CHAPTER XII.

BILLY AND THE “HATTER.”

“He traced with dying hand ‘Remorse,’

And perished in the tracing.”

J. G. WHITTIER.

Sixty miles in a southerly direction from the place where Inspector

Puttis met with the adventure related in our last chapter, the figure

of a man is reposing beside a silent rocky pool, in the heart of a

dense jungle. The tropic vegetation around him is part of the same

straggling line of “scrub-country” that covers the great, rugged

shoulders of the coast range of Northern Queensland with a soft green

mantle of indescribable grandeur and beauty. Enormous fig-trees

(_Ficus_), with gigantic, buttressed stems, tower on all sides into

the hanging gardens of climbing ferns, orchids, and creepers that

swing above in mid-air, and provide the dark, moist soil beneath

with a perennial shelter from the sun’s rays.

Save where a brawling brooklet has cut a rugged pathway for itself

through the dense undergrowth, or a hoary monarch of the forest has

succumbed to age and insect foes and fallen to the ground, no road

through the matted growths around seems passable but for the smallest

animals. Yet it is in these gloomy wilds that some of the tribes of

Queensland aboriginals find their only safe sanctuary to-day, from

the white settlers who have driven them from their old homes in the

open country at the foot of the mountain chain. It is midday, but the

green shadows of the leafy canopy overhead would render the reading

of a newspaper difficult work. But although so dark, the forest is

not silent. Its great pulses throb and murmur with the pleonastic

signs of tropic life. There comes upon the ear the thousand tiny

voices of insects and of birds, swelling and dying in a soft-toned

lullaby chorus, which, like the murmur of the coast-waves ten miles

to the eastward, is never ceasing.

It does not require a second glance at the lonely figure at the

little rocky pool to ascertain that it is that of an aboriginal.

He is dressed in the ragged remains of a coarse woollen shirt and

trousers, both of which garments are so torn with the thousand thorns

of the thickets their wearer has just traversed that the wonder is

that they still cling to his thin and emaciated body.

Presently the black raises himself from the ground, where he has

been reposing at full length upon his back, with his arms extended

at right angles to his body, after the fashion of aboriginals who

have undergone excessive fatigue, and totters towards the little

water-hole. First examining the sand upon its banks for footmarks, he

next proceeds to bathe his bruised and bleeding limbs. The man before

us is Billy, the late Dr. Dyesart’s “boy,” and he is almost in as bad

a plight as when we saw him on the eventful morning by Paree River’s

side, when the explorer saved the wounded child from the uplifted axe

of the squatter’s tracker. Billy is now a young man of twenty-four

years of age, well-built, active, and handsome for an aboriginal;

but the privations and trouble he has lately undergone have pulled

him down considerably. After refreshing himself at the pool, he sits

down on a fallen tree, and, feeling in his pockets, smiles to himself

as he finds that he still possesses a pipe, tobacco, and matches. He

is too fatigued to search for food yet awhile, and here is something

to stave off the feeling of hunger for a time. Odd as it may appear

to those of our readers who do not know Australia intimately,

Billy, although a native, and born a _warragal_, or wild native,

was almost as helpless as a white man in this “scrub” country, as

regards finding the means of sustenance. Take an aboriginal from

the semi-desert interior of Australia, and place him in the coastal

jungles of the north-eastern shores of the great island, and he is

hardly more capable of getting his living there than a European,

who then saw the “bush” for the first time, would be under similar

circumstances. The _fauna_ and _flora_ were all new to Billy; even

the snakes were different. This was bad enough, but, in addition, he

had only just escaped from remorseless enemies, who might even now

be again upon his tracks. The dependent life he had led for sixteen

years with his old master was much against him, now that he was

thrown upon his own resources. Much of his late life had of course

been in the “wilds,” but they were very different to those that now

formed his hiding-place. And, besides, there had generally been flour

galore for “damper” and “Johnnie-cake” making, and always plenty of

powder and shot as a _dernier ressort_ with which to procure a meal.

The young man sits smoking and thinking for a while, and then falls

to digging away at the rotten wood upon which he is seated,—a small,

toothsome luncheon of fat, oily grubs rewarding his operations.

Suddenly he stops, and withdrawing the pipe from his mouth listens

intently. His marvellous powers of hearing have detected a distant

sound that, falling on the tympanum of a European’s ear, would have

become jumbled up and lost amidst the confusing buzz of flies and

other myriads of tiny noises around him. What the sound is caused by

Billy cannot tell, but it is a stationary one, and in a different

direction from that by which any of his pursuers are likely to

approach. It may be natives chopping down a tree for honey, but it

is almost too sharp in tone for that. After listening awhile the

young man rises, and, having determined to ascertain the cause of the

phenomenon, begins to crawl down the bed of the little rocky creek

nearby in the direction of the curious sounds.

Ragged fragments of basalt, straggling tendrils of sharp-toothed

lawyer-vines, and other impediments, make his progress slow and

painful; but after creeping along the half-dried-up course of the

torrent about a quarter of a mile, where hundreds of mosquitoes

and leeches combined, in a sort of guerilla warfare, to attack the

black’s arms, legs, and face, he at last finds himself on the edge

of a cliff, above one of those curious, circular, crater-lakes that

abound in one part of the great uplands of the wild coast range.

Black walls of basalt rise more or less perpendicularly around the

dark, indigo water at their feet. Here and there the ancient lava has

crystallized into prismatic columns, or weathered into picturesque

battlements and projections, which stand up, like the ruins of some

old abbey, above the feathery palms and undergrowth that struggles

down the precipitous cliffs in places in avalanches of sunlit emerald

or shady o’erhangings of brown and purple.

The dark mountain tarn is some two hundred yards across, and opposite

to where the stream, whose bed has hitherto been Billy’s road through

the jungle, joins it, the surrounding wall of cliffs seems to fall

away, as far as one can make out in the shadows, as if the waters of

the lake there found a means of exit.

Cautiously peering through the prickly palms and brushwood, our black

friend endeavours to find an open space through which he can proceed

on his way; but so dense is the mass of vegetation on all sides that

there appears but one road to take, that offered to him by the lake

itself.

It speaks well for the superstitionless training Billy had received

at his late master’s hands that he at last determined to take water,

as a means of continuing his journey towards the sounds that still,

intermittently, make themselves heard above the various voices of the

forest. For little in nature can surpass the awful, supernatural

look of these black, silent jungle lakes, and there was something

particularly “uncanny” about the appearance of this one. And when,

in addition to this, there was the certainty of those dark waters

being the abode of more or less numerous swimming snakes, also the

grim possibility of some frightful _veengnaan_—the local Australian

edition of a Scotch “water-kelpie”—lurking in those gloomy depths, we

may safely say that it showed Billy to be possessed of a cool courage

of no ordinary sort when he determined on trusting his fatigued and

wounded body to its inky bosom.

Quickly making up his mind, he wriggles through the springy mass of

steaming vegetation upon the edge of the cliff before him,—losing

quite a number of square inches of his fast-disappearing garments in

the process,—and emerges from the shadows into the fierce midday

heat of a tropical winter day.

A drop of twenty feet only has to be made to reach the silent waters

at this point, for the storm creek has cut through the brim of the

crater basin a dozen feet or more; and Billy is just about to make

the necessary dive—as the prickly vines around offer no friendly

chance of descending by their means—when he pauses to listen once

more.

There are two sounds now audible above the ordinary murmurings of

the forest. The clink! clink! of the noise he has followed now comes

clearly upon the ear, and he recognizes it as proceeding from the

pick of some prospector or miner working a creek or gully below, and

beyond the lake. There is a cheerful ring about it that strikes a

pleasant chord of remembrance in the mind of the poor, hunted wretch

who now hears it; for it reminds him of happy, hopeful days with

his old master. But the other sound that is upon the air, and whose

purport Billy recognizes as easily as that of the unseen worker’s

blows,—there is no mistaking those musical whisperings that are just

audible, and seem to come from that broken mass of piled-up grey

and purple rock that towers above the scrub a little distance off

upon his right hand. The “banked-up fires” of Billy’s savage nature

burst up into an energetic blaze as he hears the voices of a party of

natives arranging themselves into a half circle, with the intention

of surrounding and capturing some prey they have discovered. Billy

correctly guesses the purport of these signals, but does not

understand the exact meaning of the words, for he knows little or

nothing of the coastal languages. What the natives on the rocky hill

have in view is evident: it is the busy worker in the gully beyond.

Billy forgets his fatigue as he glances round and satisfies himself

that he has the start of the hunters, and then plunging into the

water, with marvellously little noise considering the height from

which he has descended, swims after the manner of a dog rapidly round

the lake, keeping close to the cliffs on the side nearest to the

approaching blacks.

The natives of most countries situated in the southern hemisphere,

ere foreign civilization has crushed them in her deadly embrace, are

good swimmers, but some of the inland tribes of Australian aborigines

are perhaps able to produce the best of these,—men who can beat

even the marvellous aquatic feats of Tongan, Samoan, and Maoris.

The blacks of some portions of the central wilds have a fish-like

proclivity for swimming and remaining for a long time under water

that is simply marvellous.

In the muddy water-holes of the great, intermittently-flowing rivers

of Northern Australia, we have seen aborigines successfully chase

the finny denizens of the deep pools, and bring them otter-like to

the shore in their white-toothed jaws. And many a hunted black has

saved himself from the cruel rifle of squatter invaders of his native

land by pretending to fall as if shot into a river or water-hole,

and remaining, apparently, at the bottom. They manage this artifice

in various ways: sometimes by swimming an incredible distance under

water to a sheltering weedy patch or bed of rushes, where they can

remain hidden; but more often by plastering their heads and faces

with mud, and remaining, sometimes for hours, with only their nose

above water, in some corner where floating leaves, grass, or the

like, afford a temporary blind to baffle their relentless foes.

Billy, although by no means as perfect a swimmer as some of his

countrymen, showed great skill in the way in which he noiselessly

moved through the water to the opposite side of the black lake, and

hardly a ripple disturbed its placid surface, above which his dark,

glistening head only thrice briefly appeared during his swim.

Arrived at the point he had started for, the young man slowly raises

his face again into the hot sunshine behind the leafy cover of a

fallen mass of enormous stagshorn ferns, and carefully reconnoitres

the summit of the opposite cliffs for any enemies who may be watching

him.

None are in sight, so Billy leaves the water and proceeds to climb

the rough side of the old volcano crater, and as the rocks are lower

and less precipitous than at the place where he dived into the lake,

he soon reaches the shelter of the scrub once more. A kind of rugged

giants’ staircase, which the overflow from the lake has cut in the

ancient lava covering of the mountain, now leads Billy down into a

wide, wild-looking gorge, about two hundred feet below the surface

of the dark tarn above. Through the centre of this deep gully, and

flanked with a dense growth of gracefully festooned trees, runs a

clear, silver stream, with a cool, refreshing, rushing voice, amongst

the smooth, rounded bounders in its course. Taking its rise in some

limestone formation in the unknown depths of the jungles beyond,

it has painted its rocky bed of a pine white with a calcareous

deposit, that stands out in strong relief to the sombre hues of

the overhanging cliffs that here and there jut out boldly from the

verdure on either side.

Each recurring wet season sees the whitened boulders swept off

towards the sea-coast by the angry brown waters of the “flushed”

river, in company with the like that has collected during the

interval since the previous rains, and then the fierce torrent,

gradually settling down once more into the bubbling little stream as

we now have it, sets to work again to paint a fresh strip of white

through the twilight forest glades.

Kneeling by the side of one of the chain of snowy pools that stretches

into the misty vista of graceful palms and dark-leaved trees, beneath

the afternoon shadows of the gorge, is a strange-looking figure, quite

in keeping with the wild surroundings,—a thin, elderly man, with a

ragged, unkempt beard and deeply bronzed and furrowed face, shaded by

the most dilapidated of soft felt hats. The spare figure that Billy is

now watching is covered with clothes so old, patched, and repatched

that one would hesitate to pronounce an opinion as to which of the

frowsy fragments formed part of the original garments. A certain yellow

tone of colour, something between that of a nicely browned loaf and the

lighter tints of a Cheddar cheese, pervades the “altogether” of the old

man, for the iron-rust and clay-stains of years of lonely toil amongst

the mountains have dyed both skin and rags of one common colour.

A thin but muscular left hand holds the outer rim of a brown,

circular iron pan,—called by miners a “prospecting dish,”—and presses

its other edge against the ancient’s open-bosomed shirt, so as to

keep the vessel firmly in position, as the keen old eyes examine its

contents for the cheering yellow specks with a small pocket-lens.

Billy stands looking at the old prospector for a minute, and rightly

guesses that he is one of those mining recluses, called “hatters”

in Australia, some specimens of which class our dark friend has met

before. In fact, Billy’s curiosity as a miner himself makes him

nearly forget the approaching natives, in his eagerness to ascertain

if the dish now being “panned off” shows the presence of the precious

metal in the locality. But this hesitation on his part is not for

long. Billy has retained his European raiment at some considerable

inconvenience in his flight through the scrub, for the same reason

that chiefly prompts Australian aboriginals to put such value upon

the sartorial signs of civilization, and now he is to reap the fruits

of his forethought.

Many an Australian bushman will shoot a native at sight, without

compunction, if in _puris naturalibus_, and it is a fact that many

make it a rule to do so when meeting a “nigger” alone in the bush;

but the same individuals would hesitate to pay this attention to

a black sheltered in that badge of servitude, an old shirt or

ragged pair of inexpressibles whose wearer may possibly belong to a

neighbouring squatter or police inspector.

Billy trusts now implicitly to his torn clothes to serve as a flag

of truce till he can get a hearing from the man whose life he is

probably about to save; and careless of the fact that the old miner

has a revolver hanging in the open pouch at his belt, and that a

fowling-piece lies by the pick within a yard of the thin, hairy right

arm, he girds up his tatters and commences to whistle loudly as he

makes his way over the hot boulders towards the curious, propensic

figure by the stream-side.

The old prospector turns suddenly as the shrill notes of Billy’s

musical trilling echo along the rocky sides of the glen, and,

dropping his dish, snatches up the brown old “Manton” by his side.

“Hold on, boss!” shouts Billy, thinking for the instant that perhaps

he had been too rash after all, in leaving his shelter amongst the

rocks before holding a parley with the stranger.

“Hold on, boss; you’ll want your powder for warragal blacks directly,

and better not waste it on ‘good fellow’ like me.”

“Who the devil are you? Move a step an’ I blow your brains out,”

responds the old man, lowering the piece, however, from his shoulder.

“I’m white fellow’s boy,” explains Billy, sitting down on a boulder

in order to show his faith in the miner’s good sense, and also to

give that dangerously excited old individual a chance to examine him

and cool down. “I’m white fellow’s boy, and I see black fellow coming

after you. They make a circle to catch you. See, I have swum the lake

to bring to you this news. I was hidden when I saw them first. They

will try to get me now as well as you; you must let me go with you.”

“Where’s your boss?” asks the old miner, glancing round on all sides

for any signs of approaching foes.

“My boss is dead. His name was Dr. Dyesart, Dyesart the explorer.

Perhaps you’ve heard of him? But you had better clear before the

_Kurra_ (vermin) reach us.”

The old “hatter’s” eyes gleam suspiciously at Billy as he speaks

again.

“Yer may be a good nigger. But yer too durned well spoken fur a

nigger fur my thinkin’. I knew Dyesart once, and I’ll soon find out

if ye’re trying ter fool me. But here, take the pick an’ dish, and go

on ahead of me down past the rock there.”

Billy picks up the utensils mentioned, and, summoning up all the

remainder of his strength, totters along the bed of the stream in the

direction indicated by the skinny finger of the dirty old solitary,

who comes shuffling along after him.

The part of the ravine the two men are now entering is even wilder

than that where they first became acquainted with each other. The

ground sinks rapidly, as the increasing noisiness of the brawling

streamlet indicates, as it leaps from rock to rock on its way, as if

rejoicing upon its approach to freedom and the sea. Some way down the

gorge, the steamy haze of a cataract climbs up the cliff sides and

blots out further view in that direction, and the soft thunderings of

falling waters come up the gully at intervals, as the evening breeze

begins to stir the topmost branches of the stately trees.

Great black cliffs tower skywards on the left-hand side, and their

grim fronts yawn with numerous caves, the cold husks of what were

once enormous air-bubbles in that awful flood of molten rock that in

the far-off past poured down these mountain slopes from the Bellenden

Ker group of ancient volcanoes.

A few more words have passed between Billy and the ancient “hatter,”

which have apparently fairly satisfied the latter as to the goodness

of the dark-skinned younger man, when the clamour of shouting voices

behind them makes both turn round.

The sight that meets their eyes is by no means a pleasant one.

Halfway down a part of the cliffs that the two men had passed only

a minute or so before, a party of natives has just arrived, all of

them naked, and carrying long spears, probably with the intention

of cutting off the old digger’s escape down the gully. These sable

hunters, seeing that their quarry has, for the time, escaped them,

are shouting to their friends up the gorge to join them, for a fresh

effort to surround the object of their hatred and suspicion.

“Only just in time, boss!” exclaims Billy, his white eyeballs glowing

like coals from their dark setting of swarthy skin, as he watches

the rapid movements of the enemy, who are moving along the summit of

the cliff towards them. “Those devils got you safe enough, ’spose

they’d kept you up there till dark,” pointing to the open part of the

gorge.

“But where will you camp? I’m tired. In fact, just ’bout done. I have

walked many miles to-day, and have eaten little since three days.”

“This is my camp,” answers the “hatter,” climbing up to one of the

aforementioned caves with an agility that a far younger man might

have envied. “We can keep out of the niggers’ way here.” And the old

man coolly began to collect some sticks and leaves that lay about the

entrance to the cavern, in order to start a fire, just as if two or

three score of howling savages, all thirsting for his destruction,

within a couple of hundred yards of him, was a matter of every-day

occurrence to him, and therefore one of no importance.

Night falls quickly, and outside the cave the darkening forest begins

its night chorus of many voices, day-choristers retiring one by

one. The mountain teal whistle and “burr” in answer to each other;

owls and night-jars scream and gurgle in the trees; boon-garies

(tree-kangeroos) squeak and bark to their mates, as they leave the

branches for a night stroll in the scrub; and every crevice of

the caves gives forth its dark legions of flitting bats, some of

enormous size, who vociferate shrilly, with ear-piercing notes, as if

thousands of ghostly slate pencils were squeaking in mid-air on an

equal number of spectre slates.

Inside the cave, which is much larger than its small, porthole-like

entrance might lead one to imagine, the two men speedily make

themselves as comfortable as they can under the circumstances. There

is ample room for the fire that soon lights up the concave roof, of

the cavern with a cheerful, ruddy glow, and the smoke rolling out

of the doorway keeps the place clear of mosquitoes, who are getting

pretty lively outside already.

The old “hatter” has used this retreat as his camping ground for the

last few days, whilst prospecting this part of the upper waters of

the unnamed creek, that can be heard in the darkness flowing past his

temporary abode, and a small but sufficient supply of flour, tea,

and sugar is to be seen carefully suspended from the stalactite-like

projections from the ceiling of the cave. This provender, with the

remains of a couple of pigeons, half a dozen wild turkeys’ eggs and

some _coohooy_ nuts give promise of a good “square meal,” at last, to

the exhausted and half-famished Billy.

“Yer’ve done me a good turn, and though yer are a nigger, yer welcome

ter what I’ve got here,” remarks the grey-headed old gold-seeker

after a long silence, during which he has disinterred some of the

aforementioned viands from an anti-wild dog pyramid of stones in one

corner of the cave.

“Them blarmed devils outside hain’t seen a white face up here afore

I’m thinking, and I guess they’ll not bother us till morning. What do

you think, Charlie, or Jackie, or whatever yer name is?”

“My name’s Billy, boss,” replies our dark friend, who is endeavouring

to keep himself awake by frantically chewing some of the sodden

tobacco he has discovered in his pocket. “I think these fellows

throw spear into cave by-an-by, p’r’aps. I think best keep up here,”

pointing to a buttress of rock that, projecting from the walls of

the cavern, provides a substantial shield against any missiles flung

in at the cave entrance. “But I know little of these fellow-blacks.

I come from the flat country, this time, out by the Einsleigh River

way.”

“Ugh,” grunts the old man in reply, and telling Billy to “have a

‘doss’ (sleep),” whilst his namesake, the billy, is boiling, the

“hatter” proceeds to cut up a pipe-full of very foul-smelling

tobacco, looking thoughtfully at the fire meanwhile.

Billy, on his part, is not slow to avail himself of his host’s

invitation, and sinking down upon the cold rock floor goes

immediately to sleep.

If it should appear, to any of our readers to border upon the

incredible, that two men should thus calmly sleep and smoke in the

face of danger, that to one inexperienced in the wilder phases of

bush-life would appear to demand the utmost vigilance, we can only

reply by offering as our defence, firstly, the old saying that “truth

is oftentimes stranger than fiction;” and, secondly, that in this

scene, as in each of our main incidents, we have endeavoured to

sketch from memory a faithful if humble representation of an actual

occurrence, in preference to indulging what latent talents we may

possess in the walks of imaginative scene-painting.

_Mais revenons à nos moutons._ The old “hatter” sits silently

smoking; sometimes glancing upwards towards the roof of the cave,

where the almost obliterated representations of white and red

hands—the work of previous aboriginal occupants of the retreat—are

still discernible, and at others fixing his ferret-like, bloodshot

eyes upon the dark, hardship-lined face of the slumbering Billy, as

the firelight dances upon its swarthy surface. Nothing appears to

disturb the well-earned repose of the two men, save a small black

snake that comes wriggling in to enjoy the warmth of the blazing

branches, and meets with a warmer reception than it had anticipated.

Then the billy at last splutters out its welcome signal, and the old

digger and his companion proceed to indulge that taste that has made

Australians the greatest consumers of tea, per head, in the world.

“Them _Myalls_ (wild natives) don’t seem to mean business to-night,”

observes Billy’s host, when the silent meal is finished, as he hands

our black friend a piece of “nailrod” with which to charge his

evening pipe.

“I think they wait, boss. Watch an hour, perhaps two or three, then

throw spears.” Billy leans forward as he speaks to heat a piece of

tobacco in the embers, in order to soften the flinty morsel, and

thereby facilitate the operation of cutting it into shreds.

“I think those beggars,” jerking his black thumb towards the darkness

outside the cave entrance, “I think those beggars come by-and-by.

_Urraurruna_ (take care); I think they come presently.”

Then both men relapse again into silence, each engaged with his own

unpleasant thoughts. The “hatter,” although somewhat favourably

prepossessed with Billy’s appearance, and glad of a companion for

the time being, has that instinctive distrust of a “nigger” common

to most Australian bushmen. He does not care altogether for the

presence of his new acquaintance in the cave, and even considers,

for a moment, what would be the easiest way of getting rid of him,

and making him seek another shelter for the night. But the feeling of

gratitude to Billy for the service he has rendered that day finally

prevails, and the old man determines to hear the “boy” further

explain his appearance in the gorge before he acts.

Billy, on his part, although naturally of a sanguine turn of mind

(as indeed all his race are), and little given to ruminating upon

the sorrows of to-morrow, is trying to puzzle out a plan of future

operations, whose main object is to discover the nephew of his late

employer. He notices the half-concealed, suspicious glances of

his dirty old host, and is almost tempted to offer to seek other

lodgings, when the latter breaks the silence once more.

“’Spose you’re a runaway nigger? Station or police?”

“Yes, boss, I’m a runaway. But I’ve never worked on station. Always

with the doctor. All my time mining and cooking for the old man.”

“Thought yer was,” grunts the old prospector, taking his pipe from

between his yellow teeth for an instant; “noticed the way yer carried

the pick, and guessed yer knew something about ‘breaking down a

face.’”

“Yes, I can do that much, anyhow,” remarks Billy quietly.

“Well, that bein’ so, lad, I ain’t the man as would turn dog on

a poor beggar, let alone a miner, be he black or white. I ain’t

built that way.” The old man stops speaking to listen to a slight

noise outside the cave for a moment, and then continues: “If yer

like to camp here longer me till I’ve done this gully, yer can.

But just sling me a yarn about how yer came to this hole in the

ranges.” The speaker turns towards the fire, that has burnt itself

low, and commences to rake it into renewed brightness. As he does

so, his head and right arm leave the shelter of the projecting rock

before-mentioned, and come between the luminous background of flames

and the cave entrance.

Then Billy’s prognostications are fulfilled; for some natives,

who have been silently watching for an opportunity to attack the

occupants of the cavern, immediately take advantage of the appearance

of the old digger, and the fire embers are scattered right and left

by three spears, which, however, luckily all miss their human target.

The two men leap to their feet, and Billy, snatching up the old

“hatter’s” shot-gun, without waiting a moment to ask the permission

of its owner, glides noiselessly into the darkness, and is lost to

the view of his startled host. Presently the latter proceeds to

collect the scattered fire-sticks, and adding to them the spears,

which he breaks up into pieces, he relights his pipe and waits for

the return of his guest. Half an hour passes in silence, and then

two loud reports, followed by the rain-like pattering of bouncing

shot about the entrance to the cave, and the screams of a number of

agonized voices, proclaim the successful accomplishment of Billy’s

plucky plan of retaliation upon the enemy outside.

“No more trouble to-night,” observes that individual, with a

complaisant grin, as he presently returns into the cavern, striking

the butt of the gun he carries, as he walks, so as to give a

jangling signal of his approach to the man by the fire, who, revolver

in hand, might otherwise mistake him for an enemy. “Shot guns better

at night than a rifle for this kind of work. The beggars have all

cleared. None killed, I think.”

“All the better, lad. All the days I’ve knocked about the bush, I’ve

never shot a black yet, though I’ve seen a many bowled over. But they

warn’t bad in the old days, as they are now. These beggars here,

though, are a bit _koolie_ (fierce); and I don’t blame them. They

don’t like to see a white face,”—the old man’s countenance was about

the tone of colour of a new pig-skin saddle,—“they don’t like to see

a white face hereabouts, for the scrub’s the only place in this part

of Queensland where the poor beggars ain’t hunted.”

The night passes without further cause for alarm, and next day, and

the one after, and for several weeks Billy remains with the old

prospector. And the latter, being a sensible man, and finding himself

thus brought into contact with a mind in no ways inferior to his

own,—albeit housed in corporal surroundings of that dark tint that

has hitherto placed the unfortunate aborigines beyond the pale of

civilized law in Australia,—soon makes a companion and partner of

Billy, instead of treating him as a mere animal, as has hitherto been

his custom with those black “boys” he has had occasion to employ.

Moreover, in our dark friend the ancient “hatter” finds his ideal

of what a model “mate” should be,—strong, cheerful, plucky, frugal,

and, above all, lucky. And sometimes, as the strange pair smoke

their evening pipes together in the firelit cave, and the thoughts

of the “boss” go flying back into the dim vistas of memory, and the

cruel swindles perpetrated upon him by this and that white partner

of his younger days are re-enacted in his mind’s eye, he cannot help

contrasting them unfavourably with his present mate, whose coming

departure, although he is “only a nigger,” the old man begins to

dread with a fear that surprises himself.

“Swelp me,” the poor old solitary soul sometimes ejaculates to

himself, as the chilling thought of once more being a lonely “hatter”

in these awful wilds goes like an ague-shiver through his spare and

bended form, “I suppose I’m getting too old for this kind of work;

and if I had had a mate like Billy when I was young I would have been

doing the ‘toff’ in Sydney by this time, like that rascal Canoona

Bill that swindled me on the Crocodile, and not have had to work up

to my knees in water, with the pan and shovel, at my time of life.”

But it is not approaching age or failing bodily strength that is the

cause of this change in the old miner’s feelings, as he tries to

persuade himself it is, for he cannot find it in his mind to confess

he feels any attachment or affection for a “nigger.” It is something

very different that begins to make him feel disgusted with the idea

of a return to his solitary mode of life.

Billy’s new friend, like most of his class of old “hatters,” became

disgusted with the world owing to having been unfortunate in his

choice of partners, and now that he at last finds one to suit him,

his view of life becomes correspondingly fairer than heretofore.

“Billy!” one evening said the old man,—who has lately informed our

black friend that he is known at Geraldtown and Herberton by his

patronymic of Weevil,—“Billy! you ain’t told me yet how you come to

clear out from the station where you left the doctor’s letter. What

station was it?”

Billy, who is shaping a new pick-handle by the light of the fire,

does not reply for a minute or two. When he does look up at the lean

figure on the other side of the flames, he betrays a little of that

sulky, spoilt-child demeanour generally exhibited by members of

his race when recounting any occurrence that has been a source of

annoyance to them.

“I ran away, boss, because they try and get me to show them the

way back to where I planted the doctor. Mister Giles, who owns the

station——”

“Who?” Old Weevil leans across the smoke towards Billy. “It warn’t

Wilson Giles, were it?” he asks in a low, hoarse voice, looking at

the black with ill-concealed anxiety.

“Yes, Wilson was his front name. D’you know him?”

The old man withdraws into the semi-obscurity of a shadowy pile of

firewood against which he is standing at the question, much like a

sea-anemone shrinks into its rock cleft before an obtrusive human

finger.

“Yes, I know him,” growls the old man in the darkness, exhibiting an

amount of hatred in the tone of his voice that makes Billy look in

the direction of the wood stack with open eyes and mouth. Weevil,

however, does not appear likely to be communicative, so Billy

presently continues: “The doctor’s last words almost were, ‘Don’t let

any one know where you left me save my nephew,’ and so it wasn’t

likely I was going to tell the first man as asked me. Was it likely?”

“Burn him! No!” ejaculated Mr. Weevil, in parenthesis.

“Giles tried me with one thing and then another. Offered me anything

I liked, at last, to take him to the grave. Thought I was only like

a station black, I suppose!” and the speaker scrapes angrily at the

wooden handle between his knees, with a black splinter of obsidian

(volcanic glass) that he is using as a ready-made draw-knife.

“Then Giles has a talk with his niece,—she bosses it at ‘Government

House’” (is mistress at the head-station),—“and she says ‘Flog the

nigger! flog him!’ And a house-gin who belongs to my _Mordu Kapara_

(class-family), which is _Kalaru_, hears all this as she sets cloth

in the parlour. She come and tells me. Then me run away. Then me turn

wild beggar again!”

Billy, who by this time is gesticulating excitedly with his hands,

curiously relapses, slightly,—as he always does when highly

agitated,—into the remarkable “station-jargon” to which we have

already had occasion to refer.

“Me run and run. An’ Giles, he borrow the big dogs with the red eyes

and thin flanks (bloodhounds) from Bulla Bulla station.”

“I know ’em,” interrupts old Weevil; “that fellow on the Mulgrave’s

made a good thing out of breeding them for the squatters.”

“Well, boss, I made for the scrub. But I get tired, and the

stinging-tree blind me, all but. The dogs come up close. I hear them

howl, and the men calling to them. But the big dogs badly trained;

they go after young cassowary, and I drown my tracks in a creek, and

then ‘possum’ (hide in a tree) all the day.”

After Billy has thus graphically given his account of his marvellous

escape from the clutches of Mr. Giles, the conversation turns upon

the subject of going down the creek to the nearest township, which

we will christen Meesonton, after a well-known Australian explorer

living in the district.

“We’ll both go as far as the low scrub range, over the Beatrice

creek,” observes old Weevil, “and yer can work the old sluice there

I was telling yer of yesterday if them cursed Chinkies ain’t found

it. I won’t be more nor a week or so away. I wouldn’t advise yer,”

continues the old man, “ter show yer face near the store yet awhile.

That beggar Giles is well in with the perlice, and they’d knab yer

like enough.”

So very early next morning Billy and the old miner set out; just

about the time when that earliest of early birds, the crow, has begun

to think it time to commence his matutinal robberies, and long ere

the sun has risen to dry the fern and scrub sufficiently for any

natives to be out hunting who might notice the two men’s departure.

By midday our friends have followed for eight miles that only road

possible through the dense jungle,—the rough, white bed of the merry

little creek. Here, after a rest and a smoke, the men left the stream

and clambered up the dark, clayey banks, when they found themselves

on a broken, open piece of country, across which they steered,

Weevil leading, in a north-easterly direction, passing numerous

little trickling creeks trending eastwards on their way. Here and

there the recent footprints of aborigines were to be seen in the

rich, volcanic soil; and once Billy detected the voices of natives,

but said nothing to his companion about it. Late in the afternoon,

after crossing some level tablelands, thinly covered with scrub,

several large gunyahs (native dwellings) were discovered, and, as the

evening began to look stormy, the two men took possession of one of

the largest of them. These huts were similar to beehives in shape,

like those of the village on the Paree river that we described in

Chapter VIII., and were substantially thatched with fern fronds and

that coarse kind of grass that grows in the open spaces in the scrub

called “pockets” by northern bushmen. These “pockets” are treeless

spots circular in form, and generally half an acre in extent, and are

used by the aborigines for _boorers_ (native tournaments) and dances.

One of these native _Champs de Mars_, on the upper Barron river,

covers quite fifteen acres, and is also a perfect circle.

It was still dark, the next morning, when Billy and old Weevil

started once more on their journey; and the latter, in consequence,

fell into a two-foot hole near the gunyah in which they had slept,

and found himself lying on a mass of loose, rattling objects, which

his sense of touch quickly told him were human skulls,—the remains,

doubtless, of by-gone picnics of the good people whose village the

two men had appropriated during the previous night.

Pushing onwards, our friends spent the first half of the day in

climbing rocky peaks, and crossing the dark, rugged sources of

creeks, wrapped in their primeval gloom of frizzled, intricate masses

of thorny vines and dangerous stinging-trees; and, after making only

three miles in six hours, were forced to rest awhile in a ragged

gully, walled in by grey slate cliffs, and strewn with glistening

blocks of white and “hungry” quartz.

The stinging-tree, which we have twice mentioned in this chapter, is

worthy of a few remarks, for it is perhaps the most terrible of all

vegetable growths, and is found only in the scrub-country through

which Billy and his friend are now forcing their way.

This horrible guardian of the penetralia of the Queensland jungle

stands from five to fifteen feet in height, and has a general

appearance somewhat similar to that of a small mulberry-tree; but the

heart-shaped leaves of the plant before us differ from those of the

European fruit just mentioned in that they are larger, and because

they look as if manufactured from some light-green, velvety material,

such as plush. Their peculiarly soft and inviting aspect is caused

by an almost invisible coating of microscopic cilia, and it is to

these that the dangerous characteristics of the plant are due. The

unhappy wanderer in these wilds, who allows any part of his body to

come in contact with those beautiful, inviting tongues of green, soon

finds them veritable tongues of fire, and it will be weeks, perhaps

months, ere the scorching agony occasioned by their sting is entirely

eradicated. Nor are numerous instances wanting of the deaths of men

and animals following the act of contact with this terrible _lusus

naturæ_.

Billy and Weevil make more progress during the afternoon, the

country being more level and the scrub less thick; but, although

both men are inured to fatigue and discomfort of all sorts, they are

forced to camp early, after doing another six miles. Ragged, weary,

and barefooted,—for even the most imaginative mind could hardly

recognize the flabby pieces of water-logged leather that still adhere

to the men’s feet as boots,—the two travellers fling themselves down

on the dry, sandy bed of a mountain torrent, and scrape the clusters

of swollen leeches from their ankles, which are covered with clotted

blood, and pick the bush-ticks and scrub-itch insects from their

flesh with the point of the long scrub-knife the old digger carries.

As our friends are engaged in this painful but necessary toilet of a

voyager through the Queensland scrub, a wild turkey comes blundering

by in all the glories of her glossy, blue-black feathers and

brilliant red and yellow head,—not the _Otis Australasianus_ which

is known to southern settlers as a “wild turkey” and is in reality a

bustard, but a true scrub turkey (_Telegallus_).

Billy is not long in tracking the footprints of the bird back to its

enormous mound nest. For this ingenious feathered biped, like her

smaller contemporary the scrub hen (_Megapodius tumulus_), saves

herself from the monotonous duty of sitting on her eggs by depositing

them in a capital natural incubator, formed of rotting and heated

leaves, which she collects into a pile, and arranges so as to do the

hatching part of the business for her.

A meal of turkey eggs and roasted “cozzon” berries, whose red

clusters are to be seen hanging from parasitic vines upon the great

stems around in plentiful profusion, and then the men retire to rest

upon their wet blankets, beneath a great ledge of granite, upon whose

surface some aboriginal artist has delineated in different colours

the admirable representations of immense frogs in various attitudes.

But trouble commences with the morrow; and when old Weevil raises his

stiff and patchwork form from the hard couch upon which he has passed

the night, he finds Billy, gun in hand, watching something on the dim

summit of the cliffs opposite their camp.

“Sh!” observes that individual, without turning his head; “plenty

black fellow all about here. D’you see that beggar’s head?”

“Bust ’em!” yawns the old digger, stretching; “they won’t interfere

with us. Let’s have tucker, and ‘break camp’ as soon as we can.”

The frugal repast is soon silently completed, but half a mile down

the creek, where the aborigines have constructed an ingenious weir,

armed with conical baskets in which to catch what fish may pass that

way, Billy and his companion find a small army of copper-coloured

natives collected on the opposite side of the stream, who wave and

beckon to the two travellers to return whence they came. Their

gesticulations and fierce yells not having the desired effect, a

series of signals are given by them to other natives in ambush on the

jungle-fringed precipices that rise with lycopodium-tasselled ledges

above the heads of the intruders.

“We’re in fur it now!” grunts the older man, who has done some

prospecting in New Guinea, amongst other places. “Them yellow

niggers is Kalkadoones, and as like Papuans as may be; and they’re

devils to fight. Keep close under the cliff.”

Billy guesses the mode of attack which the old digger’s experience

teaches him to anticipate, and which prompts his advice to his mate

to seek the shelter of the rocks as much as possible. The wiseness

of this precaution is soon seen. For when our friends are fairly

started on their way past the rapids in the gloomy gorge, the natives

commence hurling down great boulders of conglomerate. These would

speedily have crushed the adventurous twain below, had they not been

sheltered by the overhanging base of the precipice, which was worn

concave by the river’s action during floods. As it was many of the

rocks bounded horribly close to the men’s heads.

“I can’t use my gun here, that’s sartin,” presently observes the old

man, as he puts fresh caps upon his old companion of many years.

“We’ll have to clear them beggars off before we go any further.”

Then springing from his shelter with his rags and tangled grey locks

flying in the air, Weevil makes for a rocky reef that juts out into

the river, which is deep at this place, with the idea of peppering

the enemy from this point of vantage.

But the Fates are against him, and sable Sister Atropos snaps her

weird scissors on poor old Weevil’s thread of existence. A shower of

stones descends upon the wild-looking figure as it hurries towards

the river, and the old miner falls an uncouth, bleeding object upon

the strand, groaning heavily.

Happily, the gun has escaped destruction, and by its aid Billy, who

rushes forward to defend his friend, performs prodigies of valour

that on a field of civilized warfare would certainly have gained him

some such coveted distinction as the Victoria Cross.

A hurried shot at the yelling figures that are clinging to the

trees overhanging the edge of the cliff in an appalling manner,

and one of them comes spinning down with a sickening thud upon the

rocks below. A second wire cartridge sent in the same direction is

equally successful, and another of the enemy tumbles forward on to

a jagged rock that projects from the precipice; while his friends,

horrified at the sudden illness that has thus overtaken two of their

number, stop short in the middle of a diabolical yell of triumph, and

clearing off are seen no more.

Billy bathes the crushed features of the old man, whose stentorious

breathing shows how badly he is injured, and the cold water revives

him somewhat.

“I’m busted in my inside, lad,” he murmurs raspily. “Gimme me pipe. I

can’t see to——How blind I’m gettin’!”

After a pause, during which he has tried to smoke in vain, he asks to

be raised in a sitting posture.

“Billy,” he says, when this is effected, “you’re a good boy. I’m

goin’ fast. Listen ter me afore I chuck it up altogether. Me legs is

dead already.”

The dying man has a crime upon his soul, and dreads to take the

secret of it with him into the unknown which he is about to enter,

so he fights gamely against the dissolution that is fast approaching

till he has told it to Billy.

“Remember what I tell ye, lad. ’Twas I as stole Wilson Giles’s only

son. Giles had ruined my life, and (gasp) I tuck revenge. I marked

the boy blue star an’ W. G. on near shoulder. Then I cleared out an’

tuck him (gasp) ter Sydney.”

Silence for a time follows, after which the expiring flame of life

flickers up, and the last words Weevil speaks on earth are gasped out.

“God furgive me! Intended to return boy after a bit. Lost him in

Sydney. God furgive me! (gasp). Goo’-bye, ole man. Let’s have

’nother——(gasp). Oh God! Jane! Jane! come back ter me!”

The old man stretches out his wounded hands as he wails the

last sentence in tone of wild entreaty, and Billy feels, by the

suddenly-increased weight in his arms, that he is holding a corpse.

CHAPTER XIII.

CLAUDE’S LETTER TO DICK.

“We have at various times had stories told us of the treatment the

blacks are subjected to in the bush, and it behoves the Government

to make strict inquiry into the whole question. By the way, where

is the Protector of Aborigines, and what has he got to say in the

matter?

“Oh it’s only a nigger, you know;

It’s only a nigger, you know;

A nigger to wallop, a nigger to slave,

To treat with a word and a blow.

“It’s only a nigger, you know;

A nigger, whose feelings are slow;

A nigger to chain up, a nigger to treat

To a kick, and a curse, and a blow.

“It’s only a nigger, you know;

It’s only a nigger, you know;

But he’s also a brother, a man like the rest,

Though his skin may be black as a crow.”

“BACCA.”

_From the “Lantern,” South Australia_, 1889.

“MOUNT SILVER,

“_August 8th, 1889._

“MR. RICHARD SHAW, _Te Renga-renga, Drury,

New Zealand_.

“Dear Dick,—In my letter to the ‘Mater’ I have set forth all those of

my experiences, up to date, that I consider of most interest to the

gentle female mind, and have omitted certain others of a more painful

character. For you, old man, I preserve the honour of participating

in the ‘noble indignation’ which at present suffuses the soul of

‘yours regardfully,’—the outcome of my present surroundings of many

most un-English institutions. For my pericardiac region is sickened

and disgusted with certain ‘goings on’ in this fair colony of the

British Crown, and I would fain burst into poetry—after the Whittier

style—only that I am well aware that my knowledge of the properties

of the hexameter is considerably less than my acquaintance with those

of the lactometer.

“But ere I launch into these matters, I will roughly sketch out my

doings since I posted my last letter, which I wrote at the pretty,

sand-surrounded, and ‘quite too awfully’ tropical little port of

Cairns.

“Australian hospitality is proverbial, but I have to withdraw myself

as much as possible from the ‘here’s-a-hand-me-trusty-fren’ kind

of thing, as I find it means participating in an unlimited number

of ‘nips’ of ‘stringy bark,’—a curious combination of fusil oil

and turpentine, labelled ‘whisky,’ or of a decoction of new and

exceedingly virulent rum, much patronised by the inhabitants of

these sugar-cane districts. However, whilst arranging the necessary

preliminaries for my journey at this little inland township, I have

made several acquaintances. One, a Mr. Feder,—the manager of a

German-Lutheran mission station about fifty miles from here,—who, it

appears, knew my Uncle Dyesart some few years back, and may prove

useful to me in my search after Billy. I have also come across an

Inspector of Police, by name John Bigger, who, although I have

certainly not returned his advances with much warmth, for I think him

a silly old swiper, is everlastingly thrusting his companionship,

upon me; and, although he is apparently doing his best to make

my stay here agreeable, one _can_ have too much of a good thing,

especially when the said good thing suffers rather from ‘_furor

loquendi_,’ in other words, is a confounded old bore.

“This inspector introduced himself to me as a friend of one Inspector

Puttis, whom he says was a friend of uncle’s. This Puttis sends word

that Billy has disappeared from Murdaro station; but as I never

mentioned the fact that I wanted to find Billy to any one here till

after I received this message, I am rather at a loss to understand it

altogether.

“Now my other acquaintance here—the missionary cuss I

mentioned—curiously re-echoes the last words in uncle’s letter, namely,

to distrust the police. And in faith I believe they’re a bad lot

entirely, although I suppose there are some exceptions.

“It is partly in consequence of this that I have not accepted an

invitation to go shooting with the inspector to-day, and am writing

to you instead.

“My old miner friend got bitten by a large poisonous black spider

at Cairns, and is _hors de combat_. So I have been obliged to leave

him behind for a time with Don, who is turning out a grand little

fellow. These two will follow me to Mount Silver next week, when I

shall start for Murdaro station immediately. I am not wasting my

time in the interim, although I itch to start, but am making myself

acquainted with the ways of station-life and mining matters in this

wild part of the world. If Billy arrives at the mission station, as

Mr. Feder thinks he probably will, I shall be communicated with at

once. But ‘how do I manage without my little henchman Don?’ you’ll

be after asking. Well, that brings me to the main subject matter of

this epistle. I have a second ‘boy Friday’ now; and what is more,

he’s black as a crow, and, moreover, I _bought_ him. Yes, in the

year of our Lord, 1889, in the civilized street of a town in an

English colony, I followed the custom of the place, and purchased the

little black specimen of humanity that is now amusing a party of his

aboriginal friends, over there by the town well, by imitating with a

piece of stick the way I brush my teeth of a morning, which operation

I noticed has amazed him muchly, and is probably indulged in by few

of the whites about here.

“I travelled alone as far as this place, being anxious to get on

here; and my obliging host—who talks broad Scotch, although he is by

two generations a colonist—advised me to get a ‘boy,’ as all black

servants, regardless of age, are called here, to look after my two

horses. Well, to cut the story short, I paid £2 for little Joe to a

carrier whom ‘mine host’ informed of my wants. Joe is a great help,

and according to the unwritten law of the place,—which appears to be

supported by what little pulpit power they have here,—my ‘boy’ is, in

this free land, my property, body and soul.

“Yes, coming here from New Zealand one feels as if he had somehow

descended into the slave countries of Mrs. Beecher Stowe, and the odd

part of it is that its very existence is unknown in England, neither

in Sydney nor Brisbane to any great extent. But these places, it is

true, have their own little white slaves ‘always with them,’ as my

experiences amongst the newsboys, when I got little Don, has taught

me.

“Although I did pander to the local custom, against which I am

speaking, in buying Joe, I trust to do something good for him to

cover this sin of mine, and will bring him back to New Zealand with

me.

“Any one who boasts of being the ‘free-born son of an Englishman’

cannot look coolly on at the treatment of the unfortunate blacks up

here in Queensland. The poor wretches one sees forced to work by

brutal squatters, carriers, ‘cockatoo’ settlers, and others, have

no hope to cheer them like those mentioned by your old American

poet-friend, John Greenleaf Whittier:—

“‘O’er dusky faces, seamed and old,

And hands horn-hard with unpaid toil,

With hope in every rustling fold,

We saw your star-dropt flag uncoil.’

“No, the (five) star-drop flag of Australia, heralding the (three)

star-drop (whisky) of the advancing army of locust-squatters, brings

no hope, or mercy either, to the poor devils whose ancestral domains

become their fields of unceasing and ‘unpaid toil.’ All the horrors

depicted by Mrs. Beecher Stowe, all the sorrows sung of by the

immortal Whittier, are rampant around me as I write. And it seems

that it is in vain that the immorality of the horrible traffic is

thundered into the ears of the various Governments—who after all are

but the representatives of the squatter-kings—by various southern

papers from time to time. Read the following first-rate article upon

the subject, by Mr. Rose, the editor of the _Brisbane Courier_, the

boss paper of the colony, which appeared on September 16th, last year.

“‘Communications that have lately reached us from the north show

too clearly that our people have not yet been educated to the

recognition of the human rights of the original possessors of

Australia. A correspondent forwards descriptions of atrocities of

alleged frequent occurrence in the northern districts, the bare

recital of which is enough to make one’s ears to tingle. Nor are

we allowed the common consolation of ignorance or sentimentalism

or exaggeration on the part of our informer. For our correspondent

is a well-known pressman, who has done a bit of exploiting both in

Australasia and New Guinea, who admits that he has himself shot

natives who would otherwise have shot him, and of whom we can readily

believe that, as he says, he is “not particularly prejudiced in

favour of the natives or very soft-hearted.” He even tells us that

he is not himself a religious man, and yet declares that he would

not think the future commonly assigned to the wicked by religious

people as too condign a punishment for atrocities that have come

within his knowledge. His indictment touches mainly the districts

lying between Cairns and Georgetown, where, he says, the blacks are

being decimated, and by Government servants in the shape of black

troopers and their masters, whose “dispersion” of the aboriginals in

particular localities has simply come to mean their slaughter. He

speaks of men being kept for the sole purpose of hunting and killing

the aborigines; he gives instances of their camps being surrounded,

and men, women, and children massacred for killing cattle, when,

through the white man’s presence, they could no longer find game; and

he tells in detail one story of the extermination of a camp simply

because some blacks had been seen passing a mining station where

nothing had been stolen for months. Roundly he charges the “grass

dukes” and their subordinates with “murdering, abducting children

for immoral purposes, and stockwhipping defenceless girls,” and

he condemns “each Government that comes into power for winking at

the slaughter of our black fellow-subjects of the Queen as an easy

way of getting rid of the native question.” The _Northern Miner_

asserts that this picture is not overdrawn, and that the atrocities

mentioned have even been exceeded. It refers to squatters branding

blacks, keeping harems of black gins, and finding their slaughtering

record no bar to advancement to high office in the State. The black

trooper system is, in the view of this paper, legalized murder, which

reckons the life of a bullock of more account than that of a score

of black fellows. We do not vouch for the truth of these serious

charges; but, if true, the horrible demoralisation of such a system

on blacks and whites alike it is difficult to over-estimate; and cry

exaggeration as we may, it is clear that enough remains to call for

the immediate and earnest attention of the Government. Sir Thomas

McIlwraith will earn the gratitude of the colony to all time if he

will but exert himself for the aborigines of Australia—whose country

after all we have simply taken from them by force—as Sir Samuel

Griffith exerted himself for the kanakas. Surely there is as much

call for a Commission of Inquiry in the one case as in the other. The

recently inaugurated society for the protection of the aborigines has

its work cut out for it, and has not been formed a moment too soon.

We hope that the statements we have referred to will waken our people

to the fact that there is a much louder call and a great deal more

room for this kind of protection than is commonly supposed. We must

add that the _Northern Miner_, referring to the circumstance that

the Americans have tried to stay the extinction of their aborigines

by granting them large reserves, scattered all over the western

states, pleads, and surely with reason, that a similar course should

be followed with ours. We can do it more easily now than it can be

done in future generations. Most of their vices, and the very thefts

for which they are so terribly punished, come from the contact with

the whites into which they are driven by want, and an occasional

outburst of not unnatural vengeance. If the Aborigines’ Protection

Association will add this to the otherwise admirable programme of

their operations—if indeed it is not already practically included—

published by us the other day, and set themselves vigorously to carry

their plans into effect, they will earn the gratitude alike of whites

and blacks, and aid in removing a stain which will otherwise blot and

burn into our future history.’

“Mr. Feder, my missionary friend, who gave me this newspaper

clipping, says that Thadeus O’Kane, the proprietor-editor of another

influential paper, the _Northern Miner_, has taken up the subject

warmly at various times, but with little or no good resulting

therefrom.

“But although I know that,—

‘The age is dull and mean. Men creep,

Not walk; with blood too pale and tame

To pay the debt they owe to shame,’

and that this community is too much enfeebled by its tropic habitat

to make an energetic move against the shocking system that its

landholders have introduced, even if it wished to do so, yet I am

at a loss to understand why that spirit of the age, Trade Unionism,

has not risen against this slave business. Surely Labour, whose

power, at any rate, in the southern parts of Australia is immense,

must be aware of the benefit that must accrue to white workmen if

the ‘unpaid labour’ of the blacks, now forced to work by squatters

and others, were made illegal. Chinamen and kanakas are hounded down

by the Australian working-man with a certain amount of reason, for

beastly immorality, combined with Oriental diseases, are things to

be avoided in a young colony, where all men should be healthy voters

and thinkers. But why should the ‘horny-handed’ keep silent when the

paths of labour are clogged by the slave system,—which obtains,

I believe, over a large and growing portion of Australia,—and yet

shriek wildly when coloured labour of another sort competes with them

at a wage only a little less than that demanded by whites?

“Before I close with some of my ‘personal experiences,’ I want you

to note the missionary side of this question. You know I’m too

disgusted with the greedy way various missionary societies have gone

in for land-grabbing and land-dealing in New Zealand to be much of a

philo-missionist, and we both know something of mission work in the

South Seas, and that too much humbug and too many tares among the

wheat—

‘Of generous thought and deed were sown;’

yet I feel very friendly towards the little circle of men who have

taken up the cause of the unfortunate natives of Australia. The

Revs. J. B. Gribble, R. J. Flanagan, Fyson, J. Flierl, and my friend

Feder here have made a hard fight for it; and a most dangerous and

unthankful position these men occupy, in the midst of squatters

and squatter-commissioned police who watch their every action. As

it is, the fund secured to preserve and protect the natives is

apparently almost entirely derived from Europe, and half of that

amount I believe from Germany. Are these natives worth preserving?

Well, when the colony of Victoria a few years back—as I see by a

Government report—adopted a new system of education, the _first

school_ obtaining one hundred per cent. of marks was the RAMAH YUCK

School of _Aborigines_, Gippsland. This, I believe, is a fair sample

of what can be done with the ‘niggers’ if properly handled, and all

agree that the northern blacks are a finer race than those of the

south; and, speaking of my personal acquaintance with them, I can say

they compare in intelligence very favourably with our ‘noble savage’

in New Zealand; in fact, are, I think, much ‘cuter.’ Now, at the

risk of making this letter too long,—and if so you can take it in

instalments,—I’ll just give you some of my ‘personal experiences’ to

show you to what an extent slavery and murder obtains in Queensland.

“I had been introduced a few days since to a cockatoo-squatter, who

holds a small run within thirty miles of one of the civilized (?)

municipalities in this district.

“‘Come out and stop a few days with me,’ he said, ‘and if you want

any native curios, or a skull or two, as you’re a scientist, I’ll see

if Sergeant Bedad can come up with his “boys.” No end of sport, can

assure you.’ I thought he was making a grim joke,—but you will see. A

town councillor who was going my way, to visit a goldmine up on the

ranges beyond my destination, offered to show me the way. We started

together, and, after about two hours’ ride, as we were entering a

piece of scrub, Mr. Councillor pulls out a long-barrelled revolver

from his dust-coat pocket, and motions to me to be quiet. Thinking he

saw a wild pig or cassowary, I let him go on by himself a bit.

“‘I saw two niggers here, last time I was passing,—last week,’ he

explains as I overtake him,—‘they were getting grubs out of that

rotten tree, by the bush-layers there; but they cleared off before I

could get a fair shot at them.’ I needn’t tell you, old man, that I

was astonished at what my companion said; and, getting off my horse

to see if he was ‘having me,’ found the print of the niggers’ feet

in the black soil, the hole in the rotten tree which they had made

in searching for grubs, and lastly, the most circumstantial piece of

evidence to prove he was not joking, but terribly in earnest, the

bullet-hole of the shot he had fired in a tree stem close by.

“Arrived at the little station, I was introduced to Mrs.

Cockatoo-squatter. She was a tall, dark, ladylike person, with

something particularly gentle and womanlike about her, that was very

charming after the specimens of the weaker (?) sex one generally

sees up this way. But she was the next one to startle my new-chum

anti-slavery notions. She had no children of her own, but was

possessed of two little child-slaves, who, she informed me, the local

sergeant of Black Police had kindly ‘saved for her’ out of a camp of

blacks he had destroyed four miles down the river. I saw the remains

of the ingenious fish-weir erected by these unfortunates one day

when out for a ride. These blacks had apparently never injured any

one; but, as Mrs. Cockatoo informed me, with a gentle smile, ‘they

were always singing or making a noise of some sort, and disturbed

the cattle,’ which liked to stand in the shallows near the camp, in

preference to merely taking a drink at the steep banks of the other

parts of the river frontage. ‘The niggers frightened them; besides,

the blacks are always a nuisance.’ So the camp was surrounded one

night and ‘dispersed,’—the meaning of which word, in this part of the

Queen’s dominions, I have already explained to you.

“These child-slaves, whose baby-love for each other was most

touching, were naturally very pretty, as most of the native children

I have seen are; but they were sadly neglected, and very cruelly

treated. Their sole garment consisted of an old sack, stiff and

coated with dirt, the bottom of which was perforated with three

holes, one for the head and two for the little black arms. Although

only six or eight years of age, these children had to chop up the

firewood used in the house, fetch the water from the river, etc., and

were often cruelly beaten for trivial offences. In fact I left the

station, after spending three days there, chiefly on account of the

painful sight always before my eyes of the cruelty inflicted upon

these unhappy little ‘niggers.’

“Mrs. Cockatoo told me a pleasant story, too, the first day I was at

her house, illustrating the ‘annoyance’ the blacks had been to her

husband and herself, ‘till dear Inspector Nemo cleared the niggers

off the hills’ that surround the run. ‘It was January, I think,’ she

said; ‘yes, the end of last January. I hadn’t had Topsey and Turvey

(the two slave-children) very long, and I was cleaning some fish that

we had got out of a net we sometimes run across the river at the old

fish-weir. Bob (her husband) was away, and there were only two white

men near the house. They were fencing round the dog kennel there. Bob

hadn’t got the dogs then,’ my fair hostess added, turning her gentle

eyes towards the two magnificent bloodhounds which were sunning

themselves by the ‘lean-to’ door, and whose use I was afterwards to

learn.

“‘Well, I was at work, just as I am now,’ she went on, ‘when I

chanced to look up, and I saw two old niggers coming up from the

river, and walking across the paddock towards the house. Bob had told

me not to allow any niggers to cross the run or “come in” (come and

work as slaves) to the station; so when they came near I told them

to go or I’d shoot them. They, at least one of them did, kept on

saying, “Me very good boy, me very good boy,” and “Me velly hungey,”

and they wouldn’t go away. So I got the gun, that one with the broken

stock,—Bob broke it finishing an old rascal of a nigger, last time

he was out with Inspector Nemo,—and I told them to go, but they

knelt down and wouldn’t go. So I had to shoot them, and get the men

to throw them into the river. Bob said I had done quite right, but

I’m afraid _you_ don’t think so.’ This amiable couple, for they were

really amiable and good-hearted in every other respect than their

treatment of niggers and animals, had destroyed by poison, shooting,

and hunting with ‘the dogs,’—whose ‘score was only four at present,’

Mrs. Cockatoo informed me, laughing,—about thirty or forty aborigines

in the six years since they had taken up the small run. Mr. Cockatoo

reminded me, in his conversation, much of that old Periander, the

tyrant of Corinth, we used to read about at school, who, you will

remember, although as cruel and devilish an individual, perhaps, as

ever sat on a throne, yet patronised the Arts, was fond of peace,

and said ‘that not only crime, but every wicked and corrupt thought,

ought to be punished.’ He was one of the ‘seven wise men,’ too, I

think.

“Both my friend the cockatoo-squatter and Periander of old evidently

are examples of sufferers from that horrible disease, _cerebral

hyperæmia_, that Dr. Junelle, whom I met on board the boat coming up

the coast, and whom perhaps you recollect at Mercer, told me of. But

this letter is far too long to be ever all read by a lazy old fellow

like yourself, so ‘so long,’ old boy.

“Yours till death,

“CLAUDE ANGLAND.

“P.S.—By-the-bye, how is the little iron-grey filly shaping? I mean

the one out of the three-quarters-bred mare I got from Matata. She

ought to jump well. She’s by that big chestnut horse, Saint Patrick,

as I suppose you know.”

CHAPTER XIV.

HECATE AND HEBE.

“Wise wretch with pleasures too refined to please,

With too much spirit to be e’er at ease,

* * * * *

You purchase pain with all that joy can give.”

POPE.

It is an hour after sundown at Murdaro station. A few lights twinkle

here and there about the dusky quadrangle of low-roofed buildings,

ere shadow and silence bring to a close another workday.

The giant curlew screeches impatiently to his dilatory mate at

intervals from the bush hard by; the dingoes wail mournful signals

on the distant sandstone ridges; and at the other side of the

star-reflecting water-hole, beneath the dark group of Deadfinish

gum-trees, the native station-hands and fat house-gins, their labours

over for the day, can be heard crooning out their evening chants.

In the drawing-room of “Government House” the blinds and curtains

have been drawn across the windows, and the light of a couple of

silver-plated oil lamps shows that the apartment boasts of an amount

of fine art decoration and luxurious furniture quite unusual, even in

the _salon aux dames_ of a “large” squatter’s household.

Wealth has joined hands with taste under the direction of a graceful

female mind, and beneath the shaggy, rush-thatched roof of the

station building, that is really little better in external appearance

than an English barn, an oasis of elegance, a “holy of holies” of

refined surroundings, has arisen in the desert.

Give a cultivated human mind _carte blanche_ to furnish a room

after its own ideas of beauty and fitness, and it is marvellous how

a picture of itself will presently be reflected in the polished

completeness of the undertaking.

Character can be read in the furnishing of a room as easily, perhaps

easier, than by means of handwriting. Any trained upholsterer of long

experience will tell you this. A tradesman in this walk of life knows

almost intuitively, after conversing with you for a few minutes,

what kind of “fixings” you will most affect. Of course where “the

coat must be cut according to the cloth” these remarks do not apply

in such force, any more than a Napoleonic mind would discover itself

to the expert in reading-character-by-hand-writing in an epistle

scratched with the stiff, unexpressive point of a needle.

Göethe intimates that a man’s true character can be capitally tested

by ascertaining what are the things which he considers ridiculous;

and perhaps it will assist us to understand Miss Mundella’s if,

bearing this rule in mind, we note the appearance of the station

drawing-room, late “parlour,” which she has so charmingly transformed

since taking over the keys of her uncle’s establishment. She was not

the kind of young lady to follow the absurdities of those ephemeral

fashions that, from time to time, appear as plague spots to desecrate

the refined interiors of even the best houses in Melbourne and

Sydney. No absurd “fallals” in the shape of dusty, velvet-covered

soup-ladles, forks, gridirons, rolling-pins, and the like, hung upon

the walls of this young lady’s audience chamber.

This latest of fashion’s most offensive follies is much in vogue, as

we write, in modern Australian houses, and the practice of dragging

the kitchen into the drawing-room is surely to be deplored.

Doubtless the practical mind of our fellow-colonists found it useful

in some cases, hence its origin. These silken effigies of culinary

utensils were doubtless originally found to be fitting surroundings

for the central point of attraction,—the red-faced female, likewise

clothed in velvet, squatting upon the sofa; which lady’s antecedents

have been more associated with frying fat than burning midnight oil,

and who plays her modern part of “missus” or “me lady” before company

with less nervousness than she would otherwise do, were she not

surrounded by the fetishes of her past career.

In Miss Mundella’s drawing-room everything is reposeful, chaste,

and in harmony with the idea of elegance and refinement. From the

soft-toned, tapestry-like wall-paper to the white marble statuette

of Marguerite that stands before the Queen Anne mirror upon the

mantel-piece, all is unobtrusive yet beautiful. A few first-class

water-colour examples of Gulley and Atkinson, also some well-executed

plaques, hang upon the walls. A graceful palm hangs its fronds over a

rare Etruscan vase in one corner, and numerous little gems of Dresden

china and Venetian glassware—the gifts of various admirers—assist

towards forming a picture whose altogether is delightful, whose every

detail is a work of art.

Miss Mundella, dressed in a directoire gown, of some soft, silken

material of an amber colour, fringed with black lace, which costume

admirably suits her dark complexion, is seated at a little rosewood

_secrétaire_, and the soft, pink light from the ornamental shades of

the lamps upon the centre table casts a glorifying touch of colour

upon her calm and handsome features.

On the other side of the big table her uncle, Mr. Wilson Giles, is

sitting awkwardly upon a low-seated chair, twirling his thumbs,

and thinking regretfully of the good old days when he was allowed

to enjoy an after-dinner cigar in this very room,—a ruthless edict

against which proceeding has gone forth since his niece has taken the

reins of power into her able fingers.

“Well, Lileth, what is it?” asks the nominal master of the house,

“what is it you have got to say? Whatever it is, let’s have it over

quick, so as I can have a smoke on the verandah.”

“Have your smoke first, uncle, if you like; but please change your

coat before you come in here afterwards. You know I don’t object to

tobacco; but you know those English girls, who are coming over from

Simon’s to-morrow night, and I want to have one room in the house, at

any rate, that doesn’t smell like a taproom.”

Mr. Giles is not an adept at repartee; but it occurs to him to

remark, in retaliation, that, unless his niece smokes herself upon

the sly, there must be several rooms in the house free from the odour

of the fragrant weed. He also means to ask that lady how she knows

what are the true characteristics of a taproom, but his cutting

sarcasms do not arrange themselves with sufficient facility for him

to give them vocal form ere Miss Mundella again speaks.

“You asked me, uncle, to consider two or three schemes you mentioned

to me for getting rid of the monetary responsibility that rests upon

your shoulders with regard to the P.Ns. you gave to Dyesart.”

“Well, what d’you think of ’em?”

“Well, uncle, I really don’t see why you need trouble yourself

further in the matter, now that you have placed the—er—arranging of

affairs with me. But I will tell you, just to show you how little you

understand this kind of business, why your ideas would not work out

satisfactorily; like that remarkably risky one you tried in Sydney,

and of which, perhaps, you have not yet heard the end.”

Lileth adds this last sentence as a sort of cold douche, to

extinguish any rising indignation her previous words might have

aroused.

Giles reddens, forces his eyes out from his head a bit, and, gasping,

presently returns to his normal state of weak submission.

“If the notes,” Miss Mundella continues, “are to be found where the

doctor’s body lies, wherever that may be, and are payable to bearer,

Mr. Puttis, or any one we might send, might—I do not say would-be

able to cash them for themselves, or at any rate raise money upon

them. Possibly whilst trying to do this they might be asked to say

how they became possessed of them, and what lawyers call _mala fides_

might be suspected. Then you would probably get into trouble as well

as they.”

“Well, then, what d’you propose?”

“I find, also,” continues the young lady, without noticing the

interrupting question, “I find also that the destruction of the

notes would not clear you from your liability. For by this Act of

Parliament, 17 and 18 of Victoria,”—turning over the leaves of a

new edition of “Byles on Bills,”—“by section eighty-seven, ‘it is

provided that, in the case of any action——’”

“Oh, cut it short, Lileth!” exclaims the sufferer on the low-seated

chair. “Will it do to destroy the notes instead of the nephew? That’s

what I want ter know.”

The squatter’s niece continues, as if no interruption had occurred,

“‘In the case of any action founded on a Bill of Exchange, Promissory

Note, or other negotiable instrument, the court or judge——’”

“Oh Lord, what are yer driving at?” groans Mr. Giles.

“‘Court or judge has power to order that the loss of such

instrument,’—now, listen to this, uncle,—‘the loss of such instrument

shall not be set up, provided an indemnity is given, to the

satisfaction of the court, or judge, or a master, against the claims

of any other persons upon such negotiable instrument.’”

Although the fair young lawyer’s powers of facial command are nearly

perfect, she has much ado to refrain from smiling at the muddled look

of the red-faced man opposite to her.

“Don’t you remember how these notes were drawn? On demand, or at

sight, or bearer?” she asks.

“I’m jiggered if I do,” returns Mr. Giles. “There was some talk

about—of my making the notes come due at a certain time; then

Dyesart, he up and says ‘that might prove awkward to you, make them

on demand after a certain date.’ And then—but I forget how we fixed

it up at last. Don’t exactly ‘recco-member.’”

“At any rate, uncle,” says Miss Mundella, rising and moving towards

her relative, with the dignified grace an empress might have envied,

“at any rate, we can be sure of this, that if this nephew finds the

notes, or even has a knowledge that you ever obtained money from his

uncle under a written contract to return the same, you will pretty

certainly have to pay up. I feel sure this was the meaning of Dyesart

getting young Angland to come all this way up here. I can’t see what

else it can be. By-the-bye, I have young Angland’s photograph here.

Would you like to see it?”

“How the dev——” begins Giles, but correcting himself continues, “How

the goodness did you come by that? You’re a wonder! Swelp me if

you’re not.”

“Oh, I made my arrangements,” answers Lileth in her rich, contralto

voice. And this is all the young lady deigns to reply.

Holding the photograph in her firm, white hand all the time her uncle

is looking at it, Miss Mundella continues: “And now, once for all,

uncle, you will please leave the whole matter to me. You will spoil

my plans, possibly, if you interfere. You can assist our mutual

objects, however, in this way: you can refrain from drinking too much

whilst young Angland is here. You are horribly indiscreet when you

have had too much. And another thing, be ready to take any hints of

mine, and don’t cross me in anything I propose.”

Just as the low, steady voice closes its melodious utterings, the

door of the drawing-room is flung open, and a white, fluttering

female figure appears upon its threshold.

It is that of an exceedingly pretty young girl, petite and (strange

to say in this part of the world) rosy. A wondrous mane of

golden-yellow hair falls about her dimpled cheeks and symmetrical

neck and shoulders in such profusion that she has the appearance,

as the lamps in the room shine upon her, of being surrounded with

an aureole of silken rays of light. In fact, as she stands in the

framework of the doorway, before the dark background of the passage,

hesitating whether to disturb the two people in the room, her figure

for all the world might be that of a miraculous picture of an angel

of light, about to come to life and interrupt the machinations of

those evil-minded plotters before her, who glance up anxiously at

this interruption to their interview.

“Oh, papa, I’m afraid you’re busy. I didn’t mean, truly, to interrupt

you. Shall I run away?”

“No, my dear, not at all,” responds Mr. Giles, rising, and evidently

glad to thus close the _tête-à-tête_ with his dark-browed niece.

“Come on to the verandah, Glory, and talk to me whilst I have a

cigar. There’s nothing more to say, I suppose, Lileth? I leave all to

you.”

“No, uncle, nothing more,” replies Miss Mundella, adding, “Don’t keep

dear Glory out too long in the cold. She’s not fever proof, and the

cool evenings here are dangerous to people from the south. You’ll

come in, dear, presently, and give us a little Mendelssohn before

supper, won’t you?”

“Oh yes, Cousin Lileth. But can’t you come on to the verandah with

us? Oh my!” Miss Glory Giles adds excitedly, as her bright glance

falls upon the photograph of Claude that Lileth has allowed to remain

upon the table. “Wherever did you get that? So good, too. He’s not

here, is he? Oh! he’s a perfect darling, and saved poor Fluffy and me

from—oh! such a terrible lot of larrikins. And what’s his name?”

There is no knowing how long Glory would have continued her avalanche

of excited encomiums and questions relative to young Angland, had

she not been interrupted by her father. For the young lady before

us is the damsel whose blue eyes created such havoc in our hero’s

breast during his short stay in Brisbane, and she is now pleasurably

regarding the sun-picture of her “own hero,” as she always calls

Claude when relating the story of his prowess to her school-girl

friends, not knowing his real name. And what better name would young

Angland have desired, had he only known the honour thus done to his

memory?

At the rather anxiously expressed request of Mr. Giles, his daughter,

who has just left school for good, relates, without reserve, the

whole story of her adventure near the Brisbane Public Gardens.

Holding Claude’s photograph all the while, she winds up her

breathless recital by repeating her former questions.

Miss Mundella, knowing that her uncle will expect her to take the

initiative and smooth down this awkward discovery of Glory’s, that

bids fair to prove a complication of the conspirators’ scheme against

Claude, has quickly determined what course to pursue, and immediately

marches her wits forward against the new danger.

“I may as well tell Glory all about it,” Lileth observes, turning her

dark eyes up to Giles, and signalling to him to keep silence with the

nearest approach to a wink that she has ever condescended to employ.

“This young man, Glory dear,” she goes on, smiling upon her fair

cousin, and placing her hand upon Miss Giles’s shoulder, “is the

nephew of Dr. Dyesart, the explorer, of whose death we were speaking

during dinner. He will, possibly, be here before long, on his way to

attempt the discovery of his uncle’s grave. Mr. Angland, for that

is the nephew’s name, was staying at the same hotel in Sydney with

my brother Abaddon,—Cousin Jack you used to call him. My brother,

finding that Mr. Angland was coming up here, sent me a photograph of

him. I don’t know how he got it. I suppose it was given to him. Now,

you’re not a silly school-girl any longer, and I think I can trust

you with something I am about to say. Can I, dear?”

“Oh yes, Cousin Lileth. But,” hesitatingly, “but it’s not anything

bad you’ve heard about Mr. Angland, is it? If it is, pray don’t tell

me, please. I always want to be able to think of him as a hero.”

“Well, dear,” answers Miss Mundella, laughing softly, as she

recognizes in this confession of hero-worship the characteristics

of a simple mind that her own powerful will may some day find it

profitable to employ. “Well, dear, you can still continue to do so,

as far as I know to the contrary. It’s nothing against Mr. Angland,

but just this. You know my brother Abaddon is just a little wild. He

has been so long up here, you know; and when he went for his holiday

to Sydney, he got—well—rather ‘rampageous’ I think is a good word to

express what I mean.”

Mr. Giles, standing a little distance from the two ladies,

wonders what on earth his niece is about to evolve from her inner

consciousness.

“Now, Glory, I’d rather,” continues Lileth, “I’d rather you did not

inform Mr. Angland, if he comes here, that we are any connection of

Abaddon’s, for I believe my brother got into serious disgrace with

your hero in Sydney.”

“But his name, Lileth? Mundella’s such an uncommon name.”

“Oh, well, you see your Cousin Abaddon is so afraid of people taking

him to be a Jew. He’s so sensitive to the rudeness of people,

although he’s brave as a lion; so he always goes by the name of Smith

when away from here. In fact, it is really absurd how few people,

even about here, know his real name. I believe poor Abaddon, from

what I can make out in his letter, took too much to drink one night,

and insulted Mr. Angland dreadfully.”

“Poor Cousin Jack,” murmurs Glory to herself, as, recollecting the

Brisbane affair, she thinks of the sight Abaddon’s face must have

presented shortly after his having insulted Mr. Angland.

“Is that all, Cousin Lileth?” she asks aloud. “Oh, then I’ll never

mention a word about the photo or about Mr. Abaddon Smith. Ha! ha!

how funny it sounds, don’t it?” The young lady laughs merrily. “I

only hope Mr. Angland,—ah! isn’t _that_ a nice name?—I only hope he

will have time to stop here and have some tennis. He and I against

you and Mr. Cummercropper, what fun! But he’s sure to rush away

again. All the nice people do,” she adds, pursing up her pretty lips

at the thought. Then suddenly turning to her father, she seizes his

arm, and laughing and talking all at once, she drags him off to the

cool verandah, where she lights his cigar for him, and chatters away

about her most amusing recollections of the charming southern capital

she has just left.

Mr. Giles and his fair daughter have not long been seated in the

cane-chairs on the verandah, when the tattoo of an approaching

horseman comes to interrupt their conversation.

The fox-terrier, Spot, who has been sitting silently in the darkness

by his master’s chair, sleepily watching the red cigar end, as

it pulses alternately bright and dull, rushes out to investigate

matters; and presently all ten of the canine dependents of the

station folk join in a vari-toned vocal notice of the advent of the

equestrian.

At this moment Miss Mundella joins her relatives.

“That’s Jim back from the muster at Bulla Bulla, I expect,” remarks

Mr. Giles.

“No, uncle,” says Lileth in a low, strange voice, “it is Mr. Claude

Angland.”

Mr. Giles starts in his cane-chair, as its creaking back testifies in

the shadows.

“Now, how _can_ you possibly tell? You can’t know that much, at any

rate.”

“I can’t tell how I know, but it is he,” answers his niece in the

same tones.

Glory does not say anything, but stands up ready to catch a first

glimpse of the stranger, whoever it may be.

A few minutes more and Miss Mundella’s predictions are fulfilled;

and ere a quarter of an hour has elapsed our young friend Claude

is sitting down to supper with the station folk, after being

formally introduced to all present, including Mr. Cummercropper, the

high-toned and love-sick station storekeeper, by Miss Glory Giles as

“My hero,”—a title which Angland in vain attempts to show he does not

deserve, but one that enamoured youth intensely enjoys all the same.

Claude had felt his heart beat quicker as he “saw the station

roofs,”—the place from which his uncle’s last letter had reached him.

A thousand emotions poured through his soul. Anxious thoughts were

amongst them. He was about to meet people of whom, somehow, he had

vague suspicions. Would he be welcome? Would he be even safe?

But now, as he sits next his fair-haired young goddess, a very

Juventus of youth and vigour, amidst the pleasant and jovial

conversation of his new friends, in a brilliantly-lighted and

elegantly-furnished room, a new set of thoughts comes to oust his

lately sombre ones. He finds himself the honoured and welcome guest

of an hospitable and charming circle; and although Claude is not

generally accustomed to wear his heart upon his sleeve, his happy

revulsion of feelings is inclining him to a dangerous revelation of

his private concerns, when something occurs to sober him suddenly and

put him once more upon his guard.

Claude’s conversation has been mainly with his host and that

gentleman’s charming daughter. Mr. Cummercropper spoke only when

the Arts were mentioned, and then rather incoherently. Lileth was

silently watching and studying the new-comer, only putting in an

odd word here and there, where courtesy demanded it. Presently the

subject of music is discussed, and Glory, amongst other new songs,

speaks of “Killaloo.”

As the name of this remarkable ballad is mentioned, Claude’s thoughts

rush to the midnight scene upon the viaduct with a sort of graveyard

chilliness,—the air whistled by the elegant desperado at his side,

the blue-white electric lights upon the rink. Angland becomes serious

at once.

Miss Mundella here, at last, joins in the conversation, and at some

length condemns certain of the caprices of modern musical taste,

which is a favourite theme of hers. Going on to speak of certain

newly-published ballads that call forth her unfavourable criticisms,

she mentions the crickets (_Gryllus_), which, according to Mouffet,

are objects of commerce in certain African tribes, and are sold

about, as canary birds are amongst Europeans, to the inhabitants, who

like to hear their amorous chant.

“Their chirping would be irritable to the ears of persons trained

to more melodious sounds,” Lileth concludes by saying, “but the

caprice of those African blacks is not one whit stranger than that

of those who enjoy some of the more modern drawing-room songs.” Mr.

Cummercropper gazes in weak-eyed rapture at his dark-eyed enchantress

as she speaks, and inclines his large, pink ears unto her. He is even

about to second her remarks. But he gets no further than, “Yhas, bai

Joave,” when he accidentally drops his eyeglass into his wine, which

misfortune entirely upsets all his ideas, and renders him hopelessly

nervous during the remainder of the evening.

After glancing at the unhappy storekeeper, as he clumsily fishes for

his “glass eye” in the ruby-coloured Dalwood, Miss Mundella turns

towards Claude, and finds him regarding her curiously.

“Pardon me,” he says, as he observes that Lileth is for the instant

somewhat disconcerted by the look she has seen in his face. “Pardon

me; but we have surely met before. I am nearly certain of it. Will

you kindly assist my ungallant memory? I confess I am puzzled to know

how I could ever forget. It is hardly likely you will remember the

circumstance of our meeting, when I——”

Claude suddenly ceases to speak. His features become set and firm,

and slightly paler than before. Memory has come to his aid, and the

bridge scene in Sydney is enacted over again in his mind’s eye. All

but Angland and Miss Mundella are amusing themselves with Glory’s

little dog Fluffy, which is begging for cheese rind.

Lileth leans forward and softly speaks,—

“Your thoughts seem unpleasant ones, Mr. Angland. I trust that the

memory of any previous meeting, if we have met, is not associated

with them.”

Claude again regards the grand face turned towards him observantly as

he replies,—

“I thought I recognized your voice. But I made a foolish mistake.

And to tell you the truth, the sound of your voice brought to my

mind some very unpleasant recollections. I see I have aroused

your interest. You will then pardon me if I explain under what

circumstances it was that I last heard a voice so much resembling

yours. I was assaulted in Sydney, a month or so ago, by two men who

attempted my destruction. One of them, forgive my saying so, somewhat

resembled you. But it was the tones of your voice, which are exactly

like his, that at first puzzled me.”

“You are certainly not very complimentary, Mr. Angland,” responds

Miss Mundella, smiling, without betraying in the least the

agitation which almost renders her incapable of playing her part;

“but I forgive you. And you must tell me, to-morrow, all about

your adventure with my badly behaved ‘doppel-ganger’ in Sydney.

Come, Glory!” she adds gaily to her cousin, as she rises to say

“Good-night.”

“We shall have to be up early to-morrow, if we are to meet the Miss

Chesters at the Red Billabong. _Schlaf wohl!_” And the two ladies

retire, leaving the men to wind up the evening with their cigars.

MIDNIGHT.

Of all the persons beneath the roof-tree of Murdaro head station

house during the first part of that night, Mr. Cummercropper was

the only one who was successful in wooing “the gentle sleep,” and it

was not till early morning that slumber slid upon the souls of the

remainder of the party.

For Claude, his host, and the two fair cousins, “each and severally”

have their excited brains full of a reeling panorama, called into

action by memory and thought, which it is far beyond the power of

slumber to extinguish.

Mr. Wilson Giles’s better feelings are fighting a losing battle with

the more selfish promptings of his nature, which are supported by the

heavy artillery of his niece’s arguments.

The grateful memory of Dyesart’s kindness in the hour of need;

the evident affection and esteem—possibly the herald of a warmer

feeling—which his daughter evinces for young Angland; the risky

nature of the game that his niece urges him to continue; are all

arguments in favour of a _laissez faire_ policy. But on the other

side there is the uncomfortable thought of losing the fruits of

his life’s labour,—the run that he has purchased with hardships

innumerable; with blood, murder, and selfishness. Moreover, Lileth

knows too much about his concerns now. Her thumb is turned downwards,

and the victim of the scheme must be sacrificed.

Giles groans as he thinks how much he hates his niece. He conceives

her to be a true Jew at heart,—remorseless and unswerving in her

purposes. And who knows better than he, Giles, what Hebrews are. When

his gay, wild-oat sowing youth was beginning to wane, had he not

felt the white, unforgiving but smiling fangs of members of the race

tearing at his throat? Ah! how well he had retaliated upon the first

of them who came within his power. Giles rolls over in his bed as he

chuckles a hard, dry gurgle of laughter, as he calls to mind how he

had schemed and schemed, and, sacrificing his sister in his revenge,

had married her to Lileth’s father, with the successful intention of

ruining him. But his wandering thoughts always hark back to the same

conclusion,—Lileth must have her way.

Meanwhile, Claude in his room tumbles about restlessly, as he

thinks, alternately, of the strange likeness between the dark-eyed

lady he had met that evening and the assassin of the arches, and of

the fair-haired angel into the heaven of whose presence he had so

strangely ascended.

Two o’clock, ante-meridian, strikes the carriage clock in Glory

Giles’s bedroom, which adjoins that of Miss Mundella. And ere the

deep music of its coil-bell vibrations have faded in waves of dying

sweetness into silence, the charming occupant of the apartment is

wide awake.

All is silent in the house, and the golden-haired maiden lies deeply

thinking within the cosy sanctum of her mosquito-curtained couch.

Glory had heard the last part of the conversation between Claude

and Lileth. It had, of course, considerably interested her. But it

was not till the young lady had entered into the quiet of her own

room, that she had thought of there being any connection between

the murderous attack upon her admirer in Sydney and the photograph

incident of the previous evening.

Glory remembers the promise of secrecy exacted from her by her cousin

Lileth,—whom she looks upon more in the light of a step-mother than

a girl-companion only a few years older than herself,—and dreadful

thoughts begin to shape themselves.

The merry little girlish brain is not given to much labour in the

tiresome direction of induction-drawing. But where female interest

is highly excited, there arises into being a more active means of

interpretation than that employed by the more stolid brain of the

male human when solving similar problems. This power—called by men

“jumping at a conclusion”—tells Claude’s inamorata hearer that “her

hero” is in danger at the hands of her dark-haired relative, now

slumbering in the next room.

Slumbering? No! For there is a light in there; and presently the

green-baize door, that opens from one bed-chamber to the other,

swings noiselessly backwards, and Miss Mundella appears holding a

lighted taper in her hands.

She wears her dark morning dress, and, after addressing Glory softly,

to ascertain if her cousin is awake, and receiving no answer, she

moves silently out of the apartment and down the passage.

An hour afterwards one of the station “boys” rides off with a letter

from the shadow of the quiet buildings.

This is the burly Cape York native called Carlo,—the executioner of

“Government House,”—and as he has been enjoined, by Miss Mundella

herself, to hurry over his appointed task, he is not likely to tarry

on the way.

The mysterious rider’s iron-grey steed—one of the famous Satan’s

daughters—is pawing the ground as her rider, who has dismounted, is

fumbling at the fastenings of the home-paddock gate, which opens

on to the unfenced run, when he becomes aware of a white figure

approaching him.

The aboriginals are great believers in ghosts, and the black horseman

is about to fly in terror, when his marvellous powers of sight—good

almost in the darkness as a cat’s—tell him that it is the “little

Marmie-lady” (the master’s daughter) that is before him.

“Carlo!” exclaims Glory, in the breathless voice of one who has been

running, “do you know who I am?”

“Iss. Mine know um, allite, Missee Gorrie,” replies the “boy.”

“Well, then, tell me where you are going?”

“Oh! mine go look longer bullockie, Marmie. Plenty fellow oberthrees

sit down longer Bulla Bulla ’tation.”

The black means to inform Miss Giles, whom he submissively

calls Marmie, or Mistress, that he goes to look for a number of

bullocks—branded with the station mark of O B 3, which he calls

“oberthree”—which have wandered on to the next run.

“You tell big fellow lie, Carlo!” exclaims Glory excitedly. “You take

letter; you take book-a-book alonger station.”

_Click, click, click!_ The black hears the ominous, metallic rattle

of the chambers of a revolver, as the fair hands thus emphasize the

demand that follows:—

“Miss Lileth give you book-a-book for Inspector Puttis. Give it to

me!”

The unfortunate native hesitates for a moment, not knowing which

way to retire from out of range of the two fires between which he

finds himself: the terrible retribution that will fall upon him if he

proves false to “Missee Lillie’s” orders threaten him on one flank;

on the other is the present danger of being shot if he does not

surrender what he had strict injunctions to deliver into the

police-officer’s own hands at Bulla Bulla station.

The native mind, till trained to think after the European fashion,

cares little for the morrow. So Carlo, wisely and quickly, decides

to escape the near danger, come what may afterwards, and holds out a

white envelope towards Glory beneath the faint starlight.

The little white fingers take the note; and, retiring a few yards

so as not to frighten the horse, a match is lit, and the “fair

highwayman” examines her plunder. Yes, it is the letter she wants.

“You sit down here, Carlo,” Glory says, “till I come back. If horse

want walk about, walk up and down,” waving her hand explainingly.

Then, giving the black a piece of money, she disappears. Ten minutes

afterwards Carlo has the letter returned to him by the “little

Marmie,” and is soon flying over the spear-grass plains in the

direction of the next station. Glory returns to her room, by means

of the open window, as she left it, and exhausted with her bold

adventure soon falls asleep.

If any sharp-eyed detective had, about this time, examined one of

the dining-room windows near to which Miss Mundella had written her

letter, he would have found a slightly greasy spot upon one of its

panes; and, if worthy of his noble profession, he would have been

led by a process of induction to surmise that this mark had been

caused by the nasal organ of some smallish person, who had been

engaged not long before in what may be correctly termed as “prying

into the room.”

CHAPTER XV.

THE GHOST OF CHAMBER’S CREEK.

“’Mongst thousand dangers, and ten thousand magick mights.”

_Faërie Queene._

Next morning, when Claude wandered into the supper-room of the

previous night, he found a couple of fat, comely young native women,

in short, light-coloured frocks, relaying the cloth upon the table

for a second or late breakfast.

One of these girls on seeing Claude toddles up to him, and explains,

in the ridiculous jargon she has been taught to consider English,

that Mr. Giles and the young ladies have already partaken of

breakfast and gone out.

“Marmie bin go out longer Missie Lillie, um Missie Gory bin go longer

Marmie big fellow way.”

“What name?” she adds briefly, bringing her beautiful eyes and

smiling features to bear upon Claude with awkward suddenness as she

puts her question.

In reply Angland bashfully but carefully explains to the gins how

his name is usually pronounced by himself and friends; but the girls

only grin in return with their pearly rows of teeth, as if they are

the victims of suppressed mirth. They are evidently highly amused,

and even retail some joke to the diminutive Lucy, who, seeing that

something out of the ordinary is going on, has popped her little

black head in at the door to listen.

“What name, Marmie?” the smiling “lubras” repeat in chorus.

Whilst Claude stands puzzling over the mystic meaning of the

dark fair ones before him, Mr. Cummercropper enters the room,

and nodding to our hero—and thereby losing his eyeglass for

a few seconds—proceeds to tediously deliver the same message

Angland has already received. Claude waits till the æsthetical

station storekeeper has finished, and then begs him to enlighten him

as to the meaning of the laughing girls.

“Ha! ha!” chuckles Mr. Cummercropper out of the depths of his high

collar. “Bai Joave! not bad, by any means. They don’t want to know

your name. Picked that much up long ago. ‘What name?’ means, in this

part of the globe, ‘Which will you have, coffee, tea, or cocoa, for

breakfast?’ Don’t it, Dina?”

Dina grins a comprehensive smile, and nods her brilliantly beturbaned

head in reply to the query; and, obtaining a satisfactory answer at

last to her oft-repeated question, trots her buxom little figure

away into the kitchen. After breakfast Claude spends his morning

in trying to learn something of Billy; but he is almost entirely

unsuccessful, as the blacks about the station are strangely reticent.

The disappearance of his late uncle’s servant is very annoying to

Angland, and our young friend is really puzzled to know what steps

he had better take next. Claude has a lonely lunch, for none of the

station folk are yet returned, and Mr. Cummercropper has descended

from the art student to the “rational” storekeeper, and has started

off in a buggy and pair with a load of “rations” for a far-off

out-station; and then, getting a “boy” to fetch his horse in from the

paddock, he canters over to an out-station, where he left his miner

friend and the two boys the night before.

“Well, lad, thou hast not been successful in thy work,” says old

Williams, Claude’s digger companion as he observes that young man’s

disappointed face. “And that I were right to camp here I’ll show

ye. There’s nowt save ourselves here, for they’re out must’ring

‘weaners.’ So coome inside out of the sun, and I’ll tell thee news o’

Billy.”

Claude watches his lively purchase, Joe, hobble the horse, and then

follows Williams into the two-roomed shanty, which is honoured by

the name of an “out-station house.” It is merely a roughly-built

hut, with walls of gum-tree slabs laid one upon another, and a roof

formed of sheets of brown gum-tree bark. The studs of the building,

also the rafters and purlieus, are ingeniously kept in position by

neatly fastened strips of “green hide” (raw leather), and the hard

grey floor and colossal chimney-place are composed of the remains of

a number of ant-hills that have been pounded up for the purpose. The

material of which these hills are built is a kind of _papier mâché_,

consisting of wood-fibre and clay, and is in much request amongst

northern settlers for various structural purposes. The termites, or

“white ants,” sometimes raise their many-coned mounds to a height

of from twelve to fifteen feet, and these “spires and steeples,”

with the absence of dead tree-stems upon the ground,—another sign of

the presence of these insects,—are two of the most characteristic

features of the open bush country of Northern Queensland.