Danny lay across their laps, ominously still. In the dark, Caleb groped for the pulse in the boy’s throat. At first he could feel nothing. He adjusted his touch and released his breath in a whoosh as he felt the weak but regular beat of the boy’s heart. He still lived. Every hour that passed must surely be a good sign. He gently lifted the sleeping boy off them, laying him on the ground with the waistcoat under his head. Danny stirred and curled onto his side but did not wake.

Caleb’s movement woke Adelaide, who groaned and straightened, stretching her own cramped arms above her head.

‘Danny?’ she whispered.

‘He’s still with us, Adelaide.’

She bent and kissed her son’s face. ‘He feels cooler. Is the fever broken?’

Caleb chose his words carefully. ‘I don’t know enough about snake bites to say, Adelaide. Let’s see what the morning brings.’

‘What is the time?’

‘No idea. It’s still raining.’

A cold wind blew scuds of rain into their shelter and beyond the entrance, the world that yesterday had been alive with fire and terror had gone completely black. Only the stench of water-soaked ash gave any indication of the torture the bush had endured.

Adelaide crawled to the entrance and stood up, turning her face to the rain and stretching and twisting her stiff limbs. The rain drove her back inside and Caleb drew her in beside him, burying his face in her damp, smoke-scented hair. She turned her face to his and they kissed, losing themselves in each other for a few moments before reality had to be faced.

Neither could sleep again and they sat at the entrance to the adit looking out into the dark, burned night.

As the first grey streaks lightened the sky, Danny woke and called out for his mother. Adelaide reached him first.

‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘How are you feeling?’

Danny swallowed. ‘I’m thirsty,’ he said and frowned. ‘My head hurts and my stomach and my arm.’

Caleb checked the boy’s pulse, relieved to find it weak but steady. ‘I’m sorry everything hurts,’ he said, ‘but it will be light soon and then we can look at getting you home to your own bed.’

Adelaide raised her son up to let him drink from the flask.

Danny pushed the flask away and looked at the lightening sky beyond the mine entrance. ‘Is the fire out?’

‘We think so,’ Adelaide said. ‘It’s been raining most of the night.’

Danny’s face screwed up and tears glistened on his eyelashes. ‘I told him I wanted to go back. He said I’d been with my mother too long and when we got back to England, he’d teach me how to be a man.’

Caleb’s fingers clenched and he kept his unChristian thoughts about Barnwell’s suitability to be a father to himself.