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Updated: June 14, 2025
"Here come a couple of horsemen, but whether they are Bracewell and a companion, or the bushrangers returning, I cannot say. At all events we must be prepared for them." I sprang to my feet, and Toby was sent to bring in the horses. Our apprehensions of another visit from the bushrangers were soon set at rest when we recognised Bracewell, who was followed by another man leading a spare horse.
Bracewell had told us that sometimes natives stole up and speared the horses at night, or tried to drive them away from the camp, though they might not venture to attack their owners. We had chiefly therefore to fear a trick of this sort being played us, but it was almost impossible to guard against the horses being surprised during the darkness, should they be at any distance from the camp.
Though we looked out for them on every side, not another black did we see; but Bracewell remarked, that we must not consequently fancy that they had taken themselves off. However, as the day wore on, and they did not again reappear, we began to hope that we had distanced them, and that they would not trouble us during the night.
As there was a moon in the sky, and Bracewell knew every inch of the ground, we were in our saddles long before day-break, carrying with us our breakfast and kettle in which the tea could easily be made at the camp-fire.
"You, Bracewell and Kerridge, may accompany Captain Stokes," he added. Each ship had before received an order, at a certain time to send her long-boat with a picked crew, bringing torches, hand-grenades, and other combustibles. They now arrived. We took our places in the long-boat of the Saint George, and Captain Stokes at once led the way towards the pirate squadron.
Still it must be understood that I did not altogether lose hope. There was the possible chance of the dominie having escaped, and that some traveller might be coming by and release me, as Guy and I had released Bracewell. Still many hours might pass before then, and I was already suffering from thirst, though I was not troubled by hunger.
Probably they had been attracted by the smoke of our fire, and expected to find some travellers unprepared for them; so we should have been had we not fallen in with Bracewell, and should certainly have lost our baggage and horses, and perhaps our lives. "We have had a narrow escape, for there is no doubt about those fellows being bushrangers," I observed to Guy.
"They'll not do that," he answered, "they'll fancy it is some charm, and will not venture to touch it." This done, we pushed forward, rather faster than we had hitherto been going, in order to arrive at a spot at which Bracewell advised that we should camp early in the evening.
Fanny has found that will not do, so she tries to imitate my Aunt Dorothea and Amelia Bracewell, but she goes on the other side of her pattern, and does not sound the u full where she ought to do it, but says, "The basin is fell of shegar." Hatty laughs at them both, and lets her u go where it likes, but she is not so bad as Sophy.
Their idea is to carry off the canoe, and if you and Mr Bracewell won't go, to leave you behind." "We must defeat their treachery," I observed. "I will tell the Frenchmen and put them on their guard; I will at once do so."
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