[cover]

THE GERM GROWERS. []

THE GERM GROWERS. [iii]

An Australian Story of Adventure and Mystery.

BY
ROBERT EASTERLEY AND JOHN WILBRAHAM.

“His . . . . . . . .

Prosequitur dictis portaque emittit eburna.”

MELBOURNE:
MELVILLE, MULLEN, & SLADE.
LONDON: HUTCHINSON & CO.
1892.
[All rights reserved.]

TABLE OF CONTENTS.[ [v]
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THE GERM GROWERS.[ [1]
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PRELIMINARY.

When I first heard the name of Kimberley[Footnote 1] ] it did not remind me of the strange things which I have here to record, and which I had witnessed somewhere in its neighbourhood years before. But one day, in the end of last summer, I overheard a conversation about its geography which led me to recognise it as a place that I had formerly visited under very extraordinary circumstances. The recognition was in this wise. Jack Wilbraham and I were spending a little while at a hotel in Gippsland, partly on a tour of pleasure and partly, so at least we persuaded ourselves, on business. The fact was, however, that for some days past, the business had quite retreated into the background, or, to speak more correctly, we had left it behind at [2] ]Bairnsdale, and had come in search of pleasure a little farther south.

It was delicious weather, warm enough for light silk coats in the daytime, and cold enough for two pairs of blankets at night. We had riding and sea-bathing to our hearts’ content, and even a rough kind of yachting and fishing. The ocean was before us—we heard its thunder night and day; and the lakes were behind us, stretching away to the promontory which the Mitchell cuts in two, and thence to the mouth of the Latrobe, which is the highway to Sale. Three times a week a coach passed our door, bound for the Snowy River and the more savage regions beyond. Any day for a few shillings we could be driven to Lake Tyers, to spend a day amidst scenery almost comparable with the incomparable Hawkesbury. Last of all, if we grew tired of the bell-birds and the gum-trees and the roar of the ocean, we were within a day’s journey of Melbourne by lake and river and rail.

It was our custom to be out all day, but home early and early to bed. We used to take our meals in a low long room which was well aired but poorly lighted, whether by day or night. And here, when tea was over and the womenkind had retired, we smoked, whenever, as often happened, the evening was cold enough [3] ]to make a shelter desirable; smoked and chatted. There was light enough to see the smoke of your pipe and the faces of those near you; but if you were listening to the chatter of a group in the other end of the room the faces of the speakers were so indistinct as often to give a startling challenge to your imagination if you had one, and if it was accustomed to take the bit in its teeth. I sometimes caught myself partly listening to a story-teller in the other end of the room and partly fashioning a face out of his dimly seen features, which quite belied the honest fellow’s real countenance when the flash of a pipelight or a shifted lamp revealed it more fully.

Jack and I were more of listeners than talkers, and we were usually amongst the earliest who retired. But one evening there was a good deal of talk about the new gold-field in the north-west, and a keen-looking bushman who seemed to have just returned from the place began to describe its whereabouts. Then I listened attentively, and at one point in his talk, I started and looked over at Jack, and I saw that he was already looking at me. I got up and left the room without a sign to him, but I knew that he would follow me, and he did. It was bright moonlight, and when we met outside we strolled down to the beach [4] ]together. It was a wide, long, and lonely beach, lonely to the very last degree, and it was divided from the house by a belt of scrub near a mile wide. We said not a word to one another till we got quite near the sea. Then I turned round and looked Jack in the face and said, “Why, man, it must have been quite near the place.”

“No,” said he, “it may have been fifty miles or more away, their knowledge is loose, and their description looser, but it must be somewhere in the neighbourhood, and I suppose they are sure to find it.”

“I do not know,” said I; and after a pause I added, “Jack, it seems to me they might pass all over the place and see nothing of what we saw.”

“God knows,” he muttered, and then he sat down on a hummock of sand and I beside him. Then he said, “Why have you never told the story, Bob?”

“Don’t you know why, Jack?” I answered. “They would lock me up in a madhouse; there would be no one to corroborate me but you, and if you did so you would be locked up along with me.”

“That might be,” said he, “if they believed you; but they would not believe you, they would think you were simply romancing.”

“What would be the good of speaking then?” said I.

[5] “Don’t speak,” he repeated, “but write, litera scripta manet, you will be believed sometime. But meanwhile you can take as your motto that verse in Virgil about the gate of ivory, and that will save you from being thought mad. You have a knack of the pen, Bob, you ought to try it.”

“Well,” said I, “let it be a joint concern between you and me, and I’ll do my best.”

Then we lit our pipes and walked home, and settled the matter in a very few words on the way. I was to write, but all I should write was to be read over to Jack, who should correct and supplement it from his own memory. And no account of anything which was witnessed by both of us was to stand finally unless it was fully vouched for by the memory of both. Thus for any part of the narrative which would concern one of us only that one should be alone responsible, but for all of it in which we were both concerned there should be a joint responsibility.

Out of this agreement comes the following history, and thus it happens that it is told in the first person singular, although there are two names on the title-page.

[Footnote 1: ] In North-west Australia.] [Return to text]

CHAPTER I.[ [6]
DISAPPEARANCES.

Before I begin my story I must give you some account of certain passages in my early life, which seem to have some connection with the extraordinary facts that I am about to put on record.

To speak more precisely, of the connection of one of them with those facts there can be no doubt at all, and of the connection of the other with them I at least have none.

When I was quite a boy, scarce yet fifteen years old, I happened to be living in a parish on the Welsh coast, which I will here call Penruddock. There were some bold hills inland and some very wild and rugged cliffs along the coast. But there was also a well-sheltered beach and a little pier where some small fishing vessels often lay. Penruddock was not yet reached by rail, but forty miles of a splendid road, [7] ]through very fine scenery, took you to a railway station. And this journey was made by a well-appointed coach on five days of every week.

The people of Penruddock were very full of a queer kind of gossip, and were very superstitious. And I took the greatest interest in their stories. I cannot say that I really believed them, or that they affected me with any real fear. But I was not without that mingled thrill of doubt and wonder which helps one to enjoy such things. I had a double advantage in this way, for I could understand the Welsh language, although I spoke it but little and with difficulty, and I often found a startling family likeness between the stories which I heard in the cottages of the peasantry three or four miles out of town and those which circulated among the English-speaking people in whose village I lived.

There was one such story which was constantly reproduced under various forms. Sometimes it was said to have happened in the last generation; sometimes as far back as the civil wars, of which, strange to say, a lively traditional recollection still remained in the neighbourhood; and sometimes it seemed to have been handed down from prehistoric times, and was associated with tales of enchantment and fairyland. [8] ]In such stories the central event was always the unaccountable disappearance of some person, and the character of the person disappearing always presented certain unvarying features. He was always bold and fascinating, and yet in some way or other very repulsive. And when you tried to find out why, some sort of inhumanity was always indicated, some unconscious lack of sympathy which was revolting in a high degree or even monstrous. The stories had one other feature in common, of which I will tell you presently.

I seldom had any companions of my own age, and I was in consequence more given to dreaming than was good for me. And I used to marshal the heroes of these queer stories in my day-dreams and trace their likeness one to another. They were often so very unlike in other points, and yet so strangely like in that one point. I remember very well the first day that I thought I detected in a living man a resemblance to those dreadful heroes of my Welsh friend’s folk-lore. There was a young fellow whom I knew, about five or six years my senior, and so just growing into manhood. His name, let us say, was James Redpath. He was well built, of middle height, and, as I thought, at first at least, quite beautiful to look upon. And, indeed, why I did not continue to think so is more than [9] ]I can exactly say. For he possessed very fine and striking features, and although not very tall his presence was imposing. But nobody liked him. The girls especially, although he was so good-looking, almost uniformly shrank from him. But I must confess that he did not seem to care much for their society.

I went about with him a good deal at one time on fishing and shooting excursions and made myself useful to him, and except that he was rather cruel to dogs and cats, and had a nasty habit of frightening children, I do not know that I noticed anything particular about him. Not, at least, until one day of which I am going to tell you. James Redpath and I were coming back together to Penruddock, and we called at a cottage about two miles from the village. Here we found a little boy of about four years old, who had been visiting at the cottage and whom they wanted to send home. They asked us to take charge of him and we did so. On the way home the little boy’s shoe was found to have a nail or a peg in it that hurt his foot, and we were quite unable to get it out. It was nothing, however, to James Redpath to carry him, and so he took him in his arms. The little boy shrank and whimpered as he did so. James had under his arm some [10] ]parts of a fishing-rod and one of these came in contact with the little boy’s leg and scratched it rather severely so as to make him cry. I took it away and we went on. I was walking a little behind Redpath, and as I walked I saw him deliberately take another joint of the rod, put it in the same place and then watch the little boy’s face as it came in contact with the wire, and as the child cried out I saw quite a malignant expression of pleasure pass over James’s face. The thing was done in a moment and it was over in a moment; but I felt as if I should like to have killed him if I dared. I always dreaded and shunned him, more or less, afterwards, and I began from that date to associate him with the inhuman heroes of my Welsh stories.

I don’t think that I should ever have got over the dislike of him which I then conceived, but I saw the last of him, at least Penruddock saw the last of him, about three months later. I had been sitting looking over the sea between the pier and the cliffs and trying to catch a glimpse of the Wicklow Mountains which were sometimes to be seen from that point. Just then James Redpath came up from the beach beyond the pier, and passing me with a brief “good morning,” went away inland, leaving the cliffs behind him. I don’t know how long I lay there, it might be two [11] ]hours or more, and I think I slept a little. But I suddenly started up to find it high day and past noon, and I began to think of looking for some shelter. There was not a cloud visible, but nevertheless two shadows like, or something like, the shadows of clouds lay near me on the ground. What they were the shadows of I could not tell, and I was about to get up to see, for there was nothing to cast such a shadow within the range of my sight as I lay. Just then one of the shadows came down over me and seemed to stand for a moment between me and the sun. It had a well-defined shape, much too well defined for a cloud. I thought as I looked that it was just such a shadow as might be cast by a yawl-built boat lying on the body of a large wheelbarrow. Then the two shadows seemed to move together and to move very quickly. I had just noticed that they were exactly like one another when the next moment they passed out of my sight.

I started to my feet with a bound, my heart beating furiously. But there was nothing more to alarm the weakest. It was broad day. Houses and gardens were to be seen close at hand and in every direction but one, and in that direction there were three or four fishermen drawing their nets. But as I looked away [12] ]to the part of the sky where the strange cloudlike shadows had just vanished, I remembered with a shudder that other feature in common of the strange stories of which I told you just now. It was a feature that forcibly reminded me of what I had just witnessed. Sometimes in the later stories you would be told of a cloud coming and going in an otherwise cloudless sky. And sometimes in the elder stories you would be told of an invisible car, invisible but not shadowless. I used always to identify the shadow of the invisible car in the elder stories with the cloud in the later stories, the cloud that unaccountably came and went.

As I thought it all over and tried to persuade myself that I had been dreaming I suddenly remembered that James Redpath had passed by a few hours before, and as suddenly I came to the conclusion that I should never see him again. And certainly he never was again seen, dead or alive, anywhere in Wales or England. His father, and his uncle, and their families, continued to live about Penruddock, but Penruddock never knew James Redpath any more. Whether I myself saw him again or not is more than I can say with absolute certainty. You shall know as much as I know about it if you hear my story to the end.

CHAPTER II.[ [13]
THE RED SICKNESS.

Of course James Redpath’s disappearance attracted much attention, and was the talk not only of the village, but of the whole country-side. It was the general opinion that he must have been drowned by falling over the cliffs, and that his body had been washed out to sea. I proved, however, to have been the very last person to see him, and my testimony, as far as it went, was against that opinion. For I certainly had seen him walking straight inland. Of course he might have returned to the coast afterwards, but at least nobody had seen him return. I gave a full account of place and time as far as I could fix them, and I mentioned the queer-looking clouds and even described their shape. This, I remember, was considered to have some value as fixing my memory of the matter, but no further notice was taken of it. And I myself did not venture [14] ]to suggest any connection between it and Redpath’s disappearance, because I did not see how I could reasonably do so. I had, nevertheless, a firm conviction that there was such a connection, but I knew very well that to declare it would only bring a storm of ridicule upon me.

But a public calamity just then befell Penruddock which made men forget James Redpath’s disappearance. A pestilence broke out in the place of which nobody knew either the nature or the source. It seemed to spring up in the place. At least, all efforts to trace it were unsuccessful. The first two or three cases were attributed to some inflammatory cold, but it soon became clear that there were specific features about it, that they were quite unfamiliar, that the disease was extremely dangerous to life and highly infectious.

Then a panic set in, and I believe that the disease would soon have been propagated all over England and farther, if it had not been for the zeal and ability of two young physicians who happened very fortunately to be living in the village just then. Their names were Leopold and Furniss. I forget if I ever knew their Christian names. We used to call them Doctor Leopold and Doctor Furniss. They had finished their studies for some little time, but they found it advisable on the score [15] ]of health to take a longish holiday before commencing practice, and they were spending part of their holiday at Penruddock. They were just about to leave us when the disease I am telling you of broke out.

The first case occurred in a valley about two miles from the village. In this valley there were several cottages inhabited mostly by farm labourers and artisans. These cottages lay one after another in the direction of the rising ground which separated the valley from Penruddock. Then there were no houses for a considerable space. Then, just over the hill, there was another and yet another. The disease had made its way gradually up the hill from one cottage to another, day after day a fresh case appearing. Then there had been no new cases for four days, but on the fifth day a new case appeared in the cottage just over the brow of the hill. And when this became known, also that every case (there had now been eleven) had hitherto been fatal, serious alarm arose. Then, too, the disease became known as the “red sickness.” This name was due to a discoloration which set in on the shoulders, neck, and forehead very shortly after seizure.

How the two doctors, as we called them, became armed with the needful powers I do not know. They certainly contrived to obtain some sort of legal authority, [16] ]but I think that they acted in great measure on their own responsibility.

By the time they commenced operations there were three or four more cases in the valley, and one more in the second cottage on the Penruddock side. There was a large stone house, partly ruinous, in the valley, near the sea, and hither they brought every one of the sick. Plenty of help was given them in the way of beds, bedding, and all sorts of material, but such was the height which the panic had now attained that no one from the village would go near any of the sick folk, nor even enter the valley. The physicians themselves and their two men servants, who seemed to be as fearless and brave as they, did all the work. Fortunately, the two infected cottages on the Penruddock side were each tenanted only by the person who had fallen ill, and the tenant in each case was a labourer whose work lay in the valley. The physicians burnt down these cottages and everything that was in them. Then they established a strict quarantine between the village and the valley. There was a light fence running from the sea for about a mile inland, along the brow of the rising ground on the Penruddock side. This they never passed nor suffered any one to pass, during the prevalence of the sickness. Butchers and [17] ]bakers and other tradesmen left their wares at a given point at a given time, and the people from the valley came and fetched them.

The excitement and terror in Penruddock were very great. All but the most necessary business was suspended, and of social intercourse during the panic there was next to none. Ten cases in all were treated by the physicians, and four of these recovered. The last two cases were three or four days apart, but they were no less malignant in character: the very last case was one of the fatal ones. I learned nothing of the treatment; but the means used to prevent the disease spreading, besides the strict quarantine, were chiefly fire and lime. Everything about the sick was passed through the fire, and of these everything that the fire would destroy was destroyed. Lime, which abounded in the valley, was largely used.

A month after the last case the two physicians declared the quarantine at an end, and a month later all fear of the disease had ceased. And then the people of the village began to think of consoling themselves for the dull and uncomfortable time they had had, and of doing some honour to the two visitors who had served the village so well. With this double purpose in view a picnic on a large scale was organized, and [18] ]there was plenty of eating and drinking and speech-making and dancing, all of which I pass over. But at that picnic I heard a conversation which made a very powerful impression on me then, and which often has seemed to provide a bond which binds together all the strange things of which I had experience at the time and afterwards.

In the heat of the afternoon I had happened to be with Mr. Leopold and Mr. Furniss helping them in some arrangements which they were making for the amusement of the children who took part in the picnic. After these were finished they two strolled away together to the side of a brook which ran through the park where we were gathered. I followed them, attracted mainly by Mr. Furniss’s dog, but encouraged also by an occasional word from the young men. At the brook Mr. Furniss sat upon a log, and leaned his back against a rustic fence. The dog sat by him; a very beautiful dog he was, black and white, with great intelligent eyes, and an uncommonly large and well-shaped head. He would sometimes stretch himself at length, and then again he would put his paw upon his master’s shoulder and watch Mr. Leopold and me.

Mr. Leopold stood with his back to an oak-tree, and [19] ]I leant against the fence beside him listening to him. He was a tall, dark man, with a keen, thoughtful, and benevolent expression. He was quite strong and healthy-looking, and there was a squareness about his features that I think one does not often see in dark people. Mr. Furniss was of lighter complexion and hardly as tall; there was quite as much intelligence and benevolence in his face, but not so much of what I have called thoughtfulness as distinguished from intelligence, and there was a humorous glint in his eye which the other lacked. They began to talk about the disease which had been so successfully dealt with, and this was what they said:—

Leopold. Well, Furniss, an enemy hath done this.

Furniss. Done what? The picnic or the red sickness?

Leopold. The red sickness, of course. Can’t you see what I mean?

Furniss. No, I can’t. You’re too much of a mystic for me, Leopold; but I’ll tell you what, England owes a debt to you and me, my boy, for it was near enough to being a new edition of the black death or the plague.

Leopold. Only the black death and the plague were imported, and this was indigenous. It sprung up under [20] ]our noses in a healthy place. It came from nowhere, and, thank God, it is gone nowhither.

Furniss. But surely the black death and the plague must have begun somewhere, and they too seem to have gone nowhither.

Leopold. You’re right this far that they all must have had the same sort of beginning. Only it is given to very few to see the beginning, as you and I have seen it, or so near the beginning.

Furniss. Now, Leopold, I hardly see what you are driving at. I am not much on religion, as they say in America, but I believe there is a Power above all. Call that Power God, and let us say that God does as He pleases, and on the whole that it is best that He should. I don’t see that you can get much further than that.

Leopold. I don’t believe that God ever made the plague, or the black death, or the red sickness.

Furniss. Oh, don’t you? Then you are, I suppose, what the churchmen call a Manichee—you believe in the two powers of light and darkness, good and evil. Well, it is not a bad solution of the question as far as it goes, but I can hardly accept it.

Leopold. No, I don’t believe in any gods but the One. But let me explain. That is a nice dog of [21] ]yours, Furniss. You told me one day something about his breeding, and you promised to tell me more.

Furniss. Yes, it is quite a problem in natural history. Do you know, Tommy’s ancestors have been in our family for four or five generations of men, and, I suppose, that is twenty generations of dogs.

Leopold. You told me something of it. You improved the breed greatly, I believe?

Furniss. Yes; but I have some distant cousins, and they have the same breed and yet not the same, for they have cultivated it in quite another direction.

Leopold. What are the differences?

Furniss. Our dogs are all more or less like Tommy here, gentle and faithful, very intelligent, and by no means deficient in pluck. My cousin’s dogs are fierce and quarrelsome, so much so that they have not been suffered for generations to associate with children. And so they have lost intelligence and are become ill-conditioned and low-lived brutes.

Leopold. But I think I understood you to say that the change in the breed did not come about in the ordinary course of nature.

Furniss. I believe not. I heard my grandfather say that his father had told him that when he was a young man he had set about improving the breed. He had [22] ]marked out the most intelligent and best tempered pups, and he had bred from them only and had given away or destroyed the others.

Leopold. And about your cousin’s dogs?

Furniss. Just let me finish. It seems that while one brother began to cultivate the breed upward, so to speak, another brother was living in a part of the country where thieves were numerous and daring, and there were smugglers and gipsies, and what not, about. And so he began to improve the breed in quite another direction. He selected the fierce and snappish pups and bred exclusively from them.

Leopold. And so from one ancestral pair of, say, a hundred or a hundred and fifty years ago, you have Tommy there, with his wonderful mixture of gentleness and pluck, and his intelligence all but human, and your cousin has a kennel of unintelligent and bloodthirsty brutes, that have to be caged and chained as if they were wild beasts.

Furniss. Just so, but I don’t quite see what you are driving at.

Leopold. Wait a minute. Do you suppose the germs of cow-pox and small-pox to be of the same breed?

Furniss. Well, yes; you know that I hold them to be specifically identical. I see what you are at now.

[23] Leopold. But one of them fulfils some obscure function in the physique of the cow, some function certainly harmless and probably beneficent, and the other is the malignant small-pox of the London hospitals.

Furniss. So you mean to infer that in the latter case the germ has been cultivated downwards by intelligent purpose.

Leopold. What if I do?

Furniss. You think, then, that there is a secret guild of malignant men of medicine sworn to wage war against their fellow-men, that they are spread over all the world and have existed since before the dawn of history. I don’t believe that there are any men as bad as that, and if there were, I should call them devils and hunt them down like mad dogs.

Leopold. I don’t wish to use misleading words, but I will say that I believe there are intelligences, not human, who have access to realms of nature that we are but just beginning to explore; and I believe that some of them are enemies to humanity, and that they use their knowledge to breed such things as malignant small-pox or the red sickness out of germs which were originally of a harmless or even of a beneficent nature.

Furniss. Just as my cousins have bred those wild [24] ]beasts of theirs out of such harmless creatures as poor Tommy’s ancestors.

Leopold. Just so.

Furniss. And you think that we can contend successfully against such enemies.

Leopold. Why not? They can only have nature to work upon. And very likely their only advantage over us is that they know more of nature than we do. They cannot go beyond the limits of nature to do less or more. As long as we sought after spells and enchantments and that sort of nonsense we were very much at their mercy. But we are now learning to fight them with their own weapons, which consist of the knowledge of nature. Witness vaccination, and witness also our little victory over the red sickness.

Furniss. You’re a queer mixture, Leopold, but we must get back to the picnic people.

And so they got up and went back together to the dancers, nodding to me as they went. I sat there for awhile, going over and over the conversation in my mind and putting together my own thoughts and Mr. Leopold’s.

Then I joined the company and was merry as the merriest for the remainder of the day. But that night [25] ]I dreamt of strange-looking clouds and of the shadows of invisible cars, and of demons riding in the cars and sowing the seeds of pestilence on the earth and catching away such evil specimens of humanity as James Redpath to reinforce the ranks of their own malignant order.

CHAPTER III.[ [26]
AT SEA.

It is my purpose to pass briefly over everything in my own history which does not concern the tale that I have to tell, and there is very little therefore for me to say about the seven or eight years which followed upon the events at Penruddock which I have just recorded.

I went in due course to Oxford, where I stayed the usual time. I did not make any great failures there, nor did I gain much distinction. I was a diligent reader, but much of my reading was outside the regulation lines. The literature of my own country, the poetry of mediæval Italy, and the philosophy of modern Germany, more than divided my attention with classics and mathematics. Novels, mostly of the sensational type, amused me in vacations and on holidays, but very seldom found their way into my working days.

[27] I travelled over most of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and spent some time in some of the principal cities of the Continent. I became a fair linguist, speaking German, French, and Italian, with some fluency, although my accent always bewrayed me. I took a second class in classics, bade adieu to Oxford, and began to make up my mind as to what I should do with my life. I had thought of the various professions in turn, and had decided against them all; and, finally, as I had no taste for idleness, and as I had some money, I resolved to invest it in sheep or cattle farming in some of the new countries. I thought successively of New Zealand, the United States, Canada, and Australia, and I was determined in favour of Australia by falling in with Jack Wilbraham. He and I had gone into residence at Oxford about the same time, but not at the same college, and we took our degrees in the same year; but we hardly belonged to the same set. Jack was more of a sporting than a reading man, and I was not much of either, at least as either was understood at the University. So Jack and I, although we heard of one another occasionally, did not meet until a few months before we left Oxford.

Then we became fast friends, and, as he had already determined to go to Australia, I made up my mind to [28] ]go with him. We took our passage of course in the same ship. It was not yet the day of the great steamers and the canal was not yet open. We sailed from Liverpool in a clipper ship and we went round the Cape. But I think that we were quite as comfortable and as well taken care of as we should be now in the best of the Orient or Peninsular boats. Our voyage was altogether without disaster. Indeed it was like a picnic of ninety days’ duration, and I do not know that I had ever enjoyed any three months of my life as much. But there were no details that I need mention except the fact that we formed an acquaintance (Jack and I) which determined our immediate course on our arrival in Australia, and so led us on to the mysterious experience of which I have to tell.

Not indeed that our new acquaintance was one who might fairly be expected to introduce us to anything mysterious. Mr. Fetherston, as I shall call him here, was a thoroughly good fellow, and proved himself to be a staunch friend, but he was utterly destitute of imagination, and he had the greatest contempt for what he used to call “queer stories”; he used queer in a special sense; he meant simply mysterious, or savouring of what is commonly called the supernatural.

[29] One bright evening in the tropics some such stories were going round. The air was delicious, and the moon and stars were just beginning to shine. The first mate, myself, and Mr. Fetherston were the principal talkers, but we had a good many listeners. The first mate began the conversation by telling two or three stories of the type I have mentioned; one of them especially took my fancy. I cannot remember it in detail, but I know that it was provokingly mysterious, and seemed to admit of no solution but a supernatural one. The main incident was something like this. A farmer who lived about twelve miles from Bristol left home one evening with the intention of spending the night in that city in order to transact some business there at an early hour in the morning. He had to stop at a station about half-way to see some one who lived near there, and then to take another train in. He got out all right at the half-way station and walked towards the man’s house whom he wanted to see. A stranger met him on the way and drew him into conversation. As they came to certain cross roads the stranger turned, looked him in the face and said very deliberately, “Go home by next train, you will be just in time.” Then he walked away quickly down one of the cross roads. The farmer stood like one [30] ]stunned for a minute or two, and then hurried after the stranger intending to stop him. But he could see him no more. There were several houses and gardens about and he might have passed into one of them, but anyhow he was lost to sight. The farmer did as he was told and hurried home. He arrived just in time to save his house from being burned to the ground, and more than that, for his wife and children and servants were in bed and asleep.

When the story was told, Mr. Fetherston gave his opinion of it very freely. I never saw contempt more effectually expressed. He spoke without the least atom of temper. Men who get angry and denounce that sort of thing are usually afraid of believing it, or at least of seeming to believe it. Nothing was further from Mr. Fetherston’s thought. But you saw plainly that such stories were for him on a level with the most senseless of nursery rhymes and nothing better than mere idiot’s chatter. He did not say so in as many words nor at all offensively, but he made it quite clear nevertheless that he felt himself to be looking down from the platform of a mysterious intelligence on some very contemptible folly.

I felt as if reproach were in the air, and I knew that if it were deserved I was one of those who deserved it. [31] ]So, although it would have been pleasanter to be silent, I felt that I was bound to speak.

So I said, “Mr. Fetherston, isn’t it all a matter of evidence?”

Fetherston. Evidence! And pray on what evidence would you believe such a story as that which we have just heard?

Easterley. Upon the statement on the honour of any sane man that I knew and trusted: how I might account for it is another matter.

Fetherston. If a man whom I knew and trusted told me such a story on his honour I should trust him no longer, and I should believe him to be either insane or dishonest.

Easterley. Suppose that ten men whom you knew and trusted agreed in telling you the same story?

Fetherston (with a slight laugh). Then I should begin to suspect that I had gone mad myself, but I should never believe it.

Easterley. Yet you believe a story which is nearly two thousand years old and which is full of mystery from beginning to end: the story of a man who was born mysteriously, who exercised mysterious powers during his life, and after death by violence lived again mysteriously, and at last left this world mysteriously. [32] ][Now you must know I spoke here knowing what I was about, for Fetherston was an enthusiastic churchman, and in company with a clergyman who was one of us he had organized a regular Sunday service, and, on the very last Sunday, was one of a small number to whom the clergyman had administered the sacrament.] It seems to me, Mr. Fetherston, I went on to say, that you, like some people I have met, can believe a thing with one side of your head and disbelieve it with the other.

Fetherston. You are certainly like some people I have met. You throw the Christian religion overboard and then you take to believing a lot of puerile absurdities.

Easterley. Softly now, you must not say that I throw the Christian religion overboard. It may be that I do not accept it in quite the same sense as you, still I accept it. And as for the supernatural, if I said that I believed in it or that I did not believe in it, I should most likely to some extent deceive you.

Fetherston. You mean that you could not answer with a plain “yes” or “no.”

Easterley. Not quite that; but I could not answer as you do with “yes” and “no.” I should have to distinguish.

[33] Fetherston. Distinguish then, please.

Easterley. Well, when you say that you don’t believe in the supernatural, I reply that what I don’t believe in is the natural.

Fetherston. I am afraid I must ask you to explain your explanation.

Easterley. What I mean is this. I believe that there is nothing at all, from a bucket of saltwater to the head on your shoulders, of which a full account can be given by any man. You go further and further back until you can get no further, but still you see that you are not at the end. Every natural thing implies a principle which is outside nature.

Fetherston. But you believe that there is a law for everything?

Easterley. I believe that order prevails everywhere, and that everything has its place in that order; you may if you like call that order nature. Then I say that if there be ghosts they are part of nature; they have their place in nature as well as we. And we as well as the ghosts, and the air and the water as well as we, imply something that is not nature. Everything is natural and everything is supernatural.

Fetherston. Easterley, I am afraid you are a philosopher. Come with me to Central Australia and we’ll [34] ]knock the philosophy out of you and make you a practical man.

Easterley. Are you going to Central Australia?

Fetherston. Yes; I am to have charge of a company of surveyors who are to be engaged about the laying of the overland line to Port Darwin.

Easterley. I’ll think of it. I rather think I should like it. I suppose we shall see no ghosts there, Fetherston?

Fetherston. I don’t know about that. I dare say we may, for we shall often have to live on salt junk and damper.

So there our talk ended. I had heard of Mr. Fetherston’s business before, and even I believe of his destination; but I had forgotten the particulars, and certainly it never had struck me that I should care to go with him. But now I thought I should like to talk it over with Jack. So I went in search of him. I found him by himself at the farthest aft part of the ship, standing just above the companion with his back against a rail. He had been chatting with two or three of the ladies, and they had just gone below. He came at once to meet me, and we both went forward and lit our pipes and smoked some time in silence. Then Jack spoke. “I see that you have something to say, Bob; what is it?”

[35] “Fetherston,” said I, “is going with a survey party to assist in laying the overland wire to Port Darwin: he proposes that we should go with him; he was only in jest, but I think I should like it.”

Jack thought it would be a very good beginning: we should see much of the country, we should get experience, and have something to talk about. Poor Jack! if he had only known! We have never ventured to talk much about that journey, not much to one another, and not at all to anyone else; but I must not anticipate. We both took a fancy to the scheme. There would be much of the interest of exploring without any of the special risks. We would, no doubt, have some hardships to put up with, but there would be depôts at intervals along the way, and our communication would be kept open all through. So I spoke to Fetherston a few days later. “Fetherston,” I said, “will you take two volunteers with you on your survey party northward? We shall pay our own expenses, but we shall want your guidance and protection, and we shall have nothing to give you in return but our company.”

Fetherston said that he thought it might on such terms be easily managed, and it was managed accordingly.

CHAPTER IV.[ [36]
OVERLAND.

Jack and I had intended to go on to Melbourne and thence to Sydney, but upon our arrival at Adelaide we found that arrangements had been made which required that Mr. Fetherston should start northward as soon as possible. We had, therefore, little enough time to make preparation for the journey, and so we had to give up for the present all thought of making acquaintance with the great Australian cities. Mr. Fetherston, although he was but little over thirty years old, was a veteran Australian explorer; for about ten years before he had been with Stuart on his third and successful expedition in search of a practicable route from Adelaide to the Indian Ocean, and all the time since, except about a year and a half in England and on the way there and back, he had spent in pioneering work in Queensland and the north.

[37] The undertaking in which he was now engaged was in rather a critical condition. The entire length of the route, from Adelaide to Port Darwin, would be about two thousand miles, and over the central section of eight hundred miles, passing through, as some would have thought, the most difficult part of the line, the wire had been already carried. And after some further delay this had been connected with Adelaide. But about six hundred miles at the northern extremity still remained unfinished. The first expedition for the purpose had absolutely failed, and one or two attempts made since had not been any more successful. The chief superintendent of the work was either about to start for Port Darwin by sea, or was already on his way. And Mr. Fetherston’s expedition was to meet him in the north. They expected to hear of one another somewhere about the Daly Waters. So there would be no work but simply travelling until that point was reached; none, at least, for Mr. Fetherston’s party.

Mr. Fetherston introduced us to his chief assistant, Mr. Berry, telling us that we could do no better than take his advice about our preparation for the journey. Mr. Berry was also a veteran bushman and an experienced surveyor

. He had been to Cooper’s Creek twice, [38] ]and he knew the Darling from Bourke to Wentworth as well as King William Street and the North Terrace. So Jack and I put ourselves into his hands. We purchased two strong saddle horses, each with colonial saddles of the sort used by stockmen, and everything to match. We hired a man, specially recommended as a good bushman by Mr. Berry. This man was to ride one horse and to lead another, so that we should have one spare horse in case of accident. Mr. Fetherston introduced us also to the department which had oversight of the work. And they allowed us to pay a bulk sum to cover our expenses on the journey. The sum seemed to me very moderate, but, as Mr. Berry explained, “it was only to cover tucker and tents;” and the former was to be of a very simple and primitive sort, consisting simply of tea and sugar, salt meat and flour, and lime-juice, and we were to manage our cooking the best way we could. The store waggons would carry tobacco and soap; but these were to be sold, and Mr. Berry advised us to take a private supply of the former. We also procured a revolver each, and as many cartridges as we could conveniently carry. We each provided ourselves with a pair of blankets, an opossum rug, a couple of changes of coarse outside clothing, and half-a-dozen flannel shirts. Our [39] ]dressing gear was limited to a comb and a tooth-brush each, with a few coarse towels. The towels and shirts we hoped to be able to wash from time to time on the way, and Mr. Berry told us that at depôts along the line there would sometimes be a supply of flannel shirts, and moleskin trousers, and cabbage-tree hats. The cabbage-tree hat was the head gear that we adopted by his advice.

Before leaving Adelaide we put our money in the bank, arranging that it should bear interest at some low rate for six months, and then we made our wills, which we left in the safe belonging to the bank. By Mr. Fetherston’s advice we took very little money with us. A few sovereigns and some silver, he said, would be more than enough. Whatever we might buy at the Government depôts would be paid for by cheque, and if we should have occasion and opportunity to purchase fresh horses our cheques, endorsed by Mr. Fetherston, would be readily accepted.

Mr. Berry, with the horses and waggons, left Adelaide within a week of our arrival there. Mr. Fetherston, Jack, and I, remained a week or ten days longer. It was arranged that we should join them at Port Augusta, whence the real start would be made. Most of the time thus gained Jack and I spent in trying to [40] ]make ourselves as well acquainted as possible with the route we were to travel by, and its position with reference to the other parts of Australia. In the Government office there were several charts and plans which we were permitted to study and to copy. The route was in the main identical with Stuart’s track, but of much of the northern extremity it seemed to us doubtful if it had ever been surveyed at all. Of the other parts, however, a good deal was known, and the creeks and ranges were laid down with much apparent precision. Parts of the route might prove to be almost impracticable after a dry season, but as far as our information went, the worst country would be met with, not in the far interior but somewhere between Port Augusta and a point a little north of Lake Eyre.

Mr. Fetherston, Jack, and I, left Port Adelaide for Port Augusta the first week in November in a slow little steamer that took near a week on the passage; and we had to stay nearly another week at Port Augusta before the overland party arrived. I remember nothing of Port Augusta except a very miserable public-house, at which we lodged, and the sand hills, long, low, and white.

On the 20th of November we were well on the road, and we hoped to reach Daly Waters in about three [41] ]months, and Mr. Fetherston expected that the line would be open to Port Darwin in about three months more. I may as well say here that it was in fact opened in the month of August, just nine months after we left Port Augusta.

We travelled over a very miserable country for some weeks. Not a really green thing was to be seen, and water was very scarce and bad. And the heat was excessive, far worse than we found it on any other part of the route; far worse, indeed, than any heat that I have ever endured either in Australia or elsewhere.

But after we had passed Lake Eyre a little way the country and the climate began to improve. And we had pleasant enough travelling until we got far beyond Alice’s Springs. We had reached or passed the seventeenth degree of latitude before the water began to get very scarce or the ground very difficult again. There was not much variety in the scenery. We passed through long tracts of wooded country, and again over nearly treeless plains, and again over a succession of low hills, some bald and some covered with forest. Though none of them attained any considerable height, they sometimes assumed very remarkable forms. We met several creeks whose course was in the main dry, with [42] ]here and there, however, ponds or water holes from ten or twenty to several hundred feet long. At the larger ponds we often got a variety of water fowl, but in general along the route there was a great scarcity of game.

Mr. Berry had in his own special service a certain Australian black with whom Jack and I formed an intimate acquaintance—of which and of whom I must tell you something; for if it had not been for him Jack and I would never have left the beaten track, and so this book would never have been written.

His name was Gioro; that was the way we came to spell it, although J o r o would perhaps have been the better and simpler spelling.

He was the most remarkable Australian black that I have ever met, and I have met a great many under a great variety of conditions and circumstances, and I find myself unable to differ seriously from the common estimate which places them near the very end of the scale. As a general rule (and I have only known the one exception), they have no really great qualities, none of those which are sometimes attributed to other barbarous races, as, for instance, to the American red man and even to the negro. But Gioro had qualities that would have done honour to the highest race on earth. He always spoke the truth, and he seemed to take it for granted that those to [43] ]whom he spoke would also speak the truth. He had lived with white men in the North, and they must have been fine fellows, for he spoke of them always with respect, whereas he spoke with disgust and contempt of certain mean whites of Adelaide who had attempted to cheat him in some way. He never put himself forward, but if he were put forward by others who were in power he accepted the position as his right quite simply. He was as honest as the sun, and he was loyal through and through. He had even the manner of a gentleman. Mr. Fetherston’s tent was notably the largest in our camp, and the union jack floated over it on Sundays. And every Sunday all the officers and volunteers, that is to say, Mr. Fetherston, Mr. Berry and his assistant, Jack and myself, dined there in a sort of state; and it was Mr. Fetherston’s wont to have in one of the men to make the number even. And Gioro took his turn with us two or three times and was far the best conducted of those who were so invited. His ease of manner was perfect: he was as gentle and suave as an English nobleman; there was not a spark of self-assertion about him, and yet there was, or there seemed to be, a quiet consciousness of equality with his entertainers. He was also very courteous without being in the least bit cringing. He was glad [44] ]always to teach us anything that we didn’t know and that he knew, and he was grateful for being taught something in turn. Jack, for instance, took a great interest in the boomerang, and Gioro took much pains to teach him how to use it and how to make it. Jack had been distinguished at Oxford for his athletics. And these were a great bond between him and Gioro. He taught him several athletic feats, and Gioro’s great suppleness of body enabled him to acquire them readily.

It was curious to notice the impression which his character made upon the men. His name suggested a very ready abbreviation, and indeed, he was often known in the camp as “Jo.” But I never heard any one but Jack address him so. And Jack, as I have said, was more intimate with him than any of us. One day, quite near the beginning of the expedition, Mr. Fetherston called him “Sir Gioro.” I don’t quite know what he meant, probably nothing more than a humorous

recognition of the black man’s unassuming dignity. Anyhow, the title stuck, and one heard his name afterwards, quite as often with the addition as without it.

He had not been at all corrupted by his intercourse with white men. That intercourse had indeed been very limited. He had spent the greater part of two [45] ]years with some settlers near the Gulf, and he learned there a sort of pigeon English which enabled him to converse with us. He had come to Adelaide with some of the party who had been engaged in one of the unsuccessful attempts to complete the northern extremity of the overland wire. His engagement with Mr. Berry was terminable at pleasure on either side. From the account which he gave of himself I should think that he was about twenty-five years old: he had visited his own people since the commencement of his sojourn with white men, and he intended to visit them again. I had learned all this from him before we were half-way to the Daly Waters.

One evening, after we had passed the tropic, we camped earlier than usual because we had come upon a creek where there were tracks of wallaby and other game, and Gioro was very busy setting snares for them and showing us how to make and set such snares. The occupation seemed to remind him of his sojourn with the white men near the Gulf. So when we sat down to smoke, Gioro, Jack and I, Gioro said, “Way there,” pointing to the north-east after looking at the stars, “two three white men, sheep, two three, two three, two three, great many; one man not white man, not black man, pigtail man, and Gioro.” “And what,” said Jack, [46] ]“

were they doing there, and what were you doing there?” “Pigtail man cook, wash clothes, white man ride after sheep, dogs too, Gioro ride, speak English, snare wallaby.”

“How long did he stay there?” One year six months.

“How long since he left?” One year.

I will not give you much of Gioro’s dialect; it was many days before I could readily understand him, and it was not a sort of dialect which is worth studying for its own sake. I learned from him that he belonged to a strong and populous tribe which occupied part of the country to the west of the Daly Waters. They had a king or chief whom Gioro held in the highest regard. His name was Bomero: the accent on the first syllable and the final “o” short like the “o” in rock. This Bomero was a great warrior and a mighty strong man, and possessed of great personal influence. It was my fate, as you shall hear, to make his acquaintance, and I found him by no means the equal of Gioro in any of the greatest qualities of the man or the gentleman. Like some public leaders among more civilised people he owed his position partly to his fluent persuasiveness, partly to his violent self-assertiveness, and more than all to what I must call his roguery. Black men and white men are wonderfully like in some things.

[47] Bomero seemed to have attained his power on the strength of these endowments alone. At least I could not learn anything decisive about his ancestry. Indeed, I could not gather that his people had any but the most elementary sense of the family relation, although tribal feeling, as distinct from family feeling, was very strong among them. Gioro had some recollection of “Old man Bomero,” and his recollections would sometimes appear to indicate that Old man Bomero was a remarkable black fellow, but I could not discover that he ever attained to any position of special eminence among them. He certainly had not been their king as Bomero was.

I was at this time beginning to have some thought of a couple of days’ expedition into the unexplored country to the west of the Daly Waters, and I had hinted as much to Jack. And I thought that the present was a good opportunity to find how far Gioro might be depended on as a guide. So I filled his pipe with my own tobacco (he was quite able to distinguish and prefer the flavour), and then I gave Jack a look to bespeak his attention, and began to put my questions.

“When would Sir Gioro see his own people again?”

Several slow puffs, a keen, eager, honest look, yet, withal, a cautious look, and then,

[48] “May be one two months.”

Then I said, “No water out west—die of thirst?”

“Now,” said Gioro, nodding his head affirmatively, “but in one two months, no, no.”

I saw that he meant either that after three months there would be wet weather, or that within three months we should have a better-watered country westward. So I said, pointing west, “What’s out there?”

“No water, no grass, no duck, no black fellow.”

“But,” said I, looking northward, “we go on one two months, and then?” making a half-turn to face the west.

“Then,” said he, “plenty grass, plenty fish, plenty duck, plenty black fellow.”

“Everywhere?” said I, sweeping my arm all round the horizon.

“No, no, here, there, there. Gioro know the way, Bomero know the way, find Bomero, find water.”

“What,” said I, not understanding him, “Bomero make rain?”

But he replied with great contempt, “Bomero make rain! No, no. Bomero not witchfellow. No fear. Bomero make witchfellow make rain.”

I think it was on this occasion that we ascertained that Gioro fully intended to go away westward in [49] ]search of his tribe, who, as he expected, would be found in about three months at a point with which he was familiar at some uncertain distance from the Daly Waters.

They kept a great feast every year. It seemed to have some connection with the Pleiades and Aldebaran, for it was always celebrated when these stars were in conjunction with the sun. Several kindred tribes kept it, each in his own place westward, and every three years all the tribes who kept the feast celebrated it all together in a place farther west still. The triennial celebration was approaching, and Gioro intended to be there. He knew the way by which Bomero and his people would be travelling; he would cross their course, meet them, and go with them to the trysting-place.

Jack suggested that he and I and Gioro should all go together and visit his tribe.

Gioro hesitated for a little while, but after some apparently careful thought he said yes, he thought we could go.

After that we often talked it over with him, learning from him what we could about the disposition of his tribesmen towards white men, and about the distance of the triennial meeting-place of the tribes. It was quite impossible to say how far or how near this [50] ]meeting-place might be; and on this depended in my judgment the practicability of the scheme. But at least, I thought, if the black fellows were friendly we might, under Gioro’s guidance and protection, see a good deal of strange life and return home in a few days by the way we came. As far as I could gather, Gioro was the only one of his tribe that had ever seen a white man, although they had often heard of them, and curiosity rather than fear seemed to have been for some time the dominant feeling about them. But quite lately, for some reason or other, their fear began to exceed their curiosity.

The cause of this change was evidently something that had happened in the far west; some encounter with white men as Jack and I thought at first. But we had reason afterwards, as you will hear, to think that we were mistaken.

One evening I said to Gioro, “When did you see your people last?” He looked at the stars, and I knew he was going to be exact. Then he said, “One year.”

“Did you tell Bomero then about the white men?”

“Yes, tell Bomero. Bomero never see white man.”

“What did Bomero say?”

“Bomero say, white man all same dibble dibble.”

“But Bomero never saw dibble dibble?”

[51] “Yes, Bomero saw dibble dibble one, two, three, two two, two three, great many.”

“Where?”

“Far away west.”

“Where black fellows meet every three years?”

“More far.”

“Bomero saw white men, not dibble dibble.”

“No fear, Bomero saw dibble dibble and run away. Bomero run away from no man, black man, pigtail man, white man; but Bomero run from dibble dibble.”

“Did any black fellow but Bomero see dibble dibble?”

“Yes, two three black fellow, more, all run away.”

“And what like was dibble dibble?”

“White man all same dibble dibble.”

That was all I could ever get out of him on the subject.

I spoke to Mr. Fetherston about our purpose of going westward with Gioro. He shook his head very gravely. “Well, Easterley,” said he, “if you will be guided by me you will do nothing of the sort. You see we know next to nothing of those north-west blacks, and if you go it is even betting that you never come back. If you get, say, a hundred miles west of here you will be entirely dependent on the blacks. You [52] ]will have to live among them, and to live as they live, if they let you live at all.”

“But we have our compasses and the telegraph line.”

“That would be all very well if it were a country through which you could make a ‘bee line.’ But you will want water and food, and you cannot get either without the help of the blacks.”

“But,” said I, “Gioro will come back with us.”

“Gioro is a very good fellow, but if I were you I would not put myself altogether in his hands like that. He won’t understand your anxiety to get away; he will think you are very well as you are. His interest in his own people will make him careless about you.”

“But I know Gioro well, and I should trust him anywhere.” So said I, and Jack eagerly agreed with me.

“But,” said Mr. Fetherston, “Gioro may die or may be killed; they fight a great deal, and those who have been among white men are often subject to special enmity.”

“I expect we shall have to chance that,” said Jack. “Any of us may die or be killed.”

“Well, gentlemen, wilful men you know—— I don’t pretend to any right to constrain you, only let it [53] ]be fully understood that if you go, you go against my wish and in defiance of my advice.”

We agreed that everyone should know that, and so the matter dropped.

The road was now growing very difficult, the water scarcer, and the timber very much denser. But we pushed on little by little from day to day. We were ascending slowly the watershed between the north and south, and we had left behind us the last point to which the wire had yet been carried, when one morning Mr. Fetherston, after a specially careful observation, announced that within three days we might expect to meet the superintendent’s party from the north, if all had gone well with them. The same afternoon Gioro took me aside, and told me that he meant to start the day after the next in search of Bomero and his people. We had come, he said, to certain landmarks that he recognised. The tribe would be already on the march, and he was confident that he could pick them up by following the water until it crossed their track. Next day was not Sunday, but we made a Sunday of it. We camped early, the Union Jack was hoisted, and Mr. Fetherston, the officers and volunteers, with one guest selected from the men in charge of the teams, sat down to dinner together. The man selected was [54] ]a bushman of great and well-known experience, and, like Mr. Fetherston, he had been with Stuart on one or more of his exploring expeditions. I guessed from his presence that Mr. Fetherston intended that I should before the evening was over state my intention of going westward. Accordingly, when dinner was over and as we were about to light our pipes, I said before them all,

“Well, Mr. Fetherston, my friend Wilbraham and I are going to leave you for a few days at least. We propose to go westward with Sir Gioro, in order to see something of the aborigines. We may be back within a week, but we may push on with the blacks into the interior, and perhaps we may make for the north-west or west coast.”

Mr. Fetherston turned to the man of whom I spoke just now and said:

“Well, Tim, what do you say to that?”

The man turned to me and said: “I didn’t quite catch all you said, governor. Would you mind saying it again?”

I repeated what I had said. “Well,” he replied, “it has been a main wet season out north, that I can see, and if you don’t go more than forty or fifty miles from the track you may get back within a week safe [55] ]enough.” He paused for a moment, and looked me steadily in the face, and went on—

“But, governor, if you go for the second part of the programme you’ll never see a white man again.”

“Why so?” said I.

“Well,” said he, “you are depending on Gioro. Now Gioro is a good fellow, far the best black fellow I ever knew by a very long way. And my best hope for you is that Gioro will take you back once he has had a look at his people. He will, if he knows what will happen as well as I know it.”

“And what will happen?” said I.

“Well, they’ll kill Gioro before he has been very long among them. Sooner or later they always kill the blacks that have been among white men.”

“And then,” struck in Jack, “I suppose they will kill us.”

“They may and they may not. You have ten times a better chance that Gioro. But if they don’t you will be as good as their slaves for life. You won’t be able to get back unless they take you back, and they will never take you back.”

“Suppose we start to return on our own account?”

“Well,” said the man, “if you are not more than forty or fifty miles to the west of the wire when you [56] ]make the start eastward, and if you are able to make straight for the wire you may get back. But if you are much further away, or if you have to go a long way round you’ll die of thirst or hunger in the bush.” I noticed that he put thirst first.

“And, mind,” he went on, “the chances are that you will be three times fifty miles to the west before you think of turning back.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s easy enough to travel with the blacks, easy enough for men of your sort, men that are hardy and are up to larks. The blacks know how to get food and water and fire, and you can live while in their company. It’s only when you leave them that you will be done for.”

Here Jack chimed in again. “Never mind,” said he, “Mr. Easterley and I are going to try it, win or lose. Besides, after what you have told us, I wouldn’t let poor ‘Jo’ go alone. We’ll save him and he’ll help us.”

The answer came slowly. “Jo is your trump card, certainly ... and your only one.”

Then Fetherston spoke. “Gentlemen, if I were your master I should absolutely forbid you to go, but I have not the right to interfere with your liberty. [57] ]But I am glad that you have had the benefit of Mr. Blundell’s experience.” (Mr. Blundell was Tim.) “His opinion and mine coincide exactly.”

“Well,” said I, “Mr. Fetherston, we will be careful and we will bear in mind your advice, and I think it is on the whole most probable that you will see us back within the week.”

“Possible,” said Jack.

They all looked very sober then, and nothing more was said on the subject, and indeed little on any subject until the company broke up.

CHAPTER V.[ [58]
AMONG THE BLACKS.

Our preparation for this madcap expedition was very soon made. We took our horses, for on foot we could not keep up with Gioro, and it was better to have the full benefit of his fleetness. We strapped our blankets to the pommels of our saddles. Jack carried a small fowling-piece, and I carried a pistol. We both had serviceable knives. A few small packages of tea and tobacco and what we thought a fair supply of ammunition completed our impedimenta.

We left our spare horse in charge of our man, and entrusted Mr. Fetherston with a cheque sufficient to pay the man’s wages and to give him a small gratuity on his return to Adelaide. Meantime he was to be in Mr. Fetherston’s service until we should rejoin the expedition, and if we did not rejoin it before its return to Adelaide then Tim Blundell was to have the horse. Early in the forenoon Gioro showed me a hill which [59] ]seemed to be about ten miles away (it proved to be much further). He told us that at the foot of that hill we should find a creek which we had crossed at an earlier part of its course the afternoon before, and that creek we must follow down. Mr. Fetherston had the same hill marked on his chart, and his instructions were that when he was abreast of it he was to turn to the right nearly at right angles. So that when he should make this turn that must be our signal for parting with him. As we did not get abreast of the hill until it was rather late in the afternoon, we camped a little earlier than usual, and Gioro, Jack, and I deferred our departure until the next day. Shortly after sunrise we bade adieu to our friends with those noisy demonstrations on both sides which often serve the Englishman as a decent veil for those deeper feelings which he nearly always hesitates to show. The landscape here consisted of grassy slopes and plains, alternating with belts of well-forested country. We were in the middle of a plain when we parted from our fellow-travellers, and our courses were not in quite opposite directions; ours was about north-west, and theirs east-north-east. So while we remained in the plain we could see our fellow-travellers by simply looking to the right, and they us by looking to the left. So for a while there was much waving of hats on both [60] ]sides. But the first belt of timber that we entered hid them from our sight. And then I think for the first time I became fully aware of the meaning of what we were doing.

“Jack, my boy!” said I, giving my horse a slight cut, so that he bounded forward, “we’re in for it now.”

“You don’t seem sorry for it, Bob,” said he, urging his horse to join me.

Truly neither of us was sorry for it. A new spirit of independence and love of adventure sprang up within us. We were young and well and strong. The morning air was fresh; the unaccustomed aspect of the forest, the screams of a flock of savage birds of the cockatoo sort that seemed as if they were making for the same hill as ourselves, the aspect of our native guide, who trotted on with his body slightly bent forward, and with the confident air of one who had “been there before,” all stirred us to a sense of strangeness and expectance which was quite a joy. Even the warnings of Mr. Fetherston and Tim Blundell seemed only to intensify the joy.

“For if a path be dangerous known,

The danger’s self is lure alone.”

All the way from Port Augusta, Gioro had been dressed like the rest of us; he had worn a pair of moleskin [61] ]trousers, a flannel shirt, and a cabbage-tree hat. But now he had discarded all these, and he wore nothing but a kilt of matting and a head-dress which consisted of a string bound round his brows adorned with the tails of the small wild animals of the bush and one large opossum tail hanging down behind. He ran on steadily towards the hill, which we reached in three or four hours from the start. It was rather a remarkable hill, as we saw when we reached it. Sloping gradually from the side on which we approached, it was on the opposite side steep and even precipitous. The creek ran on the far side, and the shadow of the hill lay still across it. It was about half-past ten when we reached it, and we rested until about an hour after noon. We made a can of tea and drank it. We had neither milk nor sugar, but we had a few biscuits and some slices of meat. Jack and I wondered where our next meal was to come from, but Gioro did not seem at all anxious. We could not, however, get a word out of him about the matter except “plenty duck.”

We made a start in the direction of west by north, or thereabouts, Gioro leading the way and we following blindly. He ran more carefully and rather more slowly, but there was still the same air of confidence about him. It was now very hot, but as we were well within [62] ]the tropics, and the sun at noon was now as nearly as we could reckon vertical, the only wonder was that it was not much hotter. We must have been still high up on the watershed, although descending it on the northern slope. There was plenty of grass everywhere, and a good deal of timber, not so much, however, as to obstruct our passage or impede our view. The country was undulating, but there were no steep hills to be traversed. We passed a considerable herd of kangaroo and two or three dingoes, and there were many birds, chiefly crows, parrots, and cockatoos.

It was getting near sundown when we reached the summit of one of those low hills, and Gioro clapped his hands and shouted. We saw nothing but another hill, but it was clear that he recognised it, for he clapped his hands again and again, pointed towards it and said, “Plenty duck.” He did not shape his course so as to cross the hill, but made for the point where it merged into the plain. And when we reached that point a sudden turn revealed a beautiful sheet of water, not very wide, but several hundred yards long, and consisting of two parts lying nearly at right angles to each other. This was the same creek which we had passed in the morning, but here it was much wider and deeper. Gioro stopped short and signed to us to stop. We did [63] ]so at once, for we saw that the farther part of the water was alive with duck, and on the wider part nearer to us were several black swans. We turned immediately towards a grove of trees that lay between us and the water, and we dropped down. Gioro laid his hand on me, looked at Jack, pointed to the water and said, “Shoot.” Jack stole to the water-side and shot a swan easily. It was not very near the others and none of the birds flew away. It was most likely the first time that firearms had been discharged there. Jack then shot several ducks and rejoined us. Gioro threw off his kilt and swam out for the birds. The moment his woolly head was seen over water all the birds flew away. We lit a fire at once, prepared and cooked our birds, and made a hearty meal. As we began to eat I remembered for the first time that we had no salt. I suppose I made a wry face, for Gioro grinned and pointed to a small bag which was fastened outside his kilt. This was full of salt, which he had thoughtfully provided for the dainty appetites of his white friends.

We slept sound and long that night, and in the morning Jack and I had a delicious bath, and washed our shirts and dried them in the sun. Going back to our camp we found a pleasant surprise awaiting us. Gioro had snared some wild creature—I think it was a [64] ]bandicoot—and had baked it for breakfast. It was very nice, at least we thought so, and he was quite delighted when he saw that we enjoyed it. After breakfast we made an early start.

Two more days passed like this one. Each evening Gioro guided us to water and food, and all the time our course was in the main west by north or west-north-west. It was clear that we were following some river or creek downward, and so there were considerable occasional variations in the direction that we took, but we never headed south of west or east of north. On the morning of the third day Gioro speared a large fish. I think it was a variety of perch; it was very good eating.

This third morning we left the creek nearly at right angles and struck across the forest, and our guide was evidently more sharply on the watch than ever. He travelled very slowly now and he seemed to be looking everywhere for some local indications. After about two miles travelling we came again upon a creek, as far as I could judge a different one. It was very narrow and scarcely running. There was one very fair pond, however, but Gioro took scarce any notice of it, but ran on to the dry or nearly dry bed of the creek beyond. Here he set up a triumphant yell, and signed [65] ]to us to come and see. I saw plainly enough what I thought at first to be a cattle track coming from the north-east and passing right across the bed of the creek. I looked at Gioro and said, “Sheep?” “No, no,” he shouted, “not sheep; black fellow, black fellow,” and stooping down he pointed at the track. I stooped also and examined it, and sure enough I could see plainly the mark of human feet. “When shall we catch them up, Sir Gioro?” said I. “To-night,” he shouted; “to-night, Corrobboree! Corrobboree!”

We followed the track without pause, and by-and-by more tracks joined it, all from the north or east or from some point between these. There could be no doubt at all that we were approaching some camping-place of the blacks. Our course was now almost directly westward, with a very slight trend to the north, and the country still continued much of the same sort, undulating perhaps a little more, well grassed and fairly but not very thickly timbered. Wild animals and birds were much more numerous.

It was after sunset, the moon which was now nearly half way between new and full was well up in the sky, there was a strange glimmer in the west that looked like an aurora, and Gioro was in a state of high [66] ]excitement when the pathway bending round the foot of a somewhat steeper hill than we had seen during the day suddenly brought us within sight of a single fire. It was evidently just freshly kindled, but there was no one near it now. Gioro stopped, looked at us, and put his hand to his mouth. Then we made a half turn silently, still following the track, and all in a moment we came in view of the most striking sight that I had yet seen in Australia, or for the matter of that anywhere in the world.

We saw an irregular line of large fires burning before us, and immediately behind them stretched a sheet of water much wider and longer than any that we had yet seen in the country. The fires were vividly reflected in the water, and seemed at the first glance quite innumerable. After a time one saw that there were at least sixty or eighty of them. Near each fire was a group of black men, clad like Gioro, holding in their hands long staves or spears, and dancing furiously. They kept springing into the air with their feet quivering, and striking their spears, butt ends downwards, violently upon the ground. Presently they burst into a wild shout, or series of shouts. The shouts came in measured cadence, but were frightfully discordant. Their dance kept time to their music, and [67] ]the whole effect was wildly barbarous. There were huts in great numbers built of branches, and covered with leaves and bark. As far as I could see there was a hut for each fire, and women and children of all ages were to be seen in front of the huts, some few of them apparently partaking of the excitement of the dancers, but far the greater number stolidly looking on. The dress of the women was nearly the same as that of the men. The kilt of matting was the same, but the head-dress showed more effort after ornament. It covered more of the head, and it was adorned with the feathers of cockatoos and parrots. The children who ran about were mostly naked. There were several dogs, not at all Australian dingoes, but miserable half-starved mongrels of European breed. Many of the women were engaged in cooking food, and some whiffs of smoke which reached us were by no means of unpleasant flavour.

All the while the song and dance lasted we lay quite still, hidden by the scrub which grew very thick here, and seemed to be a sort of stunted eucalyptus, and very like the mallee of Southern Australia. Our horses were hidden by the turn of a hill, and by a large tree near, and when the song and dance would pause for a moment, we could hear them munching the grass. I was at first greatly afraid that they would be [68] ]startled by the noise and by the fires, but somehow they seemed to take no notice. They were accustomed to camp fires and singing, but not to such singing as that. When the song and the dance were ended, Gioro touched us, pointed and whispered, “Bomero, boss black fellow, see!” We looked in the direction of his finger, and could easily see a very tall and bulkily built black, with a very massive head, and dressed with some attempt at distinction. His kilt of matting was larger than any of those worn by the others, and was rather elaborately ornamented with feathers. His head-dress was very much larger, and he wore besides a sort of little cloak of skins thrown over his shoulder, and fastened with some kind of thong. Gioro whispered again, “Stay! Gioro speak to Bomero, then come back.” With this he stood erect, spear in hand, and advanced towards the fire where the tall black stood, dancing all the time rather gently, and singing rather softly, but exactly the same step and tune which we had just heard and seen. We followed him closely with our eyes, and we were in a state of great excitement and suspense.

He was noticed almost immediately, but there was hardly any sign of surprise, and none at all of hostility. I suppose that his dance and song secured him for the [69] ]time from either. Bomero stepped out to meet him, followed by three or four other blacks. Gioro continued his dance and song till he came quite up to them, and then he went round them still dancing and singing. He stopped right in front of Bomero. And there seemed to follow a sort of obeisance and salutation, and then a palaver.

As the palaver proceeded the blacks became greatly excited, and more of them gathered round. No doubt he was telling them about us. I felt for my pistol, and looked towards the horses. I could still hear them munching the grass.

Presently Gioro came towards us, looking quite cheerful and confident. He told us that Bomero wished to see us and bid us welcome. We fetched our horses, and we led them with us, holding ourselves in readiness to mount at a moment’s notice.

As we marched up to the camp great excitement prevailed, and we were presently surrounded by a vast concourse of men, women, and children. Some half dozen of the blacks around Bomero armed themselves with boughs of trees, and kept the crowd at a sufficient distance.

Bomero came towards us with spear in hand, and two men on each side of him also with spears. We [70] ]made a sort of military salute, which he seemed to understand, and made an attempt to return. Then he began to talk. When he ceased, I turned to Gioro and said, “What says Bomero?”

Gioro looked first at Bomero, and then at me, then quite rapidly, “Bomero, say, know all about white fellow; white fellow ride on horse, keep cattle, keep sheep, carry fire spear. Bomero say white fellow hold fire spear in hand, throw away only point, but point kill. Sometime one point, sometime two, three points, two three. Bomero say, Good-morrow to white fellow. White fellow all same black fellow. Black fellow take white fellow to great Corrobboree far away west when the one[Footnote 2] ] white star rise, and red star and little stars go.”

I replied with all the dignity that I could muster, “Right, all right; say to Bomero, ‘thanks.’ King Bob and king Jack all same king Bomero. King Bob and king Jack will go with king Bomero to great Corrobboree when the one[Footnote 2] ] white star rises, and the red star and the little stars go.”

[71] Then we were told that our miami must be built and that we must have meat and sleep, as we should have to start with the sun. They fell to work, Gioro and two or three others, and built a sort of hut in an incredibly short time, and then we supped on fish and wild duck and paste made with water of the seeds of some native grass. I think it was “nardoo.” We had also a fruit which I have seen nowhere else, about the size of a loquat, of a pinkish colour and subacid in taste. After supper we had a palaver, Gioro being the interpreter, and then we went to bed. Jack and I slept well and rose before sunrise in order to get a bath before starting. Several of the blacks followed us to the water’s edge and some of them plunged into the water after us. I didn’t half like it as they swam round and round us; but they were more afraid of us than we of them.

Then we breakfasted and made a start. For twelve days we travelled on, still heading mainly westward, [72] ]running down a watercourse, then crossing to another. Bomero was the leader always, and he seemed to know the way quite well. We always camped at water, and when we crossed from one creek to another the distance was usually no more than three or four miles. We passed a good many hills, but none of them I should say rising more than a thousand feet from the plain, and few of them so much as that. As far as I could reckon we must have travelled twenty-five to thirty miles a day, and the greater part of that was westing. I believe that on the evening of the twelfth day after we fell in with Bomero’s people we must have been all of three hundred or three hundred and fifty miles to the west of the telegraph wire.

During those twelve days we did our best to study the people and the country so as to prepare ourselves for anything that might happen. Jack made a rough chart of each day’s march, and we both made an attempt to keep a sort of dead reckoning. It was very hard, however, to make any available record of our observations. The curiosity and perhaps the suspicion of the blacks made it next to impossible to write or draw by daylight, and at night we had only the light of our fires and a sort of torch that we managed to make of bark and fat.

[73] We were beginning to know something of the language. There was a palaver every night, or, to speak more exactly, there were several palavers, in one of which we always joined, with Gioro for interpreter. And on several occasions Bomero harangued the tribe. These harangues were very interesting, even before we could understand any part of them or before Gioro explained a word of them. The manner and mode of delivery were very remarkable. Bomero was highly demonstrative, but he was never carried away by his own eloquence. The spirit of the prophet was always subject to the prophet. He could pull himself together in a moment and be as cool as you please. The matter of his harangues was chiefly the greatness of his tribe, and above all of the king of the tribe, the king’s ability to guide his people to food and water, to beat any two or three men of his own tribe, and as many as you like of any other tribe, the great Corrobboree

that they were going to keep out away west, and the greatness of the tribes who kept it, of which tribes they were the greatest, and Bomero was the greatest of them.

These harangues were his method, it seemed, of keeping up his influence over his people in time of peace. And one could not but liken him, as Carlyle [74] ]says, to “certain completed professors of parliamentary eloquence” nearer home.

The Pleiades were now seen to be setting earlier and earlier every evening. They were for a few nights obscured by clouds, and the next time they appeared they were perceptibly nearer the sun. This fact was observed at once and they hailed it with what at first seemed to be a series of shouts, but which proved to be a sort of barbaric chant, each stave of which ended with this refrain:—

“Go, go,

Red star and little stars.”

And this was a chant as Gioro told us (and Bomero confirmed him) which their fathers and their fathers’ fathers had sung before them from time immemorial. I wish that some of our savants would investigate this matter, for I cannot but think that this festival and its obvious connection with the constellation Taurus would throw some important light on the origin of these people and their connection with the other races of mankind.

Jack and I for obvious reasons gave them some illustrations of the use of our “fire spears.” Mine they said was a “fire spear” of one point, and Jack’s of two three points, two three; that is to say I used a [75] ]bullet and Jack used shot. We were beginning to be favourites, and even Bomero himself liked us, for although he showed at first some signs of being jealous, we treated him with such deference that he soon forgot his jealousy. Jack had a black leather belt for wearing round the waist, and we made Bomero a formal present of this. We explained its use to him and put it round his kilt. We could see that he was nearly overcome with childish delight, and yet the wily fellow was knowing enough to repress all show of this feeling and to receive the gift with stolid gravity. He gave us in turn an eagle’s feather each, which he took off the kilt just where the belt would cover it, and these we received with becoming gratitude.

A serious misfortune befell us about the eighth day, which was the occasion of another compliment to Bomero. Jack’s horse fell dead lame, and we were obliged to let him loose in the bush. We presented the saddle to our black prince, and made a throne of it for him, and one evening that we camped earlier than usual we persuaded him to hold a levee. Jack explained the matter to Gioro, and Gioro to Bomero. This was how Jack explained it.

Gioro. What’s levee?

Jack. Boss white fellow stands on daïs. No, sits on [76] ]throne, throne all same saddle and stirrups; other white fellows march up, march down again, come this way, go that way, all same little stars and red star. Bow to boss white fellow. Boss white fellow bows to them. Boss black fellow all same boss white fellow.

Bomero took readily to the proposal. We picked out a fallen tree high enough and wide enough. We fixed up the saddle upon it, the stirrups touching the ground. Bomero got astride of this with a spear in each hand. I passed before him bowing, and Jack followed me. All the others followed him. They took to it as if they had been born courtiers. They would not be satisfied until every adult man had made his bow, and we had something to do to keep them from beginning all over again. It was ludicrous to the last degree. The tall, bulky black fellow sat on the saddle with the tree under him like a hobby-horse, his head was all stuck over with feathers and the tails of opossums; his little cloak of skins and kilt of platted leaves were fastened with Jack’s belt, and he held his two spears, one in each hand, and he looked as sober and solemn as a judge, and the other fellows as much in earnest as if they were freemasons in full regalia, or doctors of divinity in academic dress. I stole a look at Jack, and the villain replied with one of those winks [77] ]which never fail to upset me. He let the lid of one eye fall completely, the other eye remaining wide open, and not a wrinkle in his face. A loud laugh would have spoiled the fun, and might even have been dangerous, but I saved myself with a fit of coughing. After the levee Bomero told off two men to have charge of the saddle. And for the next few days Jack and I walked, each of us, half the march, and rode the other. Once only during these twelve days did I see anything to give me any special uneasiness. One evening we camped a little earlier than usual and I noticed that Gioro was watched and dogged by two very ill-looking fellows whom I had noticed as being in some sort leaders. They stepped behind a clump of trees as he was passing, and as he returned they hid themselves again while he passed. I mentioned this to Gioro and he proved to be aware of their hostility. They were big men, he said, in the tribe, but Bomero was the biggest of all the men, and he was Gioro’s friend.

About the morning of the twelfth day there was some trouble. We had come to a point where it was necessary to leave the course of one creek and to strike that of another. But a very destructive fire had passed over the place, followed, as it seemed, by heavy rains, and the track was quite obliterated. Certain trees also [78] ]which would have served as guides had been entirely destroyed. And to increase the confusion the weather was foggy. Dense clouds rested on and hid some hills which might have served as landmarks.

Bomero went out to reconnoitre, and he took Gioro and another with him, and when they returned I could see that his mind was made up as to the course he would take, but that he was, nevertheless, as much perplexed as ever. He gave the word and we struck out a little north of west, and after travelling about three times as far as it had yet taken us to get from water to water we struck another creek. We marched along the creek for another day, scarce ever losing sight of it, and then we camped by the water again. Next morning we left the women and children in camp, and about half the men, and Bomero with the ablest and quickest of the men marched away in search of another creek. Jack and I went with him, and as my horse was in good working condition we took him with us. We struck water somewhat sooner than before and camped for the night. I saw that Bomero was still perplexed, and I gathered from Gioro that his perplexity was caused by the conviction that he was now considerably out of his course, that he had gone too far north and had overshot the mark, and that we [79] ]should have to go a day’s march south and east before we could resume the straight course to the place of meeting. The horizon was still clouded, and there was no sign at present of the clouds lifting soon.

All this, however, was by no means enough to account for Bomero’s evident perturbation of mind. He was undoubtedly a clever and cool fellow, and one of much resource; there was abundance of water and food, we could not be far out of the track, and we had plenty of time, for as far as I could judge by the astronomical indications, we were a great many days and even weeks too soon; and the weather, barring the clouds, was everything that could be wished.

Jack and I talked it over, and Jack reminded me of Gioro’s tale of the “dibble dibble all same white man” that Bomero had seen in the far west. “Depend upon it,” said Jack, “he thinks he is coming upon them again. The place, as Gioro said, was ‘more far’ than the place of meeting for the great Corrobboree, and he thinks that he is now getting ‘more far’ than there.”

“And what of the dibble dibble that he saw there?” said I.

“Oh, that’s the point,” said Jack. “No doubt they were white men; some pioneers from the north coast, perhaps, or maybe the men on some outlying [80] ]station of some western squatter’s run, and if so we shall get back to civilisation sooner than we think.”

“I don’t see much in it, Jack,” said I; “we’re not far enough west for that; if we were on the head-waters of the western slope we might be on the look-out for white pioneers, but I am afraid we are near as far from there as from the telegraph wire. Bomero’s ‘dibble dibble’ was either a pure invention or the suggestion of a dream, or if he did come across white men he must have been farther west than he is here.”

On the morning of the fourteenth day Bomero harangued the men who were with him; he stood upon a veritable stump, a huge tree near the creek had been undermined by the flood waters and had fallen and lay along the ground roots and all. Bomero stood upon it and spoke, Jack and I stood by and listened, Gioro stood between us; he was in a state of great excitement, and he threw in every now and then a word of interpretation for our benefit, but indeed, by this time, we were able to follow the speaker fairly enough ourselves. It very soon became quite evident that Gioro’s tale of “dibble dibble” was at the bottom of our trouble; it was quite evident also that the spirit of the prophet was no longer subject to the prophet. Bomero pointed westward, where the clouds were now slowly [81] ]rising from some not very distant hills, and what he said was to this effect.

There was a hill away west where certain doleful creatures dwelt. He had once been very near there, and they had tried to take his life. They had tried to spear him through the air, and he who never feared men, feared them. He should know in a few minutes if that hill yonder was their hill; and if it was then he and his people must run and run till they got well out of sight of that hill. They had missed the way to the great Corrobboree, but that was no matter; they would easily find it again, and there was plenty of time yet before the red star and the little stars would be gone. If they saw when the clouds rose (and they were now rising) that the hill was not their hill, then they would stay where they were to-day, and the witch fellows would dance the witch dance until all was clear, and on the next day they would go back to where the women were, and then they would strike the track, and be the first at the meeting-place. But if when the clouds rose, and they were now rising, they saw three peaks, a tall one in the middle, a crooked one on one side, and a straight one on the other, then Bomero and Bomero’s men must run, run, run, and never stop, except to breathe, while any one [82] ]of the three peaks was to be seen. Let the black man knock his brains out with his waddy, or let the white man spear him with his fire spear, but the devils that rode through the air on clouds, faster than eagles, were worse than any black men or white men.

Bomero was evidently no longer master of himself or of his men. Whatever the cause of it was, there was a dreadful panic imminent, and no one could tell what was going to happen.

Just then the clouds lifted quite away from the hill, and there, sure enough, were the three peaks, the tall one in the middle, and the crooked one and the straight one on either side.

A low murmur burst from the men, and Bomero uttered a frightful howl, and plunged away madly round a hill that rose gently from the creek, and right on into the forest. All the men ran after him, most of them howling and shrieking; and my horse, which hung by the bridle to a branch close by, started, and snorted, and broke his rein, and rushed away before them at full gallop.

The catastrophe was so sudden that our breath seemed to be taken away, and I don’t know how many minutes passed before either spoke. I know that every man of the blacks had got clean out of [83] ]sight, and my horse, too, and there was as dead a silence as before the world was made, and still there was not a word from either of us. Then Jack said in a hollow voice:

“Why wasn’t the horse hobbled, Bob?”

“Why, Jack, I had just taken the hobbles off, and made him ready for the road.”

“Never mind, old fellow, I hardly know what I said; Gioro will come back.”

“Yes,” I said, “Gioro will come back.”

And then, as if our confidence in Gioro’s fidelity cleared the air, we sat down and lit our pipes.

I don’t know how much time passed, it seemed to be hours, but it couldn’t have been near an hour, and Jack and I never exchanged a word. Then, sure enough, we saw Gioro coming, and he was leading my horse. I saw him first, and I jumped up and shouted for joy. Then Jack jumped up, but the shout died on his lips, and he said only, “There is something the matter.”

And so there was. Both Gioro and the horse were wounded, and the wounds were deadly, for the spears that inflicted them were poisoned. The horse died first. I took Gioro’s head on my lap, and gave him a few drops of water. He told me that he had [84] ]caught the horse by the bridle in passing, and that then he stopped and returned. He had not forgotten us, he said, not for a moment, nor would he have started at all if the horse had not started. The horse had stopped several times, and when he had come up with him had gone on again. But at last he had secured him and was returning. But several spears were flung at him, and many missed him, but the big men who had watched and dogged him took better aim, and struck both horse and man. At first he thought nothing of it, but presently he knew that the spears were poisoned, and now he must die.

“Take care,” said the poor fellow, almost with his last breath, “keep away, kill you too, like Gioro; back, back to the big long wire.”

He died quite easily, and I felt as he lay in my arms that it would be the best thing that could happen us if the poisoned arrows of the blacks had made an end of us as well as of him. The poor fellow’s faithfulness would have helped us to face death without flinching.

We found a large hole in the earth where a tree had been uprooted by a storm, and there, with the help of his boomerang and our own knives, we managed to give him decent burial. We both fell on our knees for [85] ]a few minutes, but no words passed our lips, although I am sure our hearts were full enough.

Then we stood up, and with one impulse held out a hand each to the other. The grip that followed was a silent English grip. But it meant that we knew that our case was desperate, and that we would stand by one another to the last.

[Footnote 2: ] The red star is certainly Aldebaran, and the little stars the Pleiades. I could not for a long time understand “the one white star.” There is at present no large white star in opposition to Aldebaran. I first thought that Arcturus might be meant, and that the feast had perhaps come down from a period when Arcturus was a white star. But I now think that Spica Virginis is “the one white star.” I think that by “rises,” or more properly, “has risen,” Gioro meant “has culminated;” for Gioro usually spoke of “rising” and “setting” as “coming” and “going;” so if he had meant to speak of stars in opposition he would have said, “when the white star comes and the red star goes.” Spica culminates about the time that Aldebaran sets; also there are no large stars near Spica, and this may be why it is called “the one white star.” I think I have read that some people for the same reason call it “the lonely one.” Gioro probably meant, “When the lone white star has culminated, and the red star and the little stars are set.”—R. E.] [Return to text]

CHAPTER VI.[ [86]
LEFT ALONE.

All the events described at the close of the last chapter succeeded one another very rapidly. I do not think that four hours in all could have passed from the beginning of Bomero’s last harangue until Jack and I stood together over Gioro’s grave. The sun had not reached the meridian; the atmosphere was perfectly clear; and the triple peak which had been the signal of so much disaster stood out clear and well-defined in the west.

What were we to do now? Were we to stay here and die like starved bandicoots when the first drought should come on? That was the question in both our minds, and that was the form in which Jack expressed it. “Let us get some food first,” said I, “and then we shall see. Thank God it is easy enough still to get food.” We soon lit a fire and shot some duck, and [87] ]with the help of some of the wild fruit already mentioned and the water of the creek we did well enough. Then we talked over the situation, and it soon became clear that only two courses were open to us if we were to return to civilisation, or even to live. The one course was to push backward by the way we came. And if it had not been for the last two days’ journey we should probably have chosen that way without hesitation. And even now if we could be sure of not meeting the blacks again, I think we might have tried it. It was true that we might wait here long enough to make sure that the blacks would have gone westward, but all the while we should wait, the tracks and the other waymarks would be gradually becoming obliterated. Besides, it was certain that we could not live by snaring birds and spearing fish for food as the blacks could, and our powder and shot would soon be done. Our better hope seemed to lie in the chance of finding white men somewhere near, and the strange proceedings of Bomero seemed surely to indicate the near presence of white men. He must have met some pioneers from the west coast. Such men were often known to treat the blacks as if they were mere wild beasts, and it seemed not unlikely that some act of reckless cruelty on the part of the white men might [88] ]have been witnessed by him, or, at least, that he might have heard of such from some other blacks.

Jack had a little pocket telescope, and he examined the hill to westward with it. After a careful scrutiny he declared that he saw a man in one of the gaps on the top of the hill and that he was a white man. “Yes, I see him,” said I, for I thought I observed something moving, “but I cannot say whether he is black or white.” Jack handed me the glass, but I could not now distinguish even with the glass any sign of life or movement.

He took back the glass in a hurry and looked again, and then he declared that he could no longer see any man. “And yet,” said he, “there was a man there, and he had on a long coat, and there was something odd and foreign in the look of him.”

“Nonsense,” I said, “you could never tell that at such a distance and with such a glass.”

“Well, one would think not,” he said, “and yet it was as I say.”

I then went over my calculations with a view to determine whereabouts we were, but I could not by any means make our position far enough west to render it likely that we were near any settlement. We had no instrument by which we could make observations [89] ]with any approach to accuracy. Our latitude was not much changed since we had left the wire; that much we could see from the stars. But our course had been so very zigzag that it was quite impossible to estimate our longitude

within a hundred or more miles. And even if our course had been due west all through I still could hardly think that we were near the head waters of the western slope. After all, however, it seemed the wisest course to reconnoitre, first, this mountain or hill. If there was no one there it would be still possible

for us to return to where we were now, and to make a start eastward. Indeed, if the hill were not inhabited, that would be the only course that would be in the least degree hopeful. For certainly to strike westward without any guide or any knowledge of the way would be for us, and in such a country as Australia, to face certain death.

We made up our minds, therefore, to explore the hill at once. We put together somehow the remains of our breakfast, enough for two very spare meals each. We took a good drink of water and filled with water a small flask which would suffice to moisten our lips and throats in case we should find none at the hill. We reckoned that the hill was not quite ten miles away, and if that were all, we should get there in time to [90] ]reconnoitre while it was still daylight, and if no prospect of help appeared we would return early in the morning. Then we took our farewell of poor Gioro’s grave and set our faces to the hill. The way was quite easy; there was but little timber and the grass, although thick, was short. There were still evidences about us that the past season had been wet, but we did not find the ground boggy, and the atmosphere was fresh, clear, and bright. As we marched forward the shape of the hill became better and better defined, and more striking. It stood quite alone in the plain, from which it seemed to rise sheer upward with little or no slope.

It looked for all the world as if it had been dropped from the sky, so completely without connection was it with the surrounding landscape. As we drew nearer, it presented more the appearance of a huge irregular building which had become covered in the course of ages with vegetation. But, as we drew nearer still, these odd appearances gradually wore away, and it began to look not very unlike other lonely and precipitous rocks which I have seen in Australia. Such a rock, for example, as the Hanging Rock, near Woodend, only very much larger, or such a rock as that other one a little north of the Billabong, and south of the [91] ]Murrumbidgee, near the railway between Albury and Wagga.

As we drew near the foot of the precipice we made for the shadiest spot that we could find.

The various crags of which the hill was formed were covered almost everywhere with a foliage which differed but little from the prevailing Australian type.

There was abundance of the sweet smelling shrub which is common along the shores of Port Phillip. I pressed and rubbed a few of the leaves and the smell was just the same. There was less of the blue gum and more of the lightwood than I had elsewhere seen, and there were a good many pines. There were also a few remarkable shrubs that I have not seen elsewhere, and a few large and queer-looking flowers of a bright red colour.

We made for this particular spot not only because it was the shadiest but because it seemed to have a fresher and greener look than the rest of the hill; and our delight was great when upon reaching it, and after poking about a little while, we found a large basin or pond of water surrounded and shut off by rocks. It was nearly elliptical in shape but rather elongated: about thirty feet by ten. The water seemed at first as if it issued from the earth, but on closer inspection we [92] ]had little doubt that it was due altogether to the rainfall percolating through the cliffs from the heights above.

Here we sat and refreshed ourselves for an hour or so before consulting as to our further progress.

It was later than we had reckoned on, for the journey to the hill had taken a longer time than we thought it would take; so we resolved to decide nothing further until the morning.

We chose not to light a fire although we knew by experience that the middle of the night would be very cold. We told ourselves that though we had seen no sign of any more natives there were probably some about, and therefore that it was better not to light a fire. Our prevailing reason, however, was an indefinite sense of dread which had come upon us and which we confessed to one another as we sat and ate.

We chose to attribute this dread to the strange and threatening shape of the hill as we approached it. Yet as we looked about us now we could not but acknowledge that we had seen many more awful cliffs and precipices without any of the unreasonable feeling which we could not but confess to now. A little while before sunset I noticed something which I tried to tell myself was most likely nothing, but which, nevertheless, [93] ]increased this indefinite fear into a sense almost of horror.