“Be ready, Tommy,” whispered Gerrard; “they'll be here presently. Don't fire till they are quite close, then drop rifle and take pistol.”
“All right, boss. Look, look! You see one fellow now stand up--there 'nother, 'nother--four fellow.”
The increasing starlight just enabled Gerrard to catch a brief glimpse of four figures moving about on the top of the boulder, then they disappeared, and he clutched his Winchester.
Five anxious minutes passed, and then one by one the four forms appeared coming round from the other side of the boulder. For a few moments they halted, then came boldly out of the shadows into the starlight, and then a deadly rage leapt into Gerrard's heart as he recognised two of them. First the man whom Kate's father had handled so roughly on board the _Gambier_, and then the tall, imposing figure of Forreste.
“Can you see their horses anywhere?” said the man who was in advance of his three companions, and they again stopped and looked about them.
“Oh, they are all right,” said a second voice; “well find 'em easy enough in the morning. They're both hobbled, and won't be far away. Now come on, Pinky, and show us your nigger with the top of his head off. You're a great gasser, I know. Strike a match, Barney, and I'll get a bit of dry ti-tree bark to give us a light.”
Gerrard pressed Tommy's arm. “Wait, Tommy, wait. Let them get a light. All the better for us. Listen!”
“I suppose they are properly done for, Cheyne?” said Forreste, who had a revolver in his hand.
“Oh, put your flaming pistol back into its pouch, you funky owl,” snarled Barney Green, “they both dropped at the first time, as I told you. Gerrard fell on to the fire, and you'll find him cooking there, and that both of 'em are as full of holes as a cullender. We've wasted a hundred cartridges for nothing, but I daresay we'll get some more. He had a forty-four Winchester, and the nigger a Snider.”
A match was struck, and the two motionless watchers saw Cheyne go to a ti-tree, which grew on the edge of the large pool, tear off the outer thin and wet bark, and then make a torch of the dry part, which lit easily. Pinkerton waved it to and fro for a few moments, and then held it up. It burst into flame.