THE WHITE MAN.
The Baker's first and most natural impulse was to curse Smith for
waking him up in the middle of the night, and his second was, that
now, and at last, his chum had gone definitely off his head. He
groaned as he sat up and prepared to soothe the man, and combat his
wild delusion. But Smith was by no means crazy or delirious.
Indeed, he was keen enough to perceive from the very tone of
Mandeville's voice what was in his mind.
"I'm not crazy, Baker," he said earnestly, as he raked the ashes of
their own fire together. "I'm quite sane, and what I say is right."
"That white men lighted this fire?" said the Baker. "And 'ow the
deuce did you find that out in pitch dark?"
Smith laughed, a far more pleasant laugh than usual.
"Why, man alive, I saw it last night, and I didn't see it. It was
written large, and I missed it. How, I can't tell, for it's plain
enough. It was far too large a fire for any black-fellow to light.
Haven't you heard me often enough tell you to light a black-fellow's
fire, three sticks and two hot coals? Well, and this fire was big
enough to roast a sheep whole. I tell you white men did it."
But the Baker was not so easily convinced. His mind was acute.
"And 'ow do you know as black-fellows always does as you say?
Australia's big enough for a 'undred ways of fire lightin'?"
"That's all right," said Smith impatiently; "but I know their usual
custom, and I'm justified in thinking what I say is right."
The Baker shook his head.
"And, granting as some white man lighted it, where is the bloomin'
white man?"
And poor Smith's castle in the air collapsed. His head sank upon his
breast.
"That's true," he groaned. "But it was a white man anyhow. When
it's light we can search and see if there is nothing to confirm it."
"No," said the Baker; "if it's so, don't let's waste no time. Let's
hoff straight down the creek. If so be as he was 'ere at all, 'e
would go that way. And I dare say we shall find 'im a bloomin'
corpse, if we find 'im at all."
"You're a croaker," said Smith, who was recovering again, and they
lay down till dawn.
The pace they went at the next day was very slow, for they were at an
extremity. The internal pains which had tormented them on the second
and third days of starvation returned again like seven devils worse
than the first, and Mandeville, who was the stronger, suffered the
most. They had covered little more than six miles, when they camped
just before noon.
"If we strike nothing to-night, it's all up with Smith," said the
Baker, and when they started again about three o'clock, he insisted
on carrying his chum's swag.
"Drop them both," said Smith.
About four o'clock they did drop them, and walked on light, the Baker
leading through the open forest, carrying nothing but the water-bags.
Smith even threw away his coat, which hung on him as loosely as if it
had been made for Hicks. He found it easier going, but hope was
gradually dying. White-fellow or black-fellow, what did it matter?
He was a thousand times inclined to stay, to lie down and die.
And when he was at his lowest he saw the Baker stop and bend down.
"Poor devil, he's got the gripes again," said Smith, in a curious
detached way, as if the Baker was some one whom he was looking at
from some other than a human stand-point.
But Mandeville had nothing wrong with him when he stooped. He bent
down to pick something up; and that something made his eyes bolt out
of his head. He put it in his coat pocket and walked on.
"No, I never picked h'anythin' up," he said obstinately to himself,
and then diving into his pocket, he pulled the thing out again.
"If I shows it to Smith 'e'll go fair off 'is nut," he said. "It
ain't possible, that's what it ain't. But, Lordy, ain't it 'eavy."
And sitting down, he waited till Smith came stumbling along blindly.
"I've found something, Smith," he said casually.
"Yes," said Smith dully.
"It's gold, Smith."
Smith smiled wanly, and sat down.
"Let's eat it, Mandy."
But the Baker produced his find and handed it over. It was obviously
human handiwork, and Smith livened up.
"A ball, and weighs about seven pounds," he said. "And the hole
through it is for a handle. By Jove, it's a costly kind of a
black-fellow's waddy. But what's this?"
And he sprang on his feet.
"Look!" and Mandy saw what he had not noticed before. He paled to
the lips, and Smith fell back again on the log.
"It's white men again; and why this mark?"
But Smith could not tell him. For the heavy ball was plainly marked
with a broad arrow--thus:--[up arrow] and with his thumb on it, Smith
sprang up again and shouted loud:
"Cooey!"
But the forest swallowed up his cry as it had swallowed them up.
They walked again, and Mandeville carried the gold ball.
"The broad arrow is the naval sign on stores," said Smith.
"And on convicts' clothes, too," said Mandeville. "I know'd a man as
did time, and 'e told me."
"We're not likely to meet either sailors or convicts here," said
Smith. "It's a mystery. I don't feel hungry, but sick. What kind
of a country is it? It's full of horror, and thirst, and hunger, and
cannibals, from the Leeuwin to the North Cape." And he stopped
trembling.
"Steady, old man," said the Baker, "we may strike it yet."
"We'll never get out. It's my luck," said Smith. "This day will do
me. Give me a drop of water."
He sat down and twisted.
"Oh these accursed pains," he groaned, and then he looked up at the
Baker. "I'm sorry to howl, Baker, but it did catch me then."
And Mandeville was quite as bad, though, being a bit stronger, he
said nothing.
They went on again for half an hour by the billabong, which was here
pretty straight, and deeper within its banks, but in that half-hour
they did barely a mile.
"What's the use?" screamed the man Smith, to his inherited desire of
life. "What's the use? Why should I suffer? Why not lie down and
die?"
And yet the desire for life clawed on to hope, and struggled still,
driving the failing creature of a day through torture which was
sometimes lulled, and sometimes grew monstrously, splitting the man's
mind as a tree's roots drive rocks asunder, as a cancer penetrates
the living tissue.
When they talked, they returned again and again to the white man's
fire, and to the great ball of gold, the lost weapon of some
impenetrable mystery. And Smith's striving with its solution was
near setting him mad; he felt almost as he had done in that day of
thirst when his personality left him, and he became a nameless,
brainless creature that only suffered blindly, ignorant of destiny.
But though they knew it not, a partial solution of the strange
problem was at hand, a solution which solved it to present another
still more terrible, still more inexplicable. As the sun went down
upon the trees, they came suddenly, and without any dreadful warning
in the warm wind, upon the body of a white man, only a few days dead.
[Illustration: They came suddenly upon the body of a white man.]
But what a white man he was, said the two dying wanderers who found
him lying there. No, indeed no! he was like no man they had ever
seen, for his hair hung down his shoulders, his beard was below his
breast. As he lay upon his back, with bared teeth, they beheld the
great arched chest of a giant, and they could note, even yet, the
scars of spear wounds on his breast and arms. He looked a savage, a
strange and awful survival, for in the aspect of him was no
suggestion that he had ever known any influence of any civilisation.
He might have been solitary from his birth, for aloofness and
suspicion were visible in him still. His face was burnt to an
extreme brownness, which might have left doubts as to his race, but
the muscles under the arms were white. He lay there with a
rudely-tanned kangaroo skin just across his feet. There was no
ornament nor any sign of personal adornment upon him. But in his
hand was clenched a short stick, which Mandeville dared to drag from
him. It fitted the golden ball which he still carried.
"My God," said Smith, "what's all this? Didn't I say it was a
nightmare land? What's it mean, Mandy?"
But the Baker shook his head.
"Save us from such white men," he said, in a whisper. "Did he die,
or was he killed?"
When they went round the other side the answer was easy. They saw
the broken shaft of a spear still in his side.
"He fought down yonder, and came here to die," said Smith. "But,
Mandy, whom did he fight with?"
"Let's get away," said Mandy hurriedly. And they left the awful
sight in silence.
"Was it blacks or other white men that killed him?"
They fought the question out for an hour, but could give it no answer.
"What could he be? Did we dream it?" said Smith. "He looked just
like a savage."
"Perhaps 'e got lost, like us, years ago," suggested Mandeville.
But Smith shook his head.
"If he had been lost as a child it might have been."
And, with that horror behind them and death in front, they wandered
on, presently half forgetting what or where they were. They sat
down, and rose again, until it got almost dark, and just as they were
failing utterly, they came out of the forest to a line of big gum
trees.
"The river at last," said Smith; and he fell in a limp heap.
Mandeville left him, and running twenty yards, he saw the river.
Across it was the light of a camp fire.