Mistress Betty Carew by Mary Gaunt — Read

"O let the solid ground Not fail beneath my feet, Before my life has found What some have found so sweet."

IT WAS a black fellow's fire, that is, three sticks with their lighted ends close together, just enough to boil a pot of water. It was hardly chilly yet at night, so Simon Burton sat a little away from it, just out of range of the flickering light. He was back again some miles from his former master's place, with a tribe of natives, driven back by hunger and desperation. On some upright sticks were stuck steaks cut from the flank of a kangaroo, which hung in a tree near by, and once and again the man turned them, so that each side was equally applied to the glowing coals. There were no savages about, the men were off on a day's hunting expedition, and the bolter, having no particular liking for their unkempt, dirty women and children, he preferred to keep them at a distance. Therefore he was preparing his supper alone. There were drawbacks, of course, in being by himself, his hearing was not as keen as a black fellow's, in spite of the training of the last few months, and it was quite possible someone might come upon him unawares. A strange tribe of aboriginals who knew him not--that was very probable among these nomad people--a file of soldiers--that was hardly so likely, but still it had to be taken into consideration. And then there were unknown dangers. What terrors might not this unknown land hold hidden in her woods and dark recesses? He had not seen anything very terrifying, but that was no proof that it was not there to be seen, so he sat with his back to a tree-fern well out of the range of the light.