indicative of impatience, contempt mingled with pity and warning.

Luckily for us, the belt of scrub was not of great extent; Lizzie had
already reached its edge, and was peering cautiously through, and we were
struggling along, each after his own fashion, when bang went a carbine, the
bullet of which we distinctly heard whistle over our heads, and turning
round we got a glimpse of Jack, the roughrider, hung up in a vine, one of
whose tendrils had fired off his weapon; and had just time to hear him
exclaim, "If I'd only been mounted, this wouldn't have happened," before we
broke cover, and all further concealment being now unnecessary, rushed
recklessly on to the encampment.

But we were too late to capture any of the men, for I need hardly tell the
reader that never had we intended to make use of the curt arguments that
Lizzie had relied upon for cutting off the abrupt exit of her quondam
friends; it would be quite time enough to commence a system of reprisals
when it was ascertained that the blacks had actually been guilty of any
atrocity. At present it was mere surmise on our part, and putting
altogether on one side the natural reluctance to shed blood, an aggressive
policy would have been an unwise one, engendering, as it infallibly would,
a bad feeling against any other luckless mariners whom the winds and the
waves might in time to come cast upon the inhospitable shores of
Hinchinbrook Island.

The sudden report of Jack's carbine, which occasioned a momentary halt, and
the few seconds required to burst through the scrub, afforded sufficient
time for the male portion of the encampment to make their escape at speed,
in different directions, some taking to the water, where they were picked
up by the fishermen in the canoes; others diving into the nearest cover,
and being lost to sight without hope of recovery. The women and children