THE BATTLE OF ROCKY CREEK
‘By Jove!’ said Argyll, ‘this looks serious. I must get away to my fire.
We _must_ stick to his directions. I’m in good rifle practice; they’ll
remember me in days to come!’
As O’More shrugged his shoulders and moved off, a shower of spears
whistled through the air, while a chorus of cries and yells, as though
from a liberated Inferno, rang through the woods along the line of the
broken, stony country, though no human form could be seen.
The commotion created by this sudden onslaught, in spite of Hubert
Warleigh’s precautions, was terrific. The startled, frantic cattle
dashed through the watch-fires, scattering the brands and almost
trampling their guardians underfoot. Then the heavy-footed droves rolled
away, madly crashing through the timber, until the echo of their hoofs
died away in the distance. Several head, however, had been mortally
wounded, well-nigh transfixed in some cases. They staggered and fell.
At the first surprise of the onset, guns were fired with an instinctive
desire of reprisal, but no settled plan of defence seemed to be
organised. Then amid the tumult was heard the trumpet-like voice of
Hubert Warleigh.
‘Every man to his tree; don’t fire till you are sure; look out for the
rocks! Keep cool. We have only to stand them off for an hour. It’s near
daylight.’
His words reassured all. And a shot which came from his double-barrelled
rifle apparently told, as a smothered yell was heard from the cover.
‘Take that, ye murdtherin’ divils!’ said old Tom, who had crawled behind
a fallen log, and now raising himself, poured three shots from a gun and
a brace of horse-pistols into the enemy. ‘I seen one of ye go down thin,
and it’s not the only one we’ll have this blessed night.’
‘There’s number two,’ said Gerald O’More, as he rolled over a tall man
with stripes of white and red pigment, who had dashed out for an
instant.
‘Well done, O’More!’ cried Hubert, with a cheery ring in his voice.
‘Make as much noise as you like now, but don’t give away a chance. Look
out!’—as three spears hissed dangerously close—‘you’ll be hit if you
don’t mind, and——’
‘Hang the brutes!’ shouted O’More. ‘We could charge if we could only see
them. What do you think of it, Hamilton?’
‘We shall come out straight,’ said that gentleman, with his customary
coolness, ‘if we behave like disciplined troops and not like recruits.
Pardon me, O’More, but this impetuosity is out of place. If one of us
get hurt it may demoralise the men and give the blacks confidence.’
‘Never fear,’ said the excited young man. ‘It’s not the front rankers
that drop the fastest. By George!’ This half-ejaculation was elicited by
a spear-point which, passing between the arm and body, grazed his side.
‘I told you so,’ said Hamilton. ‘Why the deuce can’t you behave
reasonably! These imps of darkness can see us better than we see them.
How they are yelling in the rear!’
‘That’s to draw us off,’ said Gerald. ‘I won’t go behind a tree now, if
I was to be here for seven years. But that spear didn’t come far. It’s
one they throw with the hand—old Tom taught me that much; I’ll have the
scoundrel if I see the night out.’
A sustained volley along the line from the main body of stock-riders at
the rear, headed by Ardmillan, Neil Barrington, and Argyll, appeared to
have told upon the enemy. More than one dying yell was heard. The spears
were less constant, and though several blows and bruises had been
inflicted by thrown boomerangs and nullahs, no serious casualty had
occurred among the white men.
On the right wing of the advanced guard old Tom had ensconced himself
behind a huge fallen tree, which hid both himself and his dogs. These
last growled ominously, but took no further part, as yet, in the fray.
From behind his entrenchment the old man fired rapidly, from time to
time loudly exulting, as a death-cry rang out on the night air or a
spear buried itself in the fallen tree.
‘Throw away, ye infernal black divils!’ shouted the old man; and after
the cautious stillness it was strange to hear the reckless tones echoing
through the forest shades. ‘I’ll back the old single-barrel here against
a scrubful of yees—always belavin’ in a little cover.’
‘Tek it cool, full-private Glendinning,’ said Dick Evans, who had
advanced in light-infantry skirmishing order from the rear. ‘Not so much
talking in the ranks, and mark time when ye’re charging the inimy; it
looks more detarmined and collected-like—as old Hughie Gough used to
say. Please God, it’ll soon be daylight; perhaps they’d gather thick
enough then to let us go at ’em with the bayonet like.’
‘Maybe ye won’t be so full of yer pipeclay if ye gets one of thim reed
spears into ye—my heavy curse on them! Mr. Hubert says he catched a
sight of that divil’s-joynt of a Donderah; the thribe says he was niver
known to lave a fight without a dead man’s hair.’
‘He don’t know white men yet,’ said Dick, ‘’ceptin’ he’s sneaked on to a
hut-keeper. He’ll be taken down to-night if he don’t look out! Well
done, Master Guy!’
This exclamation was due to the result of a snapshot from Guy, who had
drawn trigger upon a savage, who, bounding forward, had thrown two
spears with wonderful rapidity, and bolted for his cover, his whole
frame quivering with such intensity of muscular action, that the limbs
were scarcely visible in the dim light. However, the keen eyes and ready
aim of youth were upon him; he reached the scrub but to spring upward
and fall heavily back, a dead man.
Although none of the whites had as yet been wounded, while several of
their savage enemies had been disabled or killed outright, still the
contest was unsatisfactory.
They were uncertain as to the number of their enemies, who, concealed in
the scrub, sent forth volleys of spears. Occasionally an outburst of
cries and yells arose, so fiendishly replete with hatred, that the
listeners in that sombre forest involuntarily felt their blood curdle.
For aught they knew, the tribe might be gradually surrounding them.
Indeed, an attempt of this kind was made. But it was frustrated by their
watchful leader, who charged into the darkness with a few picked men,
and drove the wily savages back to the main body.
On this occasion he had caught a glimpse of the giant Donderah, whose
cruelty had been a chronicle of the tribe.
‘I can’t make out where the big brute got to,’ he said to old Tom, ‘or I
should be easier in my mind. He’s a crafty devil, though he’s so big and
strong, and he has some superstition, they told me, about never going
out of a fight without a death to his credit. He knows about me, too,
though we never met. It wasn’t his fault that I got back alive. A black
girl told me that. They named him after the mountain. There’s not a
blackfellow from here to the coast that can stand before him, they say.
If O’More doesn’t take care, he’ll have him as sure as a gun. I have
half a mind to see if he has dropped flat in that stone gunya.’
It happened just then that one of the lulls, common in savage warfare,
took place. Hubert Warleigh flitted, noiseless and shadow-like, to
another part of the camp, lest a diversion should be effected in a
weaker spot.
Before changing position he gave instructions to old Tom, whose
practised eye and ear could be depended upon, and whose distrust of the
savage he knew to be proof against apparent security.
‘I’ll be back soon,’ he said, ‘for if Donderah did not fall back with
the others, we are none of us too safe. I’ve known him drag a man out,
with half a tribe close to his heels.’
Old Tom was much of the same opinion, for at the border stations tales
of the Myall blacks were told by the aboriginals employed about the
place. The exploits of the Titanic Donderah, ‘cobaun big fellow and
plenty boomalli white fellow,’ had attained Homeric distinction.
The old man peered keenly through the dim glades, and listened as he
bent forward, still sheltered by his tree, and resting one hand upon the
neck of the dog Smoker, whose low growling he strove to repress.
‘Bad scran to ye,’ he said, ‘do ye want every murdtherin’ thief of the
tribe to know the tree I’m under? Maybe _he’s_ not far off, and ye’re
winding him. I never knew yer tongue to be false, or I’d dhrive in the
ribs of ye. Ha, ye big divil!’ he screamed, ‘ye’re there afther all;
’twas a bould trick of ye to hide in that stone gunya. Ye nearly
skivered that gay boy from the ould country. Holy saints! sure he’s a
dead man now! Was there ever such a gommoch!’
This uncomplimentary exclamation was called forth by the apparition of a
herculean savage, who leaped out of the lava blocks of the rude,
circular miami—a long-abandoned dwelling-place, probably a century old,
and but slightly raised above the basaltic rocks of the promontory.
Starting up, as if out of the night, he flung two spears at the only
white man unsheltered. Like a diving seal he cast himself downwards, and
was again invisibly safe.
One of the javelins nearly made an end of Gerald O’More. It was from
such weapons, hurled with a sinewy arm, that the half-dozen cattle in
the camp had fallen. They found, next morning, that a spear, piercing
the flank, had gone _clean through_ an unlucky heifer, and passed out at
the other side.
However that may have been, Gerald the Dauntless was not the man to
remain to be made a target of. Rushing forward, with a shout that told
of West of Ireland associations, he charged the miniature citadel,
determined to kill or capture his enemy. Before he reached the
apparently deserted gunya, a dark form might have been observed by eyes
more keen for signs of woodcraft, to worm itself, serpentlike, along the
path which O’More trod heedlessly.
As if raised by magic from the earth, suddenly the huge Donderah stood
erect in his path, and with the bound of a famished tiger, sprang within
Gerald’s guard. The barrel of his fowling-piece was knocked up, and with
one tremendous blow the Caucasian lay prone upon the earth. His foe
commenced to drag him within the circle of the (possibly) sacrificial
stones.
But before he could effect his purpose, a hoarse cry caused the savage
to pause and falter. Hubert Warleigh, with his gun clubbed, was bounding
frantically towards the triumphant champion.
But the distance was against the white man, though his panther-like
bounds reduced the race to a question of seconds.
‘Hould on, Mr. Hubert!’ yelled old Tom, who had quitted his coign of
vantage, followed by the excited dogs, no longer to be restrained.
‘Sure, we’ll have him, the murdtherin’ thafe. The others is fell back,
since thim two dropped to Mr. Hamilton’s pay-rifle—more power to him.
Here, boys! hould him! hould him! Smoker! Spanker! soole him!’
The old man yelled like a fiend; and as the startled savage saw the grim
hounds stretching to the earth in full pursuit of him, he dropped his
prey in terror of the unaccustomed foe.
‘At him, Spanker! hould him, Smoker!’ screamed the old man, ‘tear the
throat of him. Marciful Saver! did any one ever see the like of that!
But I’ll have the heart’s blood of ye, if ye were the Diaoul out of h—l,
this—night.’
This mixture of religious adjuration and profanity from the lips of the
excited old stock-rider was elicited by another cast of the fatal dice.
As the brawny savage glanced at the dogs, which were rapidly nearing
him, and upon the powerful form of Hubert Warleigh, who bade fair to
challenge him before he could reach his covert, loaded as he was, he
unwillingly relinquished his victim. With a couple of bounds he reached
the gunya, where, crouching behind the largest boulder, he awaited the
attack. But it was not like Hubert Warleigh to leave the wounded man.
Stooping for a moment, he raised O’More in his arms, with a violent
effort threw him across his shoulder, and marched towards the
encampment.
As he half turned in the effort, the savage raised himself to his full
height, and, poising a spear, stood for a moment as if uncertain whether
he should expend its force upon the old stock-rider and his dogs or
against his white antagonist.
At that moment a yell from the main body of blacks showed that they had
been forced to retreat. He was therefore separated from his companions,
towards whom the wary stock-rider was advancing with a view of cutting
him off.
‘Look out!’ shouted the old man to Hubert, as he marked the savage take
sudden aim. ‘By——! he’ll nail you!’
At the warning cry Hubert swung half round, turning his broad breast to
the foe and shielding his unconscious burden as best he might. The wild
warrior drew himself back for an instant, and then—like a cloth-yard
shaft from a strong yew bow—the thin, dark, wavering missile sped only
too truly. Deeply, venomously it pierced the mighty chest, beneath which
throbbed the true and fearless heart of Hubert Warleigh. Freeing one
hand, he broke the spear-shaft across like a reed-stalk, and without
stay or stagger strode forward with his burden.
As the last battle scene was enacted, the dawn light struggled through a
misty cloud-rack, and permitted clearer view of the tragedy to the rank
and file of the expedition.
When the deadly missile struck their leader, a wild shout broke from the
whites, and a charge in line was made towards the stone gunya,
immediately in the rear of which the main body of the natives had
collected for a desperate stand.
As if in answer, a strange, unnatural cry, half human only, burst upon
their ears. They turned to behold a singular spectacle. Carried away by
his exultation at the triumph of his aim and his revenge upon the foeman
who had baulked him of his prey, the champion of a primeval race
lingered ere he turned to flight in the direction of his companions.
He was too late. The bandogs of destiny were upon him, grim, merciless,
with red glaring eyes and gleaming fangs. In his attention to his spear
he had forgotten to pick up his nullah-nullah (or club), with which he
would have been a match for any canine foe. A few frantic bounds were
made by the doomed quarry as the eager dogs looked wolfishly up into his
terror-stricken countenance. Another step, and the red dog, springing
suddenly, seized his throat with unrelaxing grip, while Spanker’s sharp
tusks sank into his flank, tearing at the quivering flesh as he fell
heavily upon the earth.
‘Whoo-whoop, boys! Whoop!’ screamed old Tom, breathless and excited to
the blood-madness of the Berserker. ‘That’s the talk. Worry, worry,
worry! good dogs, good dogs! At him Spanker, boy, ye’re blood up to the
eyes. Stick to him, Smoker, throttle him like a dingo. How the eyes of
him rolls. Mercy be hanged!’ he replied in answer to the protest of one
of the men. ‘What mercy did he show to Mr. Hubert, and him helpless,
with that gossoon in his arms? Maybe ye didn’t think of the harm ye were
doing, ye black snake that ye are,’ he continued, apostrophising the
writhing form, which the ruthless hounds dragged to and fro with the
ferocity of their kind; the brindle dog revelling in the dreadful
banquet, wherein his head was ever and anon plunged to the glaring eyes,
while the red hound held his fell grip upon the lacerated throat.
‘Maybe it’s kind father to ye to dhrive yer spear through any mortial
craychur that belongs to a strange thribe, white or black. There’s more
like ye, that’s had betther tachin’, so I’ll give ye a riddance out of
yer misery. And it’s more than ye’d do for me av ye had me lyin’ there
under the fut of ye.’
With this closing sentiment, nearer to recognition of a sable brother
than he had ever been known to exhibit, the old stock-rider raised his
gun. ‘Come off, ye divils! d’ye hear me, now?’ he said, striking the
brindle dog heavily with his gun, who then only drew off, licking his
gory lips and looking greedily at the bleeding form; while the red dog,
more obedient or less fell of nature, relinquished his hold at the first
summons.
‘Ye’ve had yer punishment, I’ll go bail, in this world, whatever happens
in the next,’ said the old man grimly, as he pulled the trigger of his
piece in a matter-of-fact manner. The charge passed through the skull of
the mangled wretch, who, leaping from the earth and throwing out his
arms in the death agony, fell on his face with a crash.
‘There’s an ind of ye,’ said the ruthless elder. ‘The blood of a betther
man will be cowld enough before the day’s out. Come away, dogs, ye’ve
had divarshion enough for one huntin’. Sure, they’re far away—the black
imps of Satan,’ he said, as he listened intently to a distant chorus of
wailing cries. ‘It’s time to get the camp in order. I wonder when we’ll
git thim bullocks agin?’
It was indeed time to comply with the old man’s suggestion. Leaving the
quivering corpse, the men turned away with a sense of relief, to
commence their less tragic duties. At the camp much was to be arranged;
all disorder was rife since the attack.
Huddled together were heaps of flour-bags, camp-kettles, and pannikins.
The tents were overthrown, torn, and bedraggled. The frantic cattle had
stampeded over the spot chosen with circumspection by the cook, as the
strewn débris of beef and damper witnessed.
The horses were nearly all absent—some hobbled, some loose. Not a hoof
of the horned herd was to be seen. Everything in the well-ordered camp,
so lately presenting a disciplined appearance, seemed to have been the
sport of evil genii.
Worse a hundredfold than all, beneath a hastily pitched tent, tended
with anxious faces by his comrades, was stretched a wounded man, whose
labouring breath came ever thickly and more blood-laden as the sun rose
upon the battlefield, which secured for the white man one of the richest
provinces of Australia. Yes! the stark limbs were feeble, the keen eye
was dim, the stout heart was throbbing wildly, or feebly pulsating with
life’s waning flame. Hubert Warleigh lay a-dying! His hour was come. The
hunter of the hills, the fearless wood-ranger, was helpless as a sick
child. The weapon of his heathen foe had sped home.
Argyll, Hamilton, Ardmillan, and the others stood around his rude pallet
with saddened hearts. Each voice was hushed as they watched the spirit
painfully quitting the stalwart form of him whom they had all learned to
know and to trust.
‘We have bought our country dearly,’ said Wilfred, as a spasm distorted
the features of the dying man and caused his strong limbs to quiver and
writhe. Over his chest was thrown a rug, redly splashed, which told of
the death-wound, from which the life-blood welled in spite of every
attempt to staunch it. Beside him sat Gerald O’More, buried in deepest
grief.
‘Better take the lie of the country from me,’ said the wounded man
feebly. ‘One of you might write it down, with the bearings of the
rivers, while my head keeps right. How hard it seems! Just made a start
for a new country and a new life. And now to be finished off like this!
The Warleigh luck all over. I might have known nothing could come of it,
but——’ Here his voice grew choked and indistinct, while from the
saturated wrappings the blood dripped slowly and with a dreadful
distinctness upon the earthen floor. A long pause. Again he held up his
hand. ‘It will take every man that can be spared to get the cattle and
horses together again. A week ought to do it; it’s easy tracking with no
others about. You can knock up a “break” to count through. Make sure
you’ve got the lot before you start away. Leave Effingham and Argyll
with me. I’ll tell them about the course; you’re near the open country.
I little thought when I saw it next I should be —should be—like this.’
They obeyed the dying leader to the last. All left the tent except
Wilfred and Argyll. The success of the expedition depended on the cattle
being recovered without loss of time. Though a monarch dies, the work of
this world must go on. Few indeed are they for whom the wheels of the
mighty machine can be stopped. Hubert Warleigh was the last man to
desire it.
‘It’s no good stopping to “corroboree” over me,’ he said, with a touch
of humour lighting up the glazing eye. ‘It’s lucky you haven’t O’More to
wake as well as me. You won’t laugh at blacks’ weapons any more, eh,
Gerald?’
‘Small laughing will do me for many a day, my dear boy. You have
forgiven the rash fool that nearly lost his own life and wasted that of
a better man? I deserve all I’ve got. But for you—cut off in the prime
of your days, how shall I ever forget it? Forgive me, Hubert Warleigh,
as you hope to be forgiven.’
Here the warm-hearted passionate Milesian cast himself on his knees
beside the dying man, and burying his face in his hands, sobbed aloud in
an agony of grief and humiliation. ‘Don’t fret over it, O’More,’ said
the measured tones of the dying man. ‘It’s all in the day’s work. People
always said I’d be hanged, you know; but I’m going off the hooks
honourably, anyhow. _You_ couldn’t help it; and, indeed, I was away when
you charged that poor devil Donderah. I’m afraid old Tom’s dogs mauled
him badly. But look here,’—turning to Wilfred,—‘you get a pencil and
I’ll show you how the rivers run. There’s the Bogong Range—and the three
rivers with the best country in Australia between them. When you come to
the lower lakes, you can follow them to the sea. There’s an outlet, but
it’s choked up with sand-bars. Somewhere near the mouth there’s a decent
harbour and a good spot for a township. It will be a big one some day.
Now you’re all right and can shift for yourselves. Effingham, I want to
say a word to you before I go.’
Wilfred bent over him and O’More and Argyll left the tent. ‘Come near
me,’ he whispered, in tones which, losing strength with the decay of
life’s force, sounded hollow and dull. ‘I feel it so hard and bitter to
die. I should have had a chance—my only chance—here, and as head
explorer I might have risen to a decent position. Such a simple way to
go under too. If that rash beggar hadn’t mulled it with Donderah I
should have been right. Some men would have left him there. But I
couldn’t do it—I _couldn’t_ do it.’
‘Old Tom and his dogs avenged you,’ said Wilfred. ‘They ate Donderah
alive almost, before the old man shot him.’
‘Poor devil!’ said the dying man; ‘so he came off worse than I did. Old
Tom wouldn’t show him much mercy. I shan’t be long after him. Hang it!
what a puff of smoke a fellow’s life is when he dies young. It seems the
other day I was learning to ride at Warbrok, and Clem and Randal coming
home from the King’s School for the holidays. Well, the three Warleighs
are done for now. The wild Warleighs! wild enough, and not a paying game
either. But I’m running on too fast about all these things, and my
heart’s going, I feel. Are you sure you’ve got the chart all right, with
the rivers and the lakes all correct—and the harbour——’
‘I think so. We can make our way to the coast now. But why trouble
yourself about such matters? Surely they are trifles compared with the
thoughts which should occupy your last moments?’
‘I don’t know much about that,’ said the stricken bushman, raising
himself for an instant and looking wistfully in his companion’s face.
‘If a man dies doing his duty he may as well back it right out. What
gave me the only real help I ever had? Your father’s kind words and your
family’s kind acts. They made a man of me. It’s on that road that I’m
dying now, respected as a friend by all of you, instead of like a dog in
a ditch or a “dead-house.” Now I have two things to say before I go. I
want you to have the best run. It’s all good, but the best’s the best,
and you may as well have it. I was to have my pick.’
Wilfred made a gesture of deprecation, but the other continued, with
slow persistence:
‘You see where the second river runs into the third one? The lake’s
marked near it on the south. There’s an angle of flat country there, the
grandest cattle-run you ever set eyes on. Dry, sheltered rises for
winter; rich flats and marshes for summer. Naturally fenced too. I
christened it “The Heart” in my own mind. It’s that shape. So you sit
down there, and leave Guy on it when you go home. He’ll do something
yet, that boy. He’s a youngster after my own heart. And there’s one more
thing—the last—the very last.’
‘Rest yourself, my dear fellow,’ said Wilfred, raising his head and
wiping the death-damp from his forehead, as his eyes closed in a
death-like faint. But the dying man raised himself unsteadily to a
sitting position. An unearthly lustre gleamed in the dim eyes, the white
lips moved mechanically, as the words, like the murmur of the
breeze-touched shell, issued from them.
‘I told you I loved your sister Annabel. When I looked at her I thought
I had never seen a woman before. Tell her she was never out of my head
for one moment since the day I first saw her. Every step I made since
was towards a life that should have been worthy of her. I would have
been rich for her, proud for her, even book-taught for her sake. I was
learning in spare moments what I should have known as a boy. She might
never have taken to me—most likely not; but she would have known that
she had helped to save a man’s life—a man’s soul. Tell her that this man
went to his death, grieving most for one thing, that he should see her
face no more. And now, give me your hand, Wilfred, for Gyp Warleigh’s
time is up.’
He grasped the hand held out to him with a firm and nervous clasp; then
relinquishing it gradually, an expression of peace and repose overspread
his face, the laboured breathing ceased. His respiration became more
natural and easy, but the ashen hue of his face showed yet more
colourless and grey. The tired eyes closed; the massive head fell back
on the pillow of rugs; the lower portion of the features relaxed; a
slight shiver passed over the frame. Wilfred bent closely, tenderly,
over the still face. The faithful spirit of the last male heir of the
house of Warleigh had passed away.
When the stock-riders returned that evening after the long day’s
tracking and heard of their leader’s death, many a wild heart was deeply
stirred. At day-dawn they dug him a deep grave beneath a mighty
spreading mountain ash, and piled such a cairn above him that no
careless hand could disturb the dead. As they removed his clothes for
the last sad robing process, two small volumes fell from an inner
pocket.
‘Ha!’ said Neil Barrington, ‘one of them is the book I saw him poring
over that day. I wonder whether it’s a novel? By Jove, though, who’d
have thought that? Why, it’s an old History of England. The poor old
chap was getting up his education by degrees. It makes the tears come
into one’s eyes.’
Here the good-hearted fellow drew his handkerchief across his face.