The sun was setting.

Beneath the dark roof of evergreens the eucalyptus boles stood out, like basalt pillars, black against a background of burning flame.

The flying foxes shot from tree to tree, and moths as big as sparrows whirred about the trunks, one moment black against the glare beyond, and vanishing the next, like imps of darkness, into their native gloom.

There was no sound of living thing around, save the ghastly rattle of the dead bark-tassels which swung from every tree, and far away, the faint clicking of the diggers at their work, like the rustle of a gigantic ant-hill.

Was there one among them all who cared for him?
who would not forget him in a week with--"Well, he was pleasant company, poor fellow," and go on digging without a sigh?
What, if it were his fate to die, as he had seen many a stronger man, there in that lonely wilderness, and sleep for ever, unhonoured and unknown, beneath that awful forest roof, while his father looked for bread to others' hands?
No man was less sentimental, no man less superstitious than Thomas Thurnall; but crushed and softened--all but terrified (as who would not have been ?)--by that day's news, he could not struggle against the weight of loneliness which fell upon him.