off a dead branch or
gathering a bunch of dry ferns as he came; and at the same moment the
idea struck Jack Penny and me that they believed some fierce beast was
in the hole, and that they were coming to smoke it out.

The blacks came right down into the rivulet, and though the first
armfuls of dry wood and growth they threw beneath the cave mouth went
into the water, they served as a base for the rest, and in a very short
time a great pile rose up, and this they fired.

For a few moments there was a great fume, which floated slowly up among
the bushes, but very soon the form of the cavern caused it to draw right
in, the opening at the back acting as a chimney. First it burned
briskly, then it began to roar, and then to our horror we found that the
place was beginning to fill with suffocating smoke and hot vapour,
growing more dangerous moment by moment.

Fortunately the smoke and noise of the burning made our actions safe
from observation, and we were thus able to carry our wounded right to
the back, where the air was