THE WURLEY IN THE ROCKS
And yet there is no refuge
To shield me from distress.
Except the realm of slumber
And great forgetfulness.
—_Henry Kendall._
QUICK as they were, the black woman was quicker.
She was lying full length on her face when Norah’s startled voice rang
out across the camp. Almost with the first word she was on her feet,
twisting to an erect position with a quick movement curious in one so
ungainly. Like a flash, also, the child was running to her, screaming
with sudden terror. The gin caught her up with a swift clutch, and in
three strides had gained the shelter of the scrub.
“Oh, Wally, run!” Norah cried.
But Wally was running. His long legs took him across the grass so
swiftly that he seemed to gain the scrub almost at the same instant as
the lubra. Behind him came Jean and Norah, scarlet with excitement. They
pulled up sharply.
There was no sign of any one. The spring that had its source near the
plateau trickled out at the side, and the scrub grew more densely than
anywhere else. It seemed to have swallowed up their quarry. Not even a
broken or trembling branch or a mark in the bushes told where she had
gone. They listened, their hearts thumping heavily.
Then, from the left, came the sound of a breaking twig, and Wally turned
in its direction, and went crashing through the undergrowth, the girls
at his heels. For a moment he feared that he was on the wrong track;
then, with a great throb of relief, he caught a glimpse of a faded red
print skirt, and ran wildly on.
Once he looked back with a quick call.
“Don’t get bushed if we miss each other. I’ll coo-ee!”
“Right!” Norah had no breath for more.
They ran madly through the scrub, dodging, twisting, scrambling among
the saplings and bushes. The stones were the worst; they cropped out of
the ground, often with a coating of dry lichen or dead leaves disguising
their outlines, and it was almost impossible to dodge them, running at
top speed, in the gloom of the trees. A dozen times the pursuers tripped
and went sprawling over the unseen and unyielding obstacles, only to
pick themselves up, bruised and shaken, to run harder than ever, to make
up for lost time.
The black gin always kept before them. Sometimes they caught a glimpse
of her red skirt, and once Wally saw her across a little cleared space,
fleeing silently, with the child clasped to her breast; but generally
she was out of sight, and they could only follow her by sound. She ran
with all the stealthy cunning of her race, her bare feet making little
noise when contrasted with the crashing of her pursuers, who shouted to
her loudly and unavailingly to stop. Nor did she ever run in a straight
line—like a hare she twisted and doubled, though always as if she had
some definite end in view, for, despite her tortuous course, she always
kept to the same direction. The child uttered no sound; the woman ran as
though she had no burden.
Norah fell behind presently; not only was the pace too much for her, but
she feared to leave Jean, who was lagging far in the rear. She waited
for her to catch up, and they jogged on together, listening anxiously
for Wally’s voice.
Wally had set his teeth, suddenly indignant at being outpaced for so
long by a woman—“a black one at that!” he uttered, forgetting that no
woman, save a black one, would have had the slightest chance of keeping
ahead. The pride of the schoolboy, to whom none of his mates had been
able to show the way on the football field, surged up in him, and he
flung himself forward, shouting. He knew he had lost sight of Norah and
Jean—and they must not be left to run the danger of getting “bushed.”
The chase must end.
He was gaining yard by yard—the pad of flying bare feet came closer and
closer. Then he heard a heavy fall, and a loud, piteous cry—a child’s
cry—that sent the honest blood surging to his heart. He was almost upon
the black woman as she picked herself up, clinging to the child—and
then she doubled suddenly, twisting herself through a gap between two
great boulders. Not quite quickly enough; had the boy been a dozen yards
further off he might never have seen where she disappeared. But he was
on her heels, following. Then he knew that the chase was over.
They were in a tiny triangular space, nearly filled by a “wurley” formed
by roofing in the stones with boughs, and leaving a few upright ones as
a doorway. The boulders hemmed it in. The place was hardly larger than a
dog kennel at Billabong—searchers might have passed it a hundred times,
never guessing that there was any space left among the masses of rock.
It had evidently been inhabited a long while, for the ground was beaten
hard, and it reeked with the “blackfellow” odour that is worse than the
majority of smells. The black gin dived into the tiny hut, and faced
about; Wally could see her fierce eyes gleaming—could hear her breath,
loud, panting gasps. He was panting himself; the “Coo-ee!” he uttered,
turning towards the direction where he had last seen the girls, quavered
a little. He sent it echoing through the bush twice before an answer
came. Then the boy’s heart gave a throb of relief as Jean and Norah came
into view.
“Got ’em!” he said, indicating the “wurley” with a jerk of his hand.
“Moses! can’t that lady run! I’d like to enter her for the Oaks! Are you
girls all right?”
They nodded.
“Is it—is the kiddie——?”
“Blest if I know!” said Wally, laughing. “You said so, and so I ran. If
it isn’t some one else’s youngster, then the lady in here has a mighty
uneasy conscience on some other score, that’s all. But if you’ve given
me that little jog-trot for nothing, young Norah——!” He broke off,
endeavouring to look threatening.
“Why, I saw it laugh!” said Norah. “And it was the face of that
photograph and Mrs. Archdale’s face rolled into one!”
“Never saw Mrs. Archdale with a face as black as that,” Wally rejoined.
“You aren’t complimentary, Nor. Let’s have a look at them, anyway.”
But the black gin cowered back in her den, and refused to move.
Persuasion and threats alike were unavailing. Finally Wally shrugged his
shoulders.
“Awfully sorry to pull your house about your ears, ma’am,” he said. “But
if you won’t come out, it’ll have to be. Look out, you girls—I shall
stir up awful smells!”
He fulfilled his prediction as he pulled away the interlacing
boughs—hygienic principles are not in vogue in an aboriginal “wurley.”
It was pitifully scanty—a moment’s work sufficed to reveal the lubra
and the child she grasped firmly. She tried to hold its face against
her—but the baby wriggled free at the strange voices, facing the grave
young faces.
Now that they were so close only a glance was needed to show that this
was no black picaninny. A dark stain covered the child’s face and its
legs and arms: but through it the features were those of the baby who
had laughed to them from the blue wall of the little room at Mrs.
Archdale’s. And there was no fear in the wide, dark eyes that met
theirs—but rather an unspoken greeting, as though instinct told her
that she was once more among her own kind. Norah held out her hand to
her; but the black gin cowered back, holding the little body yet more
closely.
“Mine,” she said; “that pfeller picaninny mine!”
“_Qui s’excuse s’accuse_,” said Wally, in his best French. “We never
said she wasn’t, old lady—’twas your own guilty mind. That feller Mrs.
Archdale’s picaninny, Black Mary.”
“Mine,” she said, sullenly, fear glowing in her eyes. “Baal you take
her?”
“Baal I’ll leave her?” retorted Wally. “You give it me that picaninny,
one time, quick!” He swung round at a step behind him. “Thank goodness,
here’s Billy! I don’t think I’m much good at international
complications.”
Billy grasped the situation in a few words. Then he addressed a flood of
guttural remarks to the black gin, who shrank visibly from him, and
answered him, trembling. He turned to Wally.
“That pfeller, Lucy,” he said, briefly. “She bin marry mine cousin, Dan.
S’pos’n’ she have picaninny, it tumble-down (died) one-three time. So
Dan he gone marry Eva.” He told the small tragedy of Black Lucy,
unconcernedly, and the lubra listened, nodding.
“So that pfeller Lucy plenty lonely,” went on Billy. “Then, s’pos’n him
meet li’l white picaninny down along a scrub, him collar that pfeller.
That all. Every pfeller lubra want picaninny,” finished Billy in a bored
voice, as if marvelling at the ways of womenkind.
There was a long pause. At last Wally spoke, hurriedly.
“Well—she knows we’ve got to take the kiddie, anyhow, doesn’t she?”
“Mine bin tell her that,” said Billy. “She bin say not.”
The black woman broke in, in a high, shrill voice.
“Not take her. That li’l pfeller, picaninny belongin’ to me.”
“Picaninny’s mother’s wanting her,” Norah said her voice pitying.
“Mine!” said the black woman, uncertainly—“mine!” She held the child
closer, rocking her to and fro; and the children stared at her, not
knowing how to solve the problem.
Billy had no illusions. He grasped the gin’s arm, and jerked her to her
feet.
“Baal you be a fool?” he said, roughly. “S’pos’n’ p’liceman come, you
bin find yourself in lock-up, plenty quick! P’lice bin lookin’ for you
this long time ’cause you bin steal picaninny.”
She winced and shivered, looking at him with great stupid eyes, like an
injured animal’s.
“You come and see my father,” said Norah, gently, putting one hand on
her arm; and somewhat to their surprise, the gin came, making no further
outcry, but holding the child to her. So they went back through the
scrub. Billy led them swiftly, making but a short distance, in a
straight line, of the long and tortuous race that the fugitive had led
them. It seemed a very few minutes before they saw the canvas of the
tent shining white through the trees, and heard voices beyond.
Quite suddenly, the black gin stopped. For a moment she held the child
to her so savagely that the little thing cried out in pain. She muttered
over her.
“My li’l pfeller picaninny!” she said. “Mine!” She turned to Norah.
“Mine bin good to her,” she said, thickly. “Baal mine ever beat that
one!” Just for an instant she stood looking at them in dumb agony. Then
she put the child down with a swift gentleness, and, turning, fled into
the gloom of the Bush.