One of them, lingering behind the other, gazed earnestly at Lady Bridget's tense little figure and bent head, poised in a listening attitude and conveying to him the impression that something momentous had happened or was about to happen.

And just then, appalling shrieks, from the rear of the home, justified the impression.
Lady Bridget ran through the sitting-room to the veranda behind, which again connected on either side the new house with the Old Humpey and kitchen and store-wing--the hide-house standing slightly apart at the end of the store building.

The shrieks in male and female keys came from the hide-house and mingled with McKeith's strident tones fulminating in Blacks' lingo.

The noise brought Mrs Hensor and Tommy down from the Bachelors' Quarters, and the Chinese cook, the Malay boy and Maggie the housemaid from the service department.

The three verandas and garden plot made a kind of amphitheatre; and now, into the arena, came the actors in the little tragedy.
From the hide-house, McKeith dragged the prisoners, and through the gateway in the palings which made the fourth side of the enclosure.
With one hand he clutched Wombo, with the other Oola, who in her lace-trimmed petticoat and flowered kimono was truly a tragi-comic spectacle.
McKeith carried his coiled stockwhip in the hand which held Wombo.