They were
locked in each other's arms, and lay as though they were asleep upon that
ocean bed. How they came to their end she never knew. Perhaps they
quarrelled in their drunken anger and fell over the little cliff; or
perhaps they stumbled and fell not knowing whither they were going. Who
can say? At any rate, there they were, and there they remained, till the
outgoing tide floated them off to join the great army of their companions
who had gone down with the Kangaroo. And so Augusta was left alone.
With a heavy heart she returned to the hut, pressed down by the weight of
solitude, and the sense that in the midst of so much death she could not
hope to escape. There was no human creature left alive in that vast
lonely land, except the child and herself, and so far as she could see
their fate would soon be as the fate of the others. When she got back to
the hut, Dick was awake and was crying for her.
The still, stiff form of Mr. Meeson, stretched out beneath the sail,
frightened the little lad, he did not know why. Augusta took him into her
arms and kissed him passionately. She loved the child for his own sake;
and, besides, he, and he alone, stood between her and utter solitude.
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