Easier travel--The girls improve--How the blacks received them--A large
hut--A dainty dish--What might have been--The girls decorate their
home--Bruno as a performer--"A teacher of swimming"--How we fought
depression--Castles in the air--A strange concert--Trapping wild-cats--The
girls' terror of solitude--Fervent prayer--A goose-skin football--How I
made drums.
At length we came to a stately stream that flowed in a NNE. direction to
Cambridge Gulf. This, I believe, is the Ord River. Here we constructed
a catamaran, and were able to travel easily and luxuriously upon it,
always spending the night ashore. This catamaran was exceptionally
large, and long enough to admit of our standing upright on it with
perfect safety. After crossing the King Leopold Ranges we struck a level
country, covered with rich, tall grass, and well though not thickly
wooded. The rough granite ranges, by the way, we found rich in alluvial
and reef tin. Gradually the girls grew stronger and brighter. At this
time they were, as you know, clad in their strange "sack" garments of
bird-skins; but even before we reached the Ord River these began to
shrink to such an extent that the wearers were eventually wrapped as in a
vice, and were scarcely able to walk. Yamba then made some make-shift
garments out of opossum skins.
As the girls' spirits rose higher and higher I was assailed by other
misgivings. I do not know quite how the idea arose, but somehow they
imagined that their protector's home was a more or less civilised
settlement, with regular houses, furnished with pianos and other
appurtenances of civilised life! So great was their exuberance that I
could not find it in my heart to tell them that they were merely going
among my own friendly natives, whose admiration and affection for myself
only differentiated them from the other cannibal blacks of unknown
Australia.
When first I saw these poor girls, in the glow of the firelight, and in
their rude shelter of boughs, they looked like old women, so haggard and
emaciated were they; but now, as the spacious catamaran glided down the
stately Ord, they gradually resumed their youthful looks, and were very
comely indeed. The awful look of intolerable anguish that haunted their
faces had gone, and they laughed and chatted with perfect freedom. They
were like birds just set at liberty. They loved Bruno from the very
first; and he loved them. He showed his love, too, in a very practical
manner, by going hunting on his own account and bringing home little
ducks to his new mistresses. Quite of his own accord, also, he would go
through his whole repertoire of tumbling tricks; and whenever the girls
returned to camp from their little wanderings, with bare legs bleeding
from the prickles, Bruno would lick their wounds and manifest every token
of sympathy and affection.
Of course, after leaving the native encampment, it was several weeks
before we made the Ord River, and then we glided down that fine stream
for many days, spearing fish in the little creeks, and generally amusing
ourselves, time being no object. I have, by the way, seen enormous
shoals of fish in this river--mainly mullet--which can only be compared
to the vast swarms of salmon seen in the rivers of British Columbia.
We came across many isolated hills on our way to the river, and these
delayed us very considerably, because we had to go round them. Here,
again, there was an abundance of food, but the girls did not take very
kindly to the various meats, greatly preferring the roots which Yamba
collected. We came upon fields of wild rice, which, apart from any other
consideration, lent great beauty to the landscape, covering the country
with a pinkish-white blossom. We forced ourselves to get used to the
rice, although it was very insipid without either salt or sugar.
Sometimes, during our down-river journey, we were obliged to camp for
days and nights without making any progress. This, however, was only
after the river became tidal and swept up against us.
When at length we would put off again in a homeward direction, I sang
many little _chansons_ to my fair companions. The one that pleased them
most, having regard to our position, commenced--
"Filez, filez, mon beau navire,
Car la bonheur m'attend la bas."
Whenever the girls appeared to be brooding over the terrible misfortunes
they had undergone, I would tell them my own story, which deeply affected
them. They would often weep with tender sympathy over the series of
catastrophes that had befallen me. They sang to me, too--chiefly hymns,
however--such as "Rock of Ages," "Nearer, my God, to Thee," "There is a
Happy Land," and many others. We were constantly meeting new tribes of
natives, and for the most part were very well received. Bruno, however,
always evinced an unconquerable aversion for the blacks. He was ever
kind to the children, though mostly in disgrace with the men--until they
knew him.
When at length we reached my own home in Cambridge Gulf, the natives gave
us a welcome so warm that in some measure at least it mitigated the
girls' disappointment at the absence of civilisation.
You see my people were delighted when they saw me bringing home, as they
thought, two white wives; "for now," they said, "the great white chief
will certainly remain among us for ever." There were no wars going on
just then, and so the whole tribe gave themselves up to festivities.
The blacks were also delighted to see the girls, though of course they
did not condescend to greet them, they being mere women, and therefore
beneath direct notice.
I ought to mention here, that long before we reached my home we were
constantly provided with escorts of natives from the various tribes we
met. These people walked along the high banks or disported themselves in
the water like amphibians, greatly to the delight of the girls. We found
the banks of the Ord very thickly populated, and frequently camped at
night with different parties of natives. Among these we actually came
across some I had fought against many months previously.
As we neared my home, some of our escort sent up smoke-signals to
announce our approach--the old and wonderful "Morse code" of long puffs,
short puffs, spiral puffs, and the rest; the variations being produced by
damping down the fire or fires with green boughs. Yamba also sent up
signals. The result was that crowds of my own people came out in their
catamarans to meet us. My reception, in fact, was like that accorded a
successful Roman General. Needless to say, there was a series of huge
_corroborees_ held in our honour. The first thing I was told was that my
hut had been burnt down in my absence (fires are of quite common
occurrence); and so, for the first few days after our arrival, the girls
were housed in a temporary grass shelter, pending the construction of a
substantial hut built of logs. Now, as logs were very unusual building
material, a word of explanation is necessary.
The girls never conquered their fear of the blacks--even _my_ blacks; and
therefore, in order that they might feel secure from night attack (a
purely fanciful idea, of course), I resolved to build a hut which should
be thoroughly spear-proof. Bark was also used extensively, and there was
a thatch of grass. When finished, our new residence consisted of three
fair-sized rooms--one for the girls to sleep in, one for Yamba and
myself, and a third as a general "living room,"--though, of course, we
lived mainly _en plain air_. I also arranged a kind of veranda in front
of the door, and here we frequently sat in the evening, singing, chatting
about distant friends; the times that were, and the times that were to
be.
Let the truth be told. When these poor young ladies came to my hut their
faces expressed their bitter disappointment, and we all wept together the
greater part of the night. Afterwards they said how sorry they were thus
to have given way; and they begged me not to think them ungrateful.
However, they soon resigned themselves to the inevitable, buoyed up by
the inexhaustible optimism of youth; and they settled down to live as
comfortably as possible among the blacks until some fortuitous occurrence
should enable us all to leave these weird and remote regions. The girls
were in constant terror of being left alone--of being stolen, in fact.
They had been told how the natives got wives by stealing them; and they
would wake up in the dead of the night screaming in the most
heart-rending manner, with a vague, nameless terror. Knowing that the
ordinary food must be repulsive to my new and delightful companions, I
went back to a certain island, where, during my journey from the little
sand-spit to the main, I had hidden a quantity of corn beneath a cairn.
This corn I now brought back to my Gulf home, and planted for the use of
the girls. They always ate the corn green in the cob, with a kind of
vegetable "milk" that exudes from one of the palm-trees. When they
became a little more reconciled to their new surroundings, they took a
great interest in their home, and would watch me for hours as I tried to
fashion rude tables and chairs and other articles of furniture. Yamba
acted as cook and waitress, but after a time the work was more than she
could cope with unaided. You see, she had to _find_ the food as well as
cook it. The girls, who were, of course, looked upon as my wives by the
tribe (this was their greatest protection), knew nothing about
root-hunting, and therefore they did not attempt to accompany Yamba on
her daily expeditions. I was in something of a dilemma. If I engaged
other native women to help Yamba, they also would be recognised as my
wives. Finally, I decided there was nothing left for me but to acquire
five more helpmates, who were of the greatest assistance to Yamba.
Of course, the constant topic of conversation was our ultimate escape
overland; and to this end we made little expeditions to test the girls'
powers of endurance. I suggested, during one of our conversations, that
we should either make for Port Essington, or else go overland in search
of Port Darwin; but the girls were averse to this, owing to their terror
of the natives.
Little did I dream, however, that at a place called Cossack, on the coast
of the North-West Division of Western Australia, there was a settlement
of pearl-fishers; so that, had I only known it, civilisation--more or
less--was comparatively near. Cossack, it appears, was the pearling
rendezvous on the western side of the continent, much as Somerset was on
the north-east, at the extremity of the Cape York Peninsula.
My tongue or pen can never tell what those young ladies were to me in my
terrible exile. They would recite passages from Sir Walter Scott's
works--the "Tales of a Grandfather" I remember in particular; and so
excellent was their memory that they were also able to give me many
beautiful passages from Byron and Shakespeare. I had always had a great
admiration for Shakespeare, and the girls and myself would frequently act
little scenes from "The Tempest," as being the most appropriate to our
circumstances. The girls' favourite play, however, was Pericles, "Prince
of Tyre." I took the part of the King, and when I called for my robes
Yamba would bring some indescribable garments of emu skin, with a gravity
that was comical in the extreme. I, on my part, recited passages from
the French classics--particularly the Fables of La Fontaine, in French;
which language the girls knew fairly well.
And we had other amusements. I made some fiddles out of that peculiar
Australian wood which splits into thin strips. The strings of the bow we
made out of my own hair; whilst those for the instrument itself were
obtained from the dried intestines of the native wild-cat.
We lined the hut with the bark of the paper-tree, which had the
appearance of a reddish-brown drapery.
The native women made us mats out of the wild flax; and the girls
themselves decorated their room daily with beautiful flowers, chiefly
lilies. They also busied themselves in making garments of various kinds
from opossum skins. They even made some sort of costume for me, but I
could not wear it on account of the irritation it caused.
The natives would go miles to get fruit for the girls--wild figs, and a
kind of nut about the size of a walnut, which, when ripe, was filled with
a delicious substance looking and tasting like raspberry jam. There was
also a queer kind of apple which grew upon creepers in the sand, and of
which we ate only the outer part raw, cooking the large kernel which is
found inside. I do not know the scientific name of any of these things.
I often asked the girls whether they had altogether despaired in the
clutches of the cannibal chief; and they told me that although they often
attempted to take their own lives, yet they had intervals of bright
hope--so strong is the optimism of youth. My apparition, they told me,
seemed like a dream to them.
The natives, of course, were constantly moving their camp from place to
place, leaving us alone for weeks at a time; but we kept pretty
stationary, and were visited by other friendly tribes, whom we
entertained (in accordance with my consistent policy) with songs, plays,
recitations, and acrobatic performances.
In these latter Bruno took a great part, and nothing delighted the blacks
more than to see him put his nose on the ground and go head over heels
time after time with great gravity and persistency. But the effect of
Bruno's many tricks faded into the veriest insignificance beside that
produced by his bark. You must understand that the native dogs do not
bark at all, but simply give vent to a melancholy howl, not unlike that
of the hyena, I believe. Bruno's bark, be it said, has even turned the
tide of battle, for he was always in the wars in the most literal sense
of the phrase. These things, combined with his great abilities as a
hunter, often prompted the blacks to put in a demand that Bruno should be
made over to them altogether. Now, this request was both awkward and
inconvenient to answer; but I got out of it by telling them--since they
believed in a curious kind of metempsychosis--that Bruno was _my
brother_, whose soul and being he possessed! His bark, I pretended, was
a perfectly intelligible language, and this they believed the more
readily when they saw me speak to the dog and ask him to do various
things, such as fetching and carrying; tumbling, walking on his
hind-legs, &c. &c. But even this argument did not suffice to overcome
the covetousness of some tribes, and I was then obliged to assure them
confidentially that he was a relative of the Sun, and therefore if I
parted with him he would bring all manner of most dreadful curses down
upon his new owner or owners. Whenever we went rambling I had to keep
Bruno as near me as possible, because we sometimes came across natives
whose first impulse, not knowing that he was a dog, was to spear him.
Without doubt the many cross-breeds between Bruno and the native dogs
will yet be found by Australian explorers.
Our hut was about three-quarters of a mile away from the sea, and in the
morning the very first thing the girls and I did was to go down to the
beach arm-in-arm and have a delicious swim.
They very soon became expert swimmers, by the way, under my tuition.
Frequently I would go out spearing and netting fish, my principal
captures being mullet. We nearly always had fish of some sort for
breakfast, including shell-fish; and we would send the women long
distances for wild honey. Water was the only liquid we drank at
breakfast, and with it Yamba served a very appetising dish of lily-buds
and roots. We used to steam the wild rice--which I found growing almost
everywhere, but never more than two feet high--in primitive ovens, which
were merely adapted ants' nests. The material that formed these nests,
we utilised as flooring for our house. We occasionally received
quantities of wild figs from the inland natives in exchange for shell and
other ornaments which they did not possess. I also discovered a cereal
very like barley, which I ground up and made into cakes. The girls never
attempted to cook anything, there being no civilised appliances of any
kind. Food was never boiled.
From all this you would gather that we were as happy as civilised beings
could possibly be under the circumstances. Nevertheless--and my heart
aches as I recall those times--we had periodical fits of despondency,
which filled us with acute and intolerable agony.
These periods came with curious regularity almost once a week. At such
times I at once instituted sports, such as swimming matches, races on the
beach, swings, and acrobatic performances on the horizontal bars. Also
Shakespearian plays, songs (the girls taught me most of Moore's
melodies), and recitations both grave and gay. The fits of despondency
were usually most severe when we had been watching the everlasting sea
for hours, and had perhaps at last caught sight of a distant sail without
being able to attract the attention of those on board. The girls, too,
suffered from fits of nervous apprehension lest I should go away from
them for any length of time. They never had complete confidence even in
my friendly natives. Naturally we were inseparable, we three. We went
for long rambles together, and daily inspected our quaint little corn-
garden. At first my charming companions evinced the most embarrassing
gratitude for what I had done, but I earnestly begged of them never even
to mention the word to me. The little I had done, I told them, was my
bare and obvious duty, and was no more than any other man worthy of the
name, would have done.
In our more hopeful moments we would speak of the future, and these poor
girls would dwell upon the thrill of excitement that would go all through
the civilised world, when their story and mine should first be made known
to the public.
For they felt certain their adventures were quite unique in the annals of
civilisation, and they loved to think they would have an opportunity of
"lionising" me when we should return to Europe. They would not hear me
when I protested that such a course would, from my point of view, be
extremely unpleasant and undignified--even painful.
Every day we kept a good look-out for passing ships; and from twenty to
forty catamarans were always stationed on the beach in readiness to take
us out to sea should there be any hope of a rescue. As my knowledge of
English was at this time not very perfect, the girls took it upon
themselves to improve me, and I made rapid progress under their vivacious
tuition. They would promptly correct me in the pronunciation of certain
vowels when I read aloud from the only book I possessed--the Anglo-French
Testament I have already mentioned. They were, by the way, exceedingly
interested in the records of my daily life, sensations, &c., which I had
written in _blood_ in the margins of my little Bible whilst on the island
in Timor Sea. About this time I tried to make some ink, having quill
pens in plenty from the bodies of the wild geese; but the experiment was
a failure.
Both girls, as I have already hinted, had wonderful memories, and could
recite numberless passages which they had learnt at school. Blanche, the
elder girl, would give her sister and myself lessons in elocution; and I
should like to say a word to teachers and children on the enormous
utility of _committing something to memory_--whether poems, songs, or
passages from historical or classical works. It is, of course, very
unlikely that any one who reads these lines will be cast away as we were,
but still one never knows what the future has in store; and I have known
pioneers and prospectors who have ventured into the remoter wilds, and
emerged therefrom years after, to give striking testimony as to the
usefulness of being able to sing or recite in a loud voice.
Sometimes we would have an improvised concert, each of us singing
whatever best suited the voice; or we would all join together in a
rollicking glee. One day, I remember, I started off with--
"A notre heureux sejour,"
but almost immediately I realised how ridiculously inappropriate the
words were. Still, I struggled on through the first verse, but to my
amazement, before I could start the second, the girls joined in with "God
Save the Queen," which has exactly the same air. The incident is one
that should appeal to all British people, including even her Most
Gracious Majesty herself. As the girls' voices rose, half sobbingly, in
the old familiar air, beloved of every English-speaking person, tears
fairly ran down their fair but sad young faces, and I could not help
being struck with the pathos of the scene.
But all things considered, these were really happy days for all of us, at
any rate in comparison with those we had previously experienced. We had
by this time quite an orchestra of reed flutes and the fiddles aforesaid,
whose strings were of gut procured from the native wild-cat--a very
little fellow, by the way, about the size of a fair-sized rat; I found
him everywhere. These cats were great thieves, and only roamed about at
night. I trapped them in great numbers by means of an ingenious native
arrangement of pointed sticks of wood, which, while providing an easy
entrance, yet confronted the outgoing cat with a formidable _chevaux-de-
frise_. The bait I used was meat in an almost putrid condition.
I could not handle the prisoners in the morning, because they scratched
and bit quite savagely; I therefore forked them out with a spear. As
regards their own prey, they waged perpetual warfare against the native
rats. The skin of these cats was beautifully soft, and altogether they
were quite leopards in miniature. Best of all, they made excellent
eating, the more so in that their flesh was almost the only meat dish
that had not the eternal flavour of the eucalyptus leaf, which all our
other "joints" possessed. The girls never knew that they were eating
cats, to say nothing about rats. In order to save their feelings, I told
them that both "dishes" were squirrels!
My hair at this time was even longer than the girls' own, so it is no
wonder that it provided bows for the fiddles. My companions took great
delight in dressing my absurdly long tresses, using combs which I had
made out of porcupines' quills.
Our contentment was a great source of joy to Yamba, who was now fully
convinced that I would settle down among her people for ever.
The blacks were strangely affected by our singing. Any kind of civilised
music or singing was to them anathema. What they liked best was the
harsh uproar made by pieces of wood beaten together, or the weird
jabbering and chanting that accompanied a big feast. Our singing they
likened to the howling of the dingoes! They were sincere, hardly
complimentary.
Elsewhere I have alluded to the horror the girls had of being left alone.
Whenever I went off with the men on a hunting expedition I left them in
charge of my other women-folk, who were thoroughly capable of looking
after them. I also persuaded the natives to keep some distance away from
our dwelling, particularly when they were about to hold a cannibal feast,
so that the girls were never shocked by such a fearful sight. Certainly
they had known of cannibalism in their old camp, but I told them that my
own people were a superior race of natives, who were not addicted to this
loathsome practice.
Although we had long since lost count of the days, we always set aside
one day in every seven and recognised it as Sunday, when we held a kind
of service in our spacious hut. Besides the girls, Yamba, and myself,
only our own women-folk were admitted, because I was careful never to
attempt to proselytise any of the natives, or wean them from their
ancient beliefs. The girls were religious in the very best sense of the
term, and they knew the Old and New Testaments almost by heart. They
read the Lessons, and I confess they taught me a good deal about religion
which I had not known previously. Blanche would read aloud the most
touching and beautiful passages from the Bible; and even as I write I can
recall her pale, earnest face, with its pathetic expression and her low,
musical voice, as she dwelt upon passages likely to console and
strengthen us in our terrible position. The quiet little discussions we
had together on theological subjects settled, once and for all, many
questions that had previously vexed me a great deal.
Both girls were devoted adherents of the Church of England, and could
repeat most of the Church services entirely from memory. They wanted to
do a little missionary work among the blacks, but I gently told them I
thought this inadvisable, as any rupture in our friendly relations with
the natives would have been quite fatal--if not to our lives, at least to
our chances of reaching civilisation. Moreover, my people were not by
any means without a kind of religion of their own. They believed in the
omnipotence of a Great Spirit in whose hands their destinies rested; and
him they worshipped with much the same adoration which Christians give to
God. The fundamental difference was that the sentiment animating them
was not _love_, but _fear_: propitiation rather than adoration.
We sang the usual old hymns at our Sunday services, and I soon learned to
sing them myself. On my part, I taught the girls such simple hymns as
the one commencing "_Une nacelle en silence_," which I had learnt at
Sunday-school in Switzerland. It is interesting to note that this was
Bruno's favourite air. Poor Bruno! he took more or less kindly to all
songs--except the Swiss _jodellings_, which he simply detested. When I
started one of these plaintive ditties Bruno would first protest by
barking his loudest, and if I persisted, he would simply go away in
disgust to some place where he could not hear the hated sounds. On
Sunday evening we generally held a prayer-service in the hut, and at such
times offered up most fervent supplications for delivery.
Often I have seen these poor girls lifting up their whole souls in
prayer, quite oblivious for the moment of their surroundings, until
recalled to a sense of their awful positions by the crash of an unusually
large wave on the rocks.
The girls knew no more of Australian geography than I did; and when I
mention that I merely had a vague idea that the great cities of the
continent--Sydney, Adelaide, Perth, and Melbourne--all lay in a southerly
direction, you may imagine how dense was my ignorance of the great
island. I am now the strongest possible advocate of a sound geographical
training in schools.
On ordinary days we indulged in a variety of games, the principal one
being a form of "rounders." I made a ball out of opossum skin, stuffed
with the light soft bark of the paper-tree, and stitched with gut. We
used a yam-stick to strike it with. My native women attendants often
joined in the fun, and our antics provided a vast amount of amusement for
the rest of the tribe. The girls taught me cricket, and in due time I
tried to induce the blacks to play the British national game, but with
little success. We made the necessary bats and stumps out of hard
acacia, which I cut down with my tomahawk. The natives themselves,
however, made bats much better than mine, simply by whittling flat their
waddies; and they soon became expert batsmen. But unfortunately they
failed to see why they should run after the ball, especially when they
had knocked it a very great distance away. Running about in this manner,
they said, was only fit work for women, and was quite beneath their
dignity. Yamba and I fielded, but soon found ourselves unequal to the
task, owing to the enormous distances we had to travel in search of the
ball. Therefore we soon abandoned the cricket, and took up football,
which was very much more successful.
We had a nice large football made of soft goose-skin stuffed with the
paper bark; and in considering our game you must always bear in mind that
boots or footgear of any kind were quite unknown. The great drawback of
football, from the native point of view, was that it entailed so much
exertion, which could be otherwise expended in a far more profitable and
practical manner. They argued that if they put the exertion requisite
for a game of football into a hunt for food, they would have enough meat
to last them for many days. It was, of course, utterly impossible to
bring them round to my view of sports and games. With regard to the
abandoned cricket, they delighted in hitting the ball and in catching
it--oh! they were wonderfully expert at this--but as to running after the
ball, this was quite impossible.
About this time the girls showed me the steps of an Irish jig, which I
quickly picked up and soon became quite an adept, much to the delight of
the natives, who never tired of watching my gyrations. I kept them in a
constant state of wonderment, so that even my very hair--now about three
feet long--commanded their respect and admiration!
Sometimes I would waltz with the younger girl, whilst her sister whistled
an old familiar air. When I danced, the blacks would squat in a huge
circle around me; those in the front rank keeping time by beating drums
that I had made and presented to them. The bodies of the drums were made
from sections of trees which I found already hollowed out by the ants.
These wonderful little insects would bore through and through the core of
the trunk, leaving only the outer shell, which soon became light and dry.
I then scraped out with my tomahawk any of the rough inner part that
remained, and stretched over the ends of each section a pair of the
thinnest wallaby skins I could find; these skins were held taut by sinews
from the tail of a kangaroo. I tried emu-skins for the drum-heads, but
found they were no good, as they soon became perforated when I scraped
them.
Never a day passed but we eagerly scanned the glistening sea in the hope
of sighting a passing sail. One vessel actually came right into our bay
from the north, but she suddenly turned right back on the course she had
come. She was a cutter-rigged vessel, painted a greyish-white, and of
about fifty tons burden. She was probably a Government vessel--possibly
the _Claud Hamilton_, a South Australian revenue boat stationed at Port
Darwin--as she flew the British ensign at the mast-head; whereas a
pearler would have flown it at the peak. The moment we caught sight of
that ship I am afraid we lost our heads. We screamed aloud with
excitement, and ran like mad people up and down the beach, waving
branches and yelling like maniacs. I even waved wildly my long,
luxuriant hair. Unfortunately, the wind was against us, blowing from the
WSW. We were assisted in our frantic demonstration by quite a crowd of
natives with branches; and I think it possible that, even if we had been
seen, the people on the ship would have mistaken our efforts for a more
hostile demonstration.
When it was too late, and the ship almost out of sight, I suddenly
realised that I had made another fatal mistake in having the blacks with
me. Had I and the two girls been alone on the beach I feel sure the
officers of the ship would have detected our white skins through their
glasses. But, indeed, we may well have escaped notice altogether.
There was a terrible scene when the supposed Government vessel turned
back on her course and passed swiftly out of sight. The girls threw
themselves face downwards on the beach, and wept wildly and hysterically
in the very depths of violent despair. I can never hope to tell you what
a bitter and agonising experience it was--the abrupt change from
delirious excitement at seeing a ship steering right into our bay, to the
despairing shock of beholding it turn away from us even quicker than it
came.