The girls sat there for a long time, feeling that they would never get tired of watching the turbulence of the waterfall. After a long time Lucy-Ann gave a cry and caught Dinah’s arm.
“Look — is that the boys coming? Yes, it is. They’ve got a sack between them. Good! Now we shall have plenty of food.”
They watched the two boys labouring up the rocks that led to the cave. It was no good waving to them yet. Then suddenly Dinah stiffened with horror.
“What’s the matter?” said Lucy-Ann in alarm, seeing Dinah’s face.
“Look — someone is following the boys!” said Dinah. “See — it’s one of the men! And there’s the other one too! Oh, my goodness, I don’t believe either Philip or Jack knows it! They’ll watch where they go and our hiding place will be found! JACK! PHILIP! OH, JACK, LOOK OUT!”
She went to the very edge of the waterfall, and, holding on to a fern growing there, she leaned out beyond it, yelling and waving, quite forgetting that the men could see and hear her as well as the boys.
But alas, Jack and Philip, engrossed in the task of getting the heavy sack up the rocks, neither saw nor heard Dinah — but the men suddenly caught sight of her and stared in the utmost astonishment. They could not make out if she was girl, boy, man or woman, for the edges of the waterfall continually moved and shifted. All they could make out was that there was definitely someone dancing about and waving behind the great fall.
“Look!” said one man to the other. “Just look at that! See — behind the water! That’s where they’re hiding. My word, what a place! How do they get there?”
The men stared open-mouthed at the waterfall, their eyes searching for a way up to it that would lead to the ledge where the excited figure stood waving.
Meantime, Jack and Philip, quite unaware of the following men, or of Dinah either, had reached the curtain of fern. Philip pushed the ferns aside, and Jack hauled the sack up through them, panting painfully, for it was heavy.
At last the sack lay on the floor of moss. The boys flung themselves down, their hearts thumping with the labour of climbing up steeply to the cave, dragging such a heavy sack. At first they did not even notice that the girls were not there.
Not far off, some way below, stood the two men, completely bewildered. In watching Dinah behind the waterfall, they had just missed seeing Jack and Philip creep through the ferns into their cave. So when they turned from gazing at the waterfall, they found that the boys they had so warily followed had utterly disappeared.
“Where have they gone?” demanded Juan. “They were on that rock there when we saw them last.”
“Yes. Then I caught sight of that person waving down there, and took my eyes off them for a minute — and now they’ve gone,” growled Pepi. “Well, there’s no doubt where they’ve gone. They’ve taken some path that leads to that waterfall. They hide behind it — and a clever place it is, too. Who would think of anyone hiding just behind a great curtain of water like that? Well, we know where to find them. We’ll make our way to the water and climb up to that ledge. We’ll soon hunt the rats out.”
They began to climb down, hoping to find a way that would lead them to the ledge behind the waterfall. It was difficult and dangerous going, on the slippery rocks.
In the cave the boys soon recovered. They sat up, and looked round for the girls.
“Hallo — where are Lucy-Ann and Dinah?” said Jack in astonishment. “They promised to stay here till we got back. Surely to goodness they haven’t gone wandering about anywhere? They’ll get lost, sure as anything!”
They were not in the cave. That was absolutely certain. The boys did not see the hole in the fold of rock at the back. They were extremely puzzled. Jack parted the ferns and looked out.
To his enormous astonishment he at once saw the two men clambering about on rocks near the waterfall. His eyes nearly dropped out of his head.
“Look there!” he said to Philip, closing the fronds a little, fearful of being seen. “Those two men! Golly, they might have seen us getting in here! How did they get here? We saw them safely by the plane, on our way to the bush!”
Dinah had now disappeared from behind the waterfall. She could not make up her mind whether or not the men had seen the boys climbing in through the fern to their cave. In any case, she thought she ought to warn them of the men’s appearance. She felt sure that neither Jack nor Philip knew they were there.
“Come on, Lucy-Ann,” she said urgently. “We must get back to the boys. Oh, goodness, look at those men! I believe they are going to try and get over here now. They must have spotted me waving. Do come quickly, Lucy-Ann.”
Shivering with excitement, Lucy-Ann followed Dinah along the dark, winding passage that led back to the cave of echoes. Dinah went as quickly as she could, flashing her torch in front of her. Both girls forgot all about Kiki. The parrot was left sitting alone behind the waterfall, spray misting her feathers, watching the clambering men with interested eyes. She had not heard the girls going off.
Dinah and Lucy-Ann came out into the cave of echoes at last. Dinah stopped and considered. “Now, where exactly was that hole we came through?” she said.
“Came through, through, through,” called the echoes mockingly.
“Oh, be quiet!” cried Dinah to the echoes.
“QUIET, QUIET, QUIET!” yelled back the irritating voices. Dinah flashed her torch here and there, and by a very lucky chance she found the hole. In a trice she was in it, crawling along, with Lucy-Ann close behind her. Lucy-Ann had an awful feeling that somebody was going to clutch her feet from behind and she almost bumped into Dinah’s shoes in her efforts to scramble down the hole as quickly as possible.
Jack and Philip were peeping through the fern watching the men, when the girls dropped out of the hole at the back of the cave, came round the fold of rock and flung themselves on the boys. They almost jumped out of their skin.
Philip hit out, thinking that enemies were upon them. Dinah got a stinging box on the ear, and yelled. She immediately hit out at Philip and the two rolled on the floor.
“Don’t, oh, don’t!” wailed Lucy-Ann, almost in tears. “Philip, Jack, it’s us! It’s us!”
Philip shook off Dinah and sat up. Jack stared in amazement. “But where did you come from?” he demanded. “Golly, you gave us an awful scare, I can tell you, jumping out like that! Where have you been?”
“There’s a hole back there we went into,” explained Dinah, giving Philip an angry look. “I say, do you two boys know that those men were following you? They were not very far behind you. We were scared stiff they would see you climbing in here.”
“Were they following us?” said Jack. “Golly, I didn’t know that. Peep out between these fronds, you girls, and see them hunting for us down there.”
Chapter 13
SAFE IN THE CAVE
THEY all peeped out between the fern-fronds, Lucy-Ann holding her breath. Yes, there were the two men, clambering about dangerously near the waterfall.
“But what are they doing down there?” said Jack in wonder. “Why look for us there? They must have known we didn’t go that way, if they were following us.”
“Well, they must have seen me waving to you from behind the waterfall,” said Dinah. “They must think that’s where our hiding-place is.”
“Waving to us from behind the waterfall?” said Philip in the utmost amazement. “What are you talking about, Dinah? You must be bats.”
“Well, I’m not,” said Dinah. “That’s where Lucy-Ann and I were when you came up the slope there to climb into the cave. We were standing behind the waterfall, and I tried my hardest to attract your attention and tell you that those two men were following you.”
“But — how in the world did you get behind the waterfall?” asked Jack. “It was an idiotic thing to do. Fancy climbing up those slippery rocks, and getting behind the water! You might have been . . .”
“We didn’t go that way, silly,” said Dinah. “We went another way.” And she told Jack and Philip all about the hole at the back of the cave that led down into the cave of echoes, and the passage that came out behind the roaring waterfall. The boys listened in the greatest amazement.
“Gosh! How extraordinary!” said Jack. “Well, I suppose the men just caught sight of you down there, Dinah, and took their eyes off me and Philip for a minute, and lost us. We must have climbed into this cave through the fern just as they were watching you. What a good thing!”