It is a night of myriad stars, shining from a dome of deepest blue.
The lofty, white-barked swamp gums stand silent and ghost-like on the
river's bank, and the river itself is almost as silent as it flows to
meet the roaring surf on the bar of the rock-bound coast fifteen miles
away, where when the south-east wind blows lustily by day and dies away
at night the long billows of the blue Pacific roll on unceasingly.
Overhead, far up in the topmost boughs of one of the giant gums some
opossums squeal angrily at an intruding native bear, which, like
themselves, has climbed to feed upon the young and tender eucalyptus
leaves. Below, a prowling dingo steals slowly over the thick carpet of
leaves, then sitting on his haunches gazes at the prone figures of two
men stretched out upon their blankets at the foot of the great tree.
His green, hungry eyes have discerned a pair of saddle-bags and his keen
nostrils tell him that therein are salt beef and damper. He sinks gently
down upon the yielding leaves and for a minute watches the motionless
forms; then he rises and creeps, creeps along. A horse bell tinkles from
beyond the scrub and in an instant the wild dog lies flat again. Did he
not see one of the men move? No, all is quiet, and once more he creeps
forward. Then from beneath the tree there comes a flash and a report and
a bullet flies and the night prowler leaps in the air with a snarling
yelp and falls writhing in his death agony, as from the sand flats in
the river arises the clamour of startled wild fowl and the rush and
whirr of a thousand wings. Then silence again, save for the long-drawn
wail of a curlew.
One of the men rises, kicks together the dying camp fire and throws on
a handful of sticks and leaves. It blazes up and a long spear of light
shoots waveringly across the smooth current of the river.
“Get him, Harry?” sleepily asks his companion as he sits up and feels
for his pipe.
“Yes--couldn't miss him. He's lying there. Great Scott! Didn't he jump.”
“Poor beggar--smelt the tucker, I suppose. Well, better a dead dog than
a torn saddle-bag. Hear the horses?”
“Yes, they're all right--feeding outside the timber belt How's the time,
Ted?”
“Three o'clock. What a deuce of a row those duck and plover kicked up
when you fired! We ought to get a shot or two at them when daylight
comes.”
“Harry,” a big, bearded fellow of six feet, nodded as he lit his pipe.
“Yes, we ought to get all we want up along the blind creeks, and we'll
have to shift camp soon. It's going to rain before daybreak, and we
might as well stay here over to-morrow and give the horses a spell.”
“It's clouding over a bit, but I don't think it means rain.”
“I do. Listen,” and he held up his hand towards the river.
His companion listened, and a low and curious sound--like rain and yet
not like rain--a gentle and incessant pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat,
then a break for a few seconds, then again, sometimes sounding loud and
near, at others faintly and far away.
“Sounds like a thousand people knockin' their finger nails on tables.
Why, it must be rainin' somewhere close to on the river.”
“No, it's the pattering of mullet, heading up the river--thousands,
tens of thousands, aye hundreds of thousands. It is a sure sign of heavy
rain. We'll see them presently when they come abreast of us. That queer
_lip, lap, lip, lap_ you hear is made by their tails. They sail along
with heads well up out of the water--the blacks tell me that they smell
the coming rain--then swim on an even keel for perhaps twenty yards or
so, and the upper lobe of their tails keeps a constant flapping on the
water. You know how clearly you can hear the flip of a single fish's
tail in a pond on a quiet night? Well, to-night you'll hear the sound
of fifty thousand. Once, when I was prospecting in the Shoalhaven River
district I camped with some net fishermen near the Heads. It was a calm,
quiet night like this, and something awakened me. It sounded like heavy
rain falling on big leaves. 'Is it raining, mate?' I said to one of
the fishermen. 'No,' he replied, 'but there's a heavy thunderstorm
gathering; and that noise you hear is mullet coming up from the Heads,
three miles away.' That was the first time I ever saw fish packed so
closely together--it was a wonderful sight, and when they began to pass
us they stretched in a solid line almost across the river and the noise
they made was deafening. But we must hurry up, lad, shift our traps a
bit back into the scrub and up with the tent. Then we'll come back and
have a look at the fish, and get some for breakfast.”
The two hardy prospectors (for such they were) were old and experienced
bushmen, and soon had their tent up, and their saddles, blankets and
guns and provisions under its shelter, just as the first low muttering
of thunder hushed the squealing opossums overhead into silence. But, as
it died away, the noise of the myriad mullet sounded nearer and nearer
as they swam steadily onward up the river.
Ten minutes passed, and then a heavy thunder-clap shook the mighty trees
and echoed and re-echoed among the spurs and gullies of the coastal
range twenty miles away; another and another, and from the now leaden
sky the rain fell in torrents and continued to pour unceasingly for
an hour. Inside the tent the men sat and smoked and waited. Then the
downfall ceased with a “snap,” the sky cleared as if by magic, revealing
the stars now paling before the coming dawn, and the cries of birds
resounded through the dripping bush.
Picking up a prospecting dish the elder man told his “mate” that it
was time to start. Louder than ever now sounded the noise made by the
densely packed masses of fish, and as the rays of the rising sun, aided
by a gentle air, dispelled the river mist, the younger man gave a gasp
of astonishment when they reached the bank and he looked down--from
shore to shore the water was agitated and churned into foam showing a
broad sheet of flapping fins and tails and silvery scales. So close were
the fish to the bank and so overcrowded that hundreds stranded upon the
sand.
The big man stepped down, picked up a dozen and put them into the dish;
then he and his companion sat on the bank and watched the passage of the
thousands till the last of them had rounded a bend of the river and the
waters flowed silently once more.