Polly
forgot the tarantula, forgot her bitter disappointment with her new
home. Her black eyes wide with fear, her heart thudding in her chest,
she sprang to her feet and stood ready, if need be, to defend herself.
Where, oh where was Richard?
It was the last straw. When, some five minutes later, Mahony came
bustling in: he had soothed the "kettledrummers" and sent them off with
a handsome gratuity, and he carried the trunk on his own shoulder, Long
Jim following behind with bags and bundles: when he entered, he found
little Polly sitting with her head huddled on her arms, crying as though
her heart would break.
Part II
Chapter I
Over the fathomless grey seas that tossed between, dissevering the
ancient and gigantic continent from the tiny motherland, unsettling
rumours ran. After close on forty years' fat peace, England had armed
for hostilities again, her fleet set sail for a foreign sea. Such was
the news the sturdy clipper-ships brought out, in tantalising fragments;
and those who, like Richard Mahony, were mere birds-of-passage in the
colony, and had friends and relatives going to the front, caught
hungrily at every detail. But to the majority of the colonists what
England had done, or left undone, in preparation for war, was of small
account. To them the vital question was: will the wily Russian Bear take
its revenge by sending men-of-war to annihilate us and plunder the gold
in our banks--us, months removed from English aid? And the opinion was
openly expressed that in casting off her allegiance to Great Britain,
and becoming a neutral state, lay young Australia's best hope of safety.
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