THE ONLY WHITE MAN IN NEW HOLLAND
After leaving the blacks' camp I made my way through the forest, guided
by Moira, who could see in the dark. I was fearful lest we might be
pursued, in which case I resolved I would not be taken alive. Moira,
however, did not believe that we would be followed. Her people, she
told me, were afraid to enter the forest at night, when evil spirits
were supposed to be abroad, and indeed her own terror was so great that
I realized her devotion to me in having braved, for my sake, the
superstition in which she had been reared.
Moira was right in thinking we would not be followed, for no attempt
was made to follow us. But now a fresh anxiety arose. There were shapes
among the trees which were visible to Moira, though I could not see
them, which caused her such terror that I was obliged almost to carry
her, and I sometimes thought by the chill of her body that she had died
in my arms. With the dawn, however, the shapes disappeared, and Moira's
fears were dispelled.
Daylight found us several miles on our way to the coast, which we made,
as I reckoned, about noon, to the north of where I had first landed.
The cliffs here were high and rocky, the waves breaking at the foot in
fountains of spray. The sky was dull and overcast, which betokened a
storm. A number of white birds with yellow crests, such as I had seen
on my first landing, flew inland, and several fur-coated animals, with
heads resembling deer, and powerful tails, hopped across the stubble to
the shelter of the trees. The prospect was a dreary one, and a feeling
of melancholy oppressed me, which I found it hard to dispel.
Moira did her best to cheer me, but I could not rid myself of the dread
of being the only white man upon this desolate shore. When we had
walked for some distance we came to a sandy beach, where we found a
cave in which to shelter from the storm which now burst upon us.
For an hour or more the elements raged with a fury only to be equalled
in the tropics. Lightning flashed and thunder rolled, whilst rain fell
with the force of a deluge. Then, suddenly, the storm passed, and the
sun shone with renewed splendour, decking the dripping foliage with
myriads of raindrop gems.
We had depended for food since leaving the blacks' camp upon a supply
of dried fish and prepared bulrush root, which Moira had brought with
her in her dilly-bag, but we were now compelled to seek fresh means for
our support. Moira collected a quantity of shellfish, for the cooking
of which I made a fire of some dried wood. Moira showed the greatest
astonishment and some alarm at my flint and steel, which I now used for
the first time in her presence. Nothing would persuade her to touch it.
She regarded it as something beyond her comprehension, as a fetish to
be worshipped. When we had finished our meal we fell asleep, worn out
by the fatigues of the long journey.
And now began for me a life of dull monotony, with days devoted to
watching the ocean, and sleepless nights of anxiety and despair. I had
built a beacon upon the highest part of the cliff above our cave, to be
fired in case of sighting a ship, and every morning, with the dawn, I
mounted to this look-out to scan the horizon. Here I remained all day,
and when darkness drove me to the shelter of the cave I tried to
persuade myself that each night in this lonesome place would be my
last.
Had it not been for Moira I must have perished from want and neglect,
for I could not bring myself to do anything for my personal comfort
lest it might seem I had abandoned hope of rescue. But Moira was never
idle. She worked for both, and displayed such ingenuity in converting
to our use what Nature provided that we lacked nothing for our support.
To begin with, she made an oven of baked clay, in which to cook our
food. Next she plaited fishing lines from grass-tree fibre, and
fashioned hooks from the bones of slaughtered birds and animals, to
catch the fish which abounded near the rocks. With the aid of my
Sailor's knife she made a bow and arrows to shoot the hopping animals,
the flesh of which when roasted resembled venison, while their
fur-coated skins made us warm sleeping mats. She even succeeded, after
much labour, in constructing a canoe, in which to paddle along the
coast, and sometimes, when it was calm, for some distance out to sea;
nor did she appear to regret the loneliness of our lives. But I could
not bring myself to take part in her work. Hour after hour, in moody
silence, I paced the cliff beside the beacon, scanning the ocean, and
speculating upon my chances of rescue.
If I had not been so absorbed in my selfish thoughts I might possibly
have prevented a catastrophe which afterward caused me much
self-reproach. Moira had more than once told me that food had
mysteriously disappeared from a cave in which she kept a store of
meat for our use, and she showed me where the rocks in front of this
cave had been scraped of seaweed and mussel-shells as though by the
passage of some cumbersome body. But I gave no heed to her anxieties,
and although she urged me to shift our camp I would not leave the
beacon lest a ship might pass during my absence.
Of the dreadful consequences which followed my selfishness it now only
remains for me to tell.