just firing some gold dust into a ‘face’ in order to sell out well or
float a company.”
Claude remembers that Williams has already informed him that a
“face” is the exposed section of a reef in the workings of a mine in
distinction to the “backs,” which is that part of a lode unworked and
above the lowest levels.
“There is better ways nowadays than this kind of ‘salting,’—such
as using chloride of gold and the like,—but get a good syndicate
together to help ye, and it will do all the dirty work for you and
float anything.” Stopping every now and then to persuade his horse
to walk a bit faster, Williams continues, “Some say as how the term
‘salting’ originated this way. On a new field, especially if tucker’s
scarce, as it often is, there’s always a lot of hungry dogs about.
They’ll steal anything they can grab hold of, from your last piece of
damper to a pair of boots. Now it ain’t quite the go ter shoot these
ere ‘canine tithe collectors,’—that’s what I calls ’em,—for their
owner might come down and arguefy in the ‘love me love my dog’ style.
So yer puts salt in yer gun, and the dog ain’t killed, but he don’t
come hankering around agin where he finds he’ll only get condiments
and nary a bit of meat. I don’t like to shoot any man’s dog,”
observes the lecturer feelingly, “let alone a camp-mate’s, and I’m
always sorry fur the brutes when they go off yelling after getting a
charge of salt.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” observes Claude, who, thinking of certain
appropriate lines, proceeds to quote them:—
“Sympathy without relief
Is like mustard without beef.”
“But what has this ‘salting a dog’ got to do with ‘salting a mine’? I
can see now, at any rate, the origin of ‘saving one’s bacon,’ for I
expect the dogs would make a bee line for home on finding themselves
thus salted down,—but why all this about dogs? You don’t think any
one has been firing salt into Don, do you?”
“No, lad,” Williams says, “you don’t take me. In the rough old
diggin’s we always used to empty our revolvers about sundown, if we
did it at all. Those who made the most show about doing this were
mostly new hands, but that’s neither here nor there. I mean you
wouldn’t hear no firing after nightfall. If there should happen to
be a shot fired it was either a murder or a robbery, and the whole
camp would turn out. But if it turned out to be only a hoax, the boys
would skylark round, and mayhap the man who started the fun would
have to put on a roller bandage instead of a shirt for the next few
weeks.”
“I see,” remarks Claude, knowing that it is of no use to attempt to
hurry the old miner, who always moves towards the main subject of his
remarks after the manner of a hawk approaching its prey, namely, in
circles.
“Well, some chap invented this plan of punishing the dogs, and then
firing at night got to be quite common. Instead of turning out when
you heard a shot, you’d say ter your mate, ‘Oh, some one’s cur is
gettin’ salted.’ By-and-by all kinds of shooting got to be called
‘salting,’ and from that, not only firing gold into a reef, but every
kind of swindle, went by the same name.”
“You’ve explained it very well,” Claude says, as Williams closes his
remarks, “and, as regards little Don, I thought myself it might be a
try on till I examined his feet, and found that the toes on his left
foot have evidently been damaged at some time or other.” Angland then
discloses to his companion what Glory Giles had told him about the
accident that befell her baby brother, which we have related for the
benefit of our readers.
“And now, Williams, what ought I to do? I somehow feel I should send
Don back to Giles at once. I might send Joe and General Gordon with
him, but it would be risky work with one waterbag. That’s the only
reason, as you know, I’ve not sent Gordon and his mate back before.”
“Send him back!” exclaims the elder man; “not a bit of it.
Providence, lad, has given yer the boy to keep for a time, and it
would be going agin yer luck to send him back. Don’t you go out of
your way to chuck what Providence has lent you, just to oblige a
man who you don’t count as a friend, anyhow. A very obliging man is
another name for a fool, take my word for it. Besides, how do you
know these Myall blacks wouldn’t knock both the boys on the head if
they got a chance? They would do it, and no fear they wouldn’t, if
they thought Don was Giles’s son. Wouldn’t they like to get square
with old Giles! He has polished off a good many of their relatives,
if you ask me. No!” adds the speaker in a voice that shows he puts
his foot down at what he says, “we’ll all go back together. You’ll
be able to play this trump card, my son, better when you’ve got some
more in your fist, as Providence is going to give you shortly.”
CHAPTER XVIII.
A STATION SKETCH.
“The proper quarry of mankind is man.”
It is about eight o’clock P.M., at Borbong head-station, which
lies at some fifty miles’ distance from Murdaro, and the evening
meal being over, half-a-dozen men are settling down to enjoy an
after-dinner smoke in that sanctum of Government House, the boss’s
“den.”
Most of the bronzed, manly figures before us are dressed in white
linen and one wears the long top-boots and spurs of a sub-lieutenant
in the N.M. Constabulary. Three of the other men are passing
travellers, and although quite unknown to the hospitable manager of
the run, till a couple of hours since, are made none the less welcome
on that account, after the laudably generous custom that obtains on
the better class “up-country” stations.
One of these strangers is the new manager of Hanga run, who is on his
way northwards to take charge of his new scene of labours, and the
other two are mining speculators up from Brisbane to look at a new
find of silver in the neighbourhood.
“Now, gentlemen, make yourselves at home,” observes Mr. Browne, in
the loud, resonant voice of one who is accustomed to give outdoor
commands. “Here are some cigars that ain’t bad. You’ll have to
excuse me for a bit, but I’ll be back by the time you’ve filled
your glasses. I just want to see about the horses for to-morrow.”
Mr. Browne retires, being followed from the door by a battalion of
enormous cats, who, with tails erect, stalk noiselessly after their
master, whose sole hobby is breeding animals and training them to
perform all kinds of unfeline feats.
The manager’s guests proceed to make themselves comfortable upon
various seats about the rather roughly furnished room, and an
observant eye might have noticed that the older frequenters of the
house studiously avoid the neighbourhood of a certain chintz-covered
sofa standing near the door, which is known to them as the favourite
roosting-place of their host’s strange pets.
The room in which the smokers are assembled has no ceiling, and the
rafters of the thatched roof can dimly be descried in the gloom
overhead. Upon the log walls, which are scantily covered with a
mutilated covering of scrim, a few coloured almanacs and pictures
from the illustrated papers have been pasted. A dusty, little-used
bookcase and a well-supplied gun-rack—fit emblems of the unequal
amount of influence exerted by peace and war in the locality—occupy
two opposite corners of the room by the door, which, hanging upon
green-hide hinges, has evidently at some time or other formed
parts of various packing cases. This is the “den,” otherwise the
sitting-room and office, of Mr. Browne,—where that splendid specimen
of humanity writes his diaries, does his obtuse calculations as
handicapper for the neighbouring Jockey Club, and pays his hands,—and
the absence of a ceiling is not without certain advantages, as may be
perceived after a number of guests have been loading the air for the
best part of a warm summer night with fragrant clouds of incense in
honour of the Genius of Bachelordom.
“Wonderful lot of cats about the place!” exclaims one of the mining
speculators, moving suddenly off the aforementioned chintz-covered
sofa, and proceeding to stamp and shake himself as if he had come in
contact with a lively ant-hill. “I’ve always admired Henry the Third
of France because he hated cats.”
The other men smile knowingly at each other, as if they had expected
him to vacate his seat before long, and one explains, “That’s the
cats’ seat; there ar’n’t any over here.”
“Talking of cats,” observes the station storekeeper, who, being the
distant relative of an Irish baronet, is considered a person of some
importance in the district, “it wouldn’t be a bad ideah, bai Joave,
to twain some of Bwowne’s cweatures for the hill-country, where
the dawgs cawn’t work properly. How did you manage to get along
yesterday, Mr. Morth?” The last sentence is addressed to the young
sub-inspector.
“Oh, not so badly,” replies the police officer, as he knocks his
cigar end off upon the leg of his rather rickety chair. Mr. Morth is
a youngish man, slim and active as a greyhound, who glories in his
work from a sportsman’s point of view. “Oh, we didn’t do so badly.
We got another lot besides the party your boys put us on to. But
that broken country at the back of the Black Rock is the very devil.
Fifteen miles, sir, we had to track the beggars after we left our
horses, and then they’d have got away if there hadn’t been old people
with them.”
“You lost a boy, didn’t you?”
“Yes, worse luck. Poor old Jet lost the number of his mess. We got
the beggars against a cliff, and when they found they were in a trap
they rushed at the boys. I never saw a nigger harder to kill than
the rascal that knocked Jet on the head. I put six bullets into the
beggar before I dropped him.”
“Niggers bad up my way?” asks the new manager of Hanga Station.
“That’s not in my patrol, so can’t say,” replies the sub-inspector.
“I think you will have a deuce of a lot of trouble up there,”
observes the storekeeper. “Your predecessah allowed the beggars to
wandah all ovah the wun. Spoilt them all togethah. Weally one could
not go neah a water-hole without seeing some of the black devils
camped there. They came in from all the other stations wound.”
“Oh, I’ll soon alter all that,” remarks the Hanga manager with an
oath.
“Milby was the boy with niggers,” says a dark-eyed man at the
other end of the little table, as he glances up from the American
cloth cover before him, upon which he has been amusing himself by
imprisoning sundry stray ants in a complicated maze, traced with the
wet bottom of his tumbler. “Did you ever meet him, Lawrence?”
The individual addressed, who is a cattle-drover of a superior kind,
replies in a husky voice that he has not only met him, but was with
him some time in the Northern Territory the year before.
“He was a beggar to shoot niggers,” this gentleman adds, “and no
mistake. Why, hang me, if he didn’t order six cases of Sniders up to
the station when he first took up that MacArthur country.”
“What on earth did he want with that lot?” asks the new manager of
Hanga run.
“Oh,” replies the drover, “he said the niggers’ heads up that way
were so precious thick that his boys would break all their gun-stocks
if he didn’t keep a good supply of ’em.”
A general laugh greets the news that the red-faced drover has just
retailed concerning this latest piece of eccentricity of the famous
Milby.
“I was with him for two years up at Hidamoor,” observes the dark-eyed
man. “He hadn’t a single ‘boy’ on the run; they was all _lubras_
(girls). He used to tog them out in trousers and shirts, and they
made jolly good stockmen. Does he do that still up north?”
“Yes,” replies the drover, “they all do it up there. He lets his
white stockmen have two _gins_ (women) apiece. I brought a couple
down with me to the Springs last trip; give them to Boker there.”
“Milby’s a smart fellow all round,” remarks Mr. Browne, who has just
entered, dismissing all save two of his furry following, these latter
taking the seats demurely upon the chintz-covered sofa.
“Yes; first time I was out with Milby,” continues the manager,
stooping to use the tobacco-cutter, “we got nicely on to about a
dozen buck niggers near Wiseman’s water-hole—you know it, Lawrence?
Well, I saw Milby taking a long feather out of his pocket when we’d
grassed all the black devils, and wondered what he was going to
do with it. Hanged if he didn’t send a ‘boy’ round to each of the
beggars we’d knocked over to tickle their noses.
“‘What’s that for?’ I asked. ‘Oh, you’ll see,’ said he. And sure
enough presently the ‘boy’ with the feather ranged up alongside
a nigger who’d been shamming. I’d tried the beggar before with a
match, in the ordinary way, and he hadn’t shown a sign. I thought I’d
have died o’ laughing,” the manager continues, after moistening his
inner man, “when I saw the beggar twitching his nose as the feather
tickled it; he couldn’t for the life of him keep it still. That was a
very good ‘dart’ of Milby’s; we’d have missed that buck without the
feather dodge.”
“Oh, that’s an old trick,” remarks the new manager of Epsom; “they
always used it about Kimberley when I was through there with horses
before the rush.”
“Ain’t you station folk a bit rough on the niggers about here?”
inquires one of the two burly individuals that we have already
introduced to our readers as mining speculators. “I’ve had a good
all-round experience with ’em, as you may guess, when I tell you I’m
the original prospector of the Mount Walker. Now I’ve had to shoot
one nigger in my time, but only one; and I was living amongst them,
you might say, for about twenty years, till I made my rise at the
Mount.”
“Oh, ah!” drawls the storekeeper, bestowing an insolently pitying
smile upon the simple-minded individual who thus dares to find fault
with one of the pet institutions of the “squattah” nobles of the
country. “But you must remember there’s a deuced lot of difference
between wunning a wun and wunning a mine, Mr. Walker.” This remark
smells so strongly of a sneer that the black Cornish eyes flash
angrily across the table, till, observing that the storekeeper is a
foe that is hardly worthy of his steel, Mr. Walker calms down again.
“Maybe, maybe,” he goes on, “but I’m a practical man, and I look
at everything in a practical way. I don’t blame you gentlemen for
potting a nigger for cattle spearing. I’d as lief shoot a man as a
dog black or white, if he tried robbing me too often. You mustn’t
think, gentlemen,” Mr. Walker goes on, as he observes that he has
decidedly not got “the house with him,” “you mustn’t think I’m
presuming to teach you anything about how you ought to manage your
own affairs. But it’s always been a good stout argument of mine that
it’s waste of good bone and muscle, as the country can’t well spare,
all this shooting business.”
“What would you do with the cussed vermin? Can you tell me that, eh?”
asks the Epsom manager, winking at Mr. Browne with the intention of
attracting his attention to the observations he is about to make.
“You’d go in for making miners of them, would you? It strikes me
somehow that you miners ain’t very fond of coloured men knocking
round the diggings. Look here, Mr. Walker, the miners played it
pretty low down on both the niggers and the chinkies at the Palmer
rush, for one place, and you know as well as I do that it was near
as a toucher that the Johns (Chinamen) didn’t get kicked off Croydon
last year. Look at the Kimberley rush, too; the niggers ain’t learnt
to fall in love with what they’ve had from the diggers there.”
Mr. Walker knows that these accusations are correct, but is not going
to be led into an argument as to whether miners or cattle-men are the
“roughest” on the native population, so he answers the last speaker
as follows,—“I’m not arguing whether it’s right to shoot the blacks
or not, but whether, looking at the thing fair and square, in a
practical, common-sense, business way, it’s a sensible thing to do.”
“Yes, that’s the talk,” remarks his mate of chintz sofa notoriety,
who has hitherto refrained from argument.
“But,” continues Mr. Walker, “as this gentleman here has got hold
of the Chinese Question, I’ll tell him that, talking as a miner, I
think you’ll find most of us think this way.” The speaker whilst
arguing takes a pencil from his pocket, and from the force of old
associations makes as if to draw the plan of an imaginary mine upon
the table-cover. “We’d let the aboriginals mine if they like to; it’s
their country after all, and they’ve a right to do that, at any rate.
In fact, lots of them have done mining; the first big nugget got in
Queensland was found by a nigger at the Calyope. But foreign coloured
men is different altogether.”
“Ah, but these niggers are a useless lot of devils, and they won’t
work unless you make ’em,” observes the drover.
“Well, mate,” Walker says, laughing, “they suffer from the same
complaint as many whites do if they won’t work unless they’re driven
to it; that’s all I can say about that. But as to their being no
use, I don’t know how you’d be able to get on without the ‘boys’ to
muster, track, and drove. And I’ve seen blacks near Adelaide who’ve
become farmers, and they’re just as good as lots of the Europeans
farming near them. And on the Russell diggings we couldn’t have
kept going if we hadn’t trained our ‘boys’ to bring us tucker from
the township. I’ve got a couple of ‘boys’ with me now as can carry
a two-hundred of flour for a mile without resting. Now there ain’t
a man in this room could do the same. I’m open to bet on it.” Mr.
Walker, like most modern Hercules, is much given to judging of a
man’s value by the amount of physical power he has at his command;
and this rule of the one time miner is not a bad one to go by, for as
a general thing the most practically useful members of society are
those strongest in wind and limb. _Mens sana in corpore sano._
Just as Mr. Walker closes his remarks a knock comes at the door, and
the manager’s favourite house-gin pops her red-turbaned head into the
room.
“What do you want now, Oola?” Mr. Browne sharply inquires of his
grinning handmaid.
The dark-skinned girl glides forward, keeping her long-fringed
eyelids turned bashfully towards the earthen floor, as the men stare
admiringly at her buxom figure, and then, lifting her beautiful soft
eyes to her owner’s face for a brief instant, remarks that “Charlie
bin come up,” and hands to the manager a piece of paper.
“Oh, a note from my brother Jim!” exclaims Manager Browne, looking
meaningly at Morth.
“Ah, anything fresh?” asks the gentleman addressed, his eyes
brightening. During the late controversy he has maintained a most
masterly neutrality.
“Tell you directly; if I can make out his pencil scrawl.”
After sundry screwings of the managerial eyebrows, and bendings of
the managerial back to the lamp upon the table, Mr. Browne ceases
snorting smothered anathemas at his relation’s bad handwriting, and
looking up motions with his finger the sub-inspector, whereupon both
men leave the room together.
“Thought it safer to speak to you out here, Morth,” observes the
manager, as soon as they are beyond earshot of the station-house.
The police officer replies by nodding his head, but remembering
immediately afterwards that it is too dark for Mr. Browne to see
this signal of acquiescence, he proceeds to convey his meaning by
observing, “Just as well.”
“I told you about the weaner,” goes on Mr. Browne, “that Jim found
speared last week up Agate Creek, didn’t I?”
“You did. Has Jim picked up any tracks yet?”
“Yes. It’s like this: I sent Jim out with a couple of ‘boys’ to see
if any of our beasts had gone over the Murdaro boundary. Well, he
writes to me he’s come across the tracks of a party of horsemen going
north. Thinks it is that explorer fellow who was stopping with Giles.”
“By Jingo! they’ll have a dry trip of it,” observes Morth, who has
just crossed a corner of the northern desert on his way to Borbong.
“Yes, but he’s picked up a Myall black,—to show him the water-holes,
I suppose. Jim noticed the beggar’s tracks besides the horse’s
hoof-marks, and guessed that it was a warragal, because if it had
been a station black he’d have ridden one of the spare horses.”
“That was smart of Jim,” remarks the police officer.
“Oh, the young ’un has got his head screwed on level. But to
continue: Jim ran the tracks back, and then sent for Bogie—the best
tracker we have—to have a look at them. Bogie spotted where three
niggers had come out of the scrub.”
“Ah!” interrupts Morth, with a laugh, “I’m glad I waited.”
“Bogie,” continues Mr. Browne, “knows every black’s track around, and
he swears that one of those which Jim found is that of a nigger who
cleared out from Murdaro lately; what was his name now? Never mind
that, however.”
“Oh, you mean that boy of Dyesart’s,” observes the sub-inspector.
“No, I don’t mean Billy—that was the name of Dyesart’s boy.” The
manager suddenly stops speaking, and smacks the palms of his hands
together,—an impromptu manifestation of delight, for a new idea
strikes him that satisfactorily clears up a mystery contained in his
brother’s note. “Why, _that_ explains it!”
“Explains what?”
“Why, don’t you see, what puzzled me was how this explorer got hold
of a Myall. They are pretty shy of whites. But I guess this Billy,
that you’ve just reminded me of, has been camped with some lot of
blacks about here, and has joined this party. Won’t Giles and Puttis
be mad; they’ve been raising Hades to get him. And he’s been camped
close by all the while! Ha!” Mr. Browne laughs out loud, and then
informs his friend how he has long suspected that there must be a
camp of runaway niggers in the direction where Jim has found the
tracks.
“You’d like me to take the ‘boys’ up there then, I suppose, before I
go on,” observes the police officer. “The clouds on the hills this
evening looked like rain. Nothing like a wet night for stalking a
camp, so many noises going on in the scrub.”
“No, old man, my idea’s this,” rejoins the manager, taking Morth’s
arm, and walking him back towards the house. “I’ll put Jim up to
letting Bogie and another good tracker we’ve got watch for these
blacks coming back into cover,—that they won’t go far with the
exploring expedition I’m pretty certain. I’ll arrange, in the
meantime, for the Bulla Bulla and Murdaro people to be ready to join
us, and we’ll clear all this end range; I’ve often intended to do it.”
“Will Giles turn out, d’you think?”
“Turn out?” exclaims Mr. Browne; “he’s the most energetic old cock I
ever came across where a nigger’s concerned. Besides, one of these is
a runaway of his. Oh, he’ll come fast enough!”
It is finally arranged for a select party of sportsmen to join
Morth and his troop upon the return of the three natives to the
scrub,—who, as our readers have no doubt already guessed, are Billy
and his village friends,—and thus, whilst combining the business of
exterminating sundry nests of human vermin with the exciting pastime
of a big game shooting party, at the same time assist to carry out
that line of Native Policy that obtains _to-day_ under the _régime_
of three out of five of the Australian Governments of Her Most
Gracious Majesty the Queen.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE GRAVE.
“Sleepe after toyle,
Port after stormie seas,
Ease after warre,
Death after life,
Doth greatly please.”
SPENSER’S “_Faërie Queene_.”
“It was there he fell, boss. He struck right on top of them gibbers
(stones). I caught at him, and fell too,—there’s the mark where I
struck the mud by the broken stem of that cooliebar there.”
It is Billy who is speaking, as, with tears in his eyes, and his
affectionate heart overflowing with genuine grief, he looks up at
the rugged cliffs and points out to Claude and Williams the place
where Dyesart met with his fatal fall.
On the ninth day out from Murdaro the expedition has reached the
long blue line of gum-trees, towards which it has been toiling since
daybreak across the desert plain. And here, at no great distance from
the little water-hole, near which the horses are now being unsaddled
by the rest of the party, Claude pays a first visit to the lonely
mound where, beneath a protecting cairn of stones and tree-stems, his
explorer-uncle has begun his long, well-earned rest. As the young
man stands there in the scanty shade of she-oaks and box-trees, a
thousand solemn thoughts gather around him. What strange power is
it that has seemed to guard and guide his footsteps so far in the
fulfilment of his appointed task? Will it pilot him to the end? And
what is to be the climax of this journey? By Claude’s side is Don,
who has filled out wonderfully since our hero found him a little waif
upon the Sydney streets. The boy, not having been enlightened as to
his parentage, still bears his old name, and Angland making more of
a companion of him since Billy’s discovery, has noticed with delight
that the youth, who by a strange procession of circumstances seems
likely to become his brother-in-law some day, is developing a kindly
disposition and an engaging manner.
Billy now arrives and unearths a small tin box, the contents of which
Claude feels much tempted to investigate forthwith; but, acting on
Williams’s advice, he postpones the operation, and determines to make
the most of what remains of the day in searching for the supposed
mine at the “Golden Cliffs,”—which our readers will remember as
being set down upon the secret map discovered by Angland on the
back of his uncle’s posthumous communication. About two miles from
the grave there rises, white and weird against the violet sky, a
barren, isolated mountain, or rather a collection of rugged peaks.
And thither, across the red, rock-strewn plain,—bounded by a phantom
sea of desert mirage,—the white men and Billy proceed, and, having
traversed the gentle slope that rises from the dried-up course of the
river to the hill, they now stand beneath the shadow of the rocks.
“And you carried my uncle all the way to the water, over those
gibbers, without once putting him down!” Claude exclaims, as he
stands wiping the moisture from his forehead at the summit of the
boulder-strewn glacis that surrounds the mount, and hears once more
the story of the accident. “Why, you were hurt yourself!”
“When I carry the doctor I _pikaued_ (Anglicé, carried) all I cared
about in the world. ’Spose that made it easy,” Billy replies simply,
and leaning his head upon his arms against a rock, he allows his
exuberance of emotion caused by the painful remembrance to wash
itself away in tears.
As Angland regards the weeping black he cannot but feel half ashamed
of his own want of feeling. “Surely this is rather incongruous,” he
thinks, “that Billy, who after all is only an aboriginal servant of
the dead man, should thus appropriate the position of chief mourner,
whilst I can look on with only a strange, solemn feeling in my heart,
and certainly with dry eyes. But it seems all like a dream to me. Of
course, however, with Billy it’s very different.”
Williams calls at this instant and disturbs the young man’s
meditations.
“Look here, Mr. Angland!” The old miner’s short, thick thumb points
to a copy of the secret map which he holds in his toil-worn hands.
“Here’s where we’ve got to go; follow the dotted line. Right up the
gully there.” The old man points to a narrow opening in the side of
the hill, not far from where they are standing.
“Yes, but we must find out where this place marked by the cross is,
Williams,—the point of departure, you know.”
“It’s here, lad. The doctor knew the boy’d lead us to where the
accident happened; and see, there’s the gully. A storm creek running
from some hollow in the hill I take it to be.”
Billy meanwhile observes what is going on with some considerable
surprise, for this is the first inkling he has received of the
existence of a map of the hill—so carefully had Dyesart apparently
guarded the secret that he wished only to reach his sister’s child.
The men now move on again, Williams leading, and enter a dark, gloomy
defile, the walls of which, rising to a height of some eighty feet,
are composed of rain-furrowed masses of hard, grey mud. Enormous
flakes and slabs of transparent gypsum protrude from the sun-dried
mass in places, and some of these, catching the rays of the afternoon
sun, blaze and scintillate like gems of priceless value. The gorge
is, in fact, just what Williams has termed it, a storm creek, and the
dark cliffs of hardened clay on either hand are formed of _débris_
which has washed down from an open basin or depression in the centre
of the mount.
After following the watercourse upwards for two or three hundred
yards, Claude and his companions find themselves in a great,
crater-like valley, about three hundred yards across, grey and
blasted, a picture of desolation. On all sides rise the sun-scarred
domes of mud-springs of various sizes, some of which are twenty feet
in height, but all appear non-active; in consequence, no doubt, of
the long drought. Around the valley, across which Williams proceeds
to lead the way, stopping here and there to consult his map or
examine a stone, is an encircling, battlemented array of strangely
weird and broken cliffs, some three hundred feet in height, of a
hard, flinty rock, varying in colour from light red to pure white.
At intervals along the scarped and tortured summit of the precipices
strange, turret-headed peaks rise like giant sentries posted upon the
heights to guard its sacred loneliness, and these, as the sun lowers
in the heavens, cast protracted shadows over the silent, ghastly
valley below. In many places heaps of honey-combed boulders of a
kind of quartzite, which have fallen from the overhanging cliffs,
form slopes that reach halfway up the walls of this wild-looking
amphitheatre, and here and there the explorers have to turn to avoid
the mysterious openings of vast, ancient fumaroles, whose orifices
and walls are grandly blotched with black, purple, and Indian-red
incrustations.
At last Williams comes to a halt where numerous nodules of
ironstone-clay litter the ground, and, turning towards Claude, places
his hand upon the young man’s shoulder, and whispers in a mysterious
and impressive manner “that them’s the ‘Golden Cliffs.’”
Stretching across the valley, and apparently barring further progress
in that direction, is a dark mass of brown and purple rock, which
Claude can see differs in many respects from the material of which
the other cliffs already passed are composed.
But why “golden”? There seems nothing, as far as he can judge, to
make the sombre pile—which appears to be some kind of ironstone
deposit—worthy of the auriferous title bestowed upon it on the map.
Claude’s heart sinks within him. He knows what a gold-bearing reef is
like; he has seen plenty in New Zealand, and some also about Cairns
and Mount Silver, but there is no trace of a reef here. But perhaps
Williams has made a mistake. The map is examined and re-examined
with the sole result of proving that the old miner has guided his
companions correctly. Then Claude begins, for the first time since he
started, to feel that he has been somewhat rash in going to all this
trouble, risk, and expense when after all the mysterious message from
his uncle may have been only the result of the feverish promptings of
a brain disordered by accident, and at the same time haunted with the
desire to leave something behind for that loved sister from whom he
had been estranged so long.
Neither can our young friend gather any comfort from either of his
companions, who, although far more experienced than he is with rocks
and minerals, seem also puzzled and disappointed. But happy is the
man who, under adverse circumstances, can gather fresh stores of
energy and strength such as now come to relieve Angland from the
desponding frame of mind into which the frowning, barren rocks have
plunged him for the moment. The memory of a loving, girlish face
comes like a peaceful messenger of hope to cheer yet softly chide
the heart that fails when it should be strong for her sake. And
Claude remembers that, however barren his journey through the desert
may prove in other ways, the strange message from the dead has been
the cause of his meeting Glory, at any rate, and a deep feeling of
thankfulness makes his heart glow with renewed determination and
courage.
At the foot of the cliffs Williams and Billy are closely examining
the rocks. The former, breaking off chips with a short-handled
prospecting pick, bends now and again to observe a likely fragment
with a pocket-lens; whilst close by the black boy is at work
shovelling up the sandy soil from between the fallen fragments of
stone with the blade of his tomahawk, winnowing the same cleverly
from hand to hand for the canary-coloured particles of heavy metal,
that, judging from the sulky look of the operator, have not yet come
to reward his busy efforts.
“What do you make of it?” Williams turns to Angland at the question,
and, carefully pocketing his lens, stands looking up at the cliff
with his arms akimbo.
“Well I’m blowed if I know, to tell you straight, Mr. Angland. I
don’t see nary a colour. Fact is, I’ve never seen anything like this
before.” As the old man speaks he affectionately pats a boulder by
his side. For just as an M.R.C.S. loves to meet an interesting and
complicated case of human infirmity, to correctly diagnose which will
redound to his credit in the scientific world, so does old Williams,
enthusiastic prospector and geologist that he is, feel quite a warm
regard for this strange mass of rock whose hidden secrets it is now
his business to unravel.
“It might be a big kind of gozzen out-crop,—the rock’s got a lot of
iron in it, there’s no doubt about that. An old mate of mine used to
say,—
“‘Es thut kein gang so gut
Er hat einen eisernen hut.’
He was a German, but a good miner for all that, and quite right about
an ‘iron hat,’ for them’s the best reefs. But,” Williams goes on as
he heaves a sigh, “blest if this is a real gozzen out-crop either.
And, moreover, it ain’t likely-looking to my thinking.”
“Well, it can’t be helped,” says Claude, watching the stalwart old
miner’s face with some amusement as he stands rubbing his stubby
chin, and screwing up his mouth and eyebrows, like some art-critic
engaged in reviewing an enormous piece of sculpture. “I’ll carry
out the instructions in the letter, and if it all turns out to be
nothing,—well, I can’t help it.”
Both men hear a shout at this instant, and Billy, who has climbed up
the cliff a little way, is seen waving excitedly to the white men,
and calling to them to follow him to his elevated perch. Claude is
not long in scrambling up, but he has to descend again to assist
Williams, whose knees are getting a bit stiff with age, although the
muscles of his arms and shoulders are as good as ever. Arrived at
Billy’s post of vantage, the black proudly shows them a remarkable
tunnel opening into the cliff: it has smooth, shiny walls, and is
evidently not the result of human labour.
“Look!” the dark youth shouts, stooping and pointing to the floor
of the cavern, upon which the winds of heaven have spread a thin
covering of desert sand; “look!”
A compound exclamation of surprise and annoyance bursts from two
pairs of lips, for there, stamped into the soft, yellow carpeting of
silicious particles, are the marks of numerous human feet. Not those
that wandering natives might have made, but boot-marks, and, what is
worst of all, apparently quite fresh.
“Somebody been here afore us,” exclaims Williams. Claude simply looks
downwards, and whistles a musical execration.
Billy, who stands behind, grins extensively as he sees the
discomfited faces of his white companions, and hesitates for the best
part of a minute before he proceeds to relieve their minds. Then he
whispers huskily,—
“That been the doctor come along here.”
“Dr. Dyesart! What on earth do you mean?” exclaims Claude excitedly,
as the wild hope of his uncle still being alive flashes through
his brain. Billy, like most persons possessed of some superior
instinct or talent, can hardly appreciate the fact that others may be
deficient in the same, so he grins again when he finds that the white
men are still unable to distinguish between an ancient and a recent
footmark.
“How long since my uncle was here?” asks Angland sharply. But our
hero’s hopes are dashed out of sight as Billy replies sadly,—
“He been dead over four months now.”
“How the dickens are these marks so recent then?”
“They very old, boss,” replies the black, and turning away, he
lights a match, and boldly leads the way into the black mouth of the
natural tunnel, which slopes downwards at an easy incline.
All the men are smokers, therefore provided with the means of
producing an impromptu illumination. Claude carries his matches,
after the fashion of most settlers in the New Zealand bush, in a
small but stout glass bottle,—the moist atmosphere of the Land of
Ferns rendering this precaution necessary,—and as he creeps after his
black guide, he examines the dark, glossy surface of the walls and
roof of the cave, which are covered with ripple-like corrugations.
The party has not proceeded far, when Claude slips upon a long,
smooth object lying across his path, and as he falls is horrified to
hear Billy, who is immediately in front, sing out that a snake has
bitten him. In an instant the party are in darkness. Williams has
tripped over Angland, and the black boy having leapt wildly upwards
against the rock overhead—with a force that would have demolished any
but an aboriginal skull—lies rubbing his head where he has rolled to,
which is some yards on in advance, for the tunnel descends pretty
steeply here.
To be left thus suddenly in perfect darkness, in a steep,
subterranean passage, with the dread possibility of coming in
contact at any moment with a furious and probably poisonous reptile,
which has just bitten one’s companion, is an awkward if not an
uncomfortable position to be placed in. But in addition to this
our friend Claude has had all his breath crushed out of him by the
superincumbent Williams. It is not surprising, therefore, that some
seconds, which appear minutes, elapse before a match is struck and
a light thrown upon the scene. It is then discovered, to the great
relief of poor Billy, and for the matter of that of all three men,
that the snake-bite which the dark youth is expecting every moment
to prove fatal has been occasioned by Claude, who, stepping upon a
dead bough, has caused it to turn over, and inflict a wound upon the
black’s hairy calf with the broken end of one of its lateral branches.
A few other pieces of wood being also found lying about, torches are
now manufactured; and by the extra amount of light thus procured, the
travellers discover that they are following a kind of tortuous, rocky
artery, from whose jetty sides numerous vein-like smaller channels
open in all directions. In places the tunnel widens, and the red
glare of the flames dances upon the polished surfaces of curious,
twisted columns, stalactite-like roof pendants, and marvellous
bunches of natural filigree-work.
“Well, this is a rum kind of diggings!” exclaims Williams presently.
“Did you ever see anything like this before in your travels, Mr.
Angland?”
“I was just thinking that it is a sort of black edition of some of
the limestone caves I’ve been in,” replies Claude, adding, “But
they’re as miserably wet and cold as this is hot and dry.”
The explorers have now been some fifteen minutes in the tunnel, and
the white men have decided to return, and prospect the cave further
upon the morrow, when Billy, who is some way on ahead, shouts
“Daylight!”
A minute afterwards and the party stand blinking their eyes on a kind
of undercliff, overhanging another valley, similar in some respects
to that which they have already traversed, but smaller in size and
with a much fairer aspect. For here and there trees and shrubs are
growing amongst the fallen rocks, and these, although stunted and
bleached-looking, convey a certain softening effect to the otherwise
wildly barren slopes. It is as if the goddess Flora had once smiled
into the valley of death long ages ago, and some of the gentle
radiance of her glance still remained behind to tell of her passing
visit. And there, too, are a couple of wallaby, of the rare black and
chestnut kind, skipping noiselessly away from the immediate vicinity
of the intruders, to sit motionless upon adjacent boulders, watching
with awful tameness the movements of these strange visitors who have
come to disturb them in their quiet domain.
On either side of the valley, which, sloping westward, opens upon
the desert plain below, rise the scarped and pinnacled buttresses of
great, crumbling granite cliffs. These grey heights are crowned with
a dark red stratum of rock, which Claude recognizes as part of the
desert sandstone formation, which has, in all probability, at one
period covered the greater portion of Northern Central Queensland.
It is now getting late in the day, so a council is held as to whether
to retire campwards by the road they have come, or by proceeding down
the valley to return on the outside of the hill, which they will then
have passed completely through. The latter route is quickly selected,
and the rosy tints of sundown are just beginning to stain the whole
landscape when our friends commence clambering over the boulders
towards the lower ground. The route selected lies over and amongst
enormous masses of coarse-grained porphyritic granite, from whose
weather-worn surfaces great square crystals of feldspar project,
catching the sun’s ruby rays and flashing them back amidst the glints
of light off flakes of ice-like mica. And Claude, looking round him,
thinks of the valley of gems into which Sinbad was carried by the
mighty Roc, and how, perhaps, Dr. Dyesart may have also recalled that
wondrous Eastern story, when he, the first and solitary explorer of
the mountain, saw the jewel-like crystals blazing round him on the
rocks. The descent to the valley is not by any means so _facile_ as
the bird’s-eye view taken from above seemed to promise; and a small
precipice presently necessitates our friends to travel along to the
left, beneath the undercliff upon which they had emerged when leaving
the tunnel. A hundred yards brings them to a great black buttress,
which, projecting from the cliff, threatens to bar the way. But the
active Billy, who declares he sees signs of the doctor having been in
that direction, soon finds a narrow ledge, and by its means the rocky
corner is safely rounded, after a rather risky passage. And here
the men are suddenly arrested in their further progress by a most
strangely beautiful sight.
A large portion of the cliff immediately before them, probably from
the action of some ancient earthquake, has fallen forwards into the
valley below, leaving exposed a bay or recess about three hundred
feet in height and nearly as much across. The walls of this kind
of alcove are formed of some dark rock, but here and there it is
blotched and clouded with an almost luminous coating of iridescent
colours—such as one sees on soap-bubbles and decaying glass—that
burns and shimmers in green, golden, and violet hues, as though a
hundred rainbows were trembling on the sombre surface of the mountain
steep.
Around the summit of the semi-circular precipice is suspended a kind
of rocky cornice composed of great icicle-like pendants, as if some
mighty torrent of lava plunging over the cliff had suddenly cooled in
mid-air and become converted into stone.
Some of these o’erhangings appear to be tipped with burnished copper,
others with silver, others again shine bright and golden against
the dark, purple shadows behind. And all of them in the evening
light—which bathes the whole scene with a soft crimson veil—glow
and blush like molten drops of metals oozing from the edge of the
wonderful rocky valance above.
Some little time elapses before the men have recovered sufficiently
to speak; and then it is the sun which, sinking with true tropical
celerity, releases them from the enthralling beauty of the scene.
And, as the glowing hues fade into cold indigo shadow, each
individual member of the party experiences that curious emotion—a
mixed feeling of relief and disappointment—which some of our readers
may remember to have been keenly sensible of, when, as children, the
green-baize curtain dropped slowly upon the limelit fairyland of
their first pantomime.
Then are three tongues unloosed, and three pair of legs hurry their
owners toward the darkening cliffs.
Claude, being gifted with a scientific and artistic mind, forgets
to think about the practical value of the discovery, and exclaims
characteristically, “That _is_ beautiful! I wonder what’s the cause
of those colours!”
Billy, remembering the prismatic tints of a material sulphide known
to miners by the name of “peacock ore,” concludes that what lies
before him is an immense deposit of the same, and shouts gleefully,
“Copper!” To which Williams, who likes to have a good-humoured “dig”
at his black companion when he advances any opinion upon mining
matters, observes “Grandmother!” and further explains, for Claude’s
benefit, “that them colours are iron oxides. Couldn’t think at first
where I’d seen the same kind of thing before,” he adds, as he stoops
to pick up a piece of stone, “but I recollect now. It was just the
same as this here on the top of Mount Morgan, when they first opened
up the top bench, only on a much smaller scale.”
“Mount Morgan eh!” exclaims Claude, as he hears the old authority at
his side compare this discovery of theirs to the richest goldmine in
Australia.
“Oh, don’t you jump to conclusions yet, Mr. Angland,” observes
Williams, whose lengthy experience amongst those most disappointing
affairs, goldmines, has left him incapable of putting any faith in
one till he has fully examined it. “Many a man’s burnt his fingers
with the idea that because stone resembles the Mount it’s auriferous.
It don’t follow in the least.”
It is late when the men reach camp, but, tired as he is, Claude
spends the greater part of the night in making assays of the
specimens of stone brought back from the mount; and so interested
are Williams and Billy in the experiments that they sit round the
blazing logs with him, keeping up a running fire of mining anecdotes,
and lending him a hand, when he requires it, at pounding pieces of
stone to powder in a big iron mortar with a heavy pestle, called
technically a “dolly.”
Having Angland’s diary before us as we write, we perhaps cannot do
better than copy an extract therefrom which was, apparently, written
on the next evening to that on which our friends discovered the now
famous “Golden Cliffs”:—
“Weather: fine, clear, hot.
“Barometer: 29·250, 29·350.
“Thermometer: 72, 84, 91.
“Minimum last night: 52.
“Spent day prospecting ‘Golden Cliffs.’ There is no doubt but that,
like Mount Morgan, the formation there is the result of a vast
thermal spring, and what I took to be a hollow in the cliffs is
the half of the old basin, the other half having fallen into the
valley. My rough assays made last night of the best specimen of
stone, gave a result of about fifteen ounces to the ton.
“By grinding the stone very fine under water, in an agate mortar I
have fortunately brought with me, I can obtain more than half the
gold in the stone, as shown by assay. Neither W. or B. can obtain a
colour by means of the ordinary panning process. Williams says this
is what he expected, but he is one of those worldly-wise people who
seldom venture an opinion till they are certain to be right.
“Our Myalls say the name of the Mountain is _Pillythilcha
Doolkooro_, which seems to mean, according to Billy, the Valley of
Glowing Charcoal. There appears to be a belief amongst the blacks
that the place is the abode of _Kootchie_, or devils; also that all
men are unlucky who go near the hill, and those who venture into
its secret valleys will surely die. Billy and Williams both agree,
for a wonder, that there is a strong probability of this being the
Sacred Hill, that, according to them, is believed in by the natives
throughout Australia as the place from which _Moora-moora_, the
native Supreme Being, will some day arise to protect them from the
cruelties of the white settlers.
“To-morrow Williams leaves for Palmerville to register claim, and
on his return I shall go to Murdaro with Don. Killed a big black
snake just now which had crept under my blankets.”
CHAPTER XX.
A “DISPERSING” PARTY.
“Greet her with applausive breath,
Freedom gaily doth she tread;
In her right a civic crown,
In her left a human head.”
Inspector Puttis, N.M.P., is pacing the verandah of Borbong
head-station house. The hour is early, and although the active little
man was one of the liveliest of last night’s party of bronzed and
loud-voiced men, who held wild carousal till the “wee, sma’ hours,”
he is up betimes, as usual, to enjoy a cup of tea in the cool morning
air, and issue instructions for the day to the “boys” of his troop.
The loose verandah boards creak under his diminutive Wellington
boots, as with military strut he marches to and fro; and each time
he reaches the end of his beat and right-about-faces to move back
again, a sable crow upon a native orange tree hard by, who is acting
as sentry to some feathered thieves by the kitchen door, raises his
hoarse voice in a warning _caw_.
The Inspector’s head is bent forward, and after a custom of his when
thinking deeply, he carries his hands folded behind his back. This
morning they rest upon an empty revolver case, suspended from the
wide, white-leather belt which he always wears when upon active duty.
If the man before us would only cease frowning at the boards, and,
arranging his thoughts, give us the benefit of the same in words,
they would probably be after this fashion:—
“Yes, I don’t see how he can miss me this time. And the risk is not
so very great, as we shall have rain enough to-night, or to-morrow
at furthest, to drown any tracks. I will take his horses away; then
either himself, or one, perhaps two, of the blacks, will have to go
after them. The rest will be easy. If his body ever is found, and
it’s not likely, they will think he was in the black camp and got
shot there, and, as everybody round about here will have a finger in
that affair, nobody will dare to make a fuss about it.”
A loud flapping of wings, as the crows at the back of the house fly
off at the approach of footsteps, now arouses the Inspector from his
meditations.
“Ah, Yegerie!” he says, as his black orderly presents himself, and
stands “attention” after duly saluting his officer.
“Why didn’t you report yourself here to me directly you arrived?”
Puttis adds, for, casting a rapid glance at the boy, the
Inspector—having almost as sharp an eye as the best tracker in his
troop—has discovered some wood ashes upon the new arrival’s boots.
Yegerie, who has just returned from doing a piece of special duty,
has waited to warm his cold, stiff fingers at the camp-fire before
hobbling out his horse, and he trembles now before the master who
seems to see and know everything. Inspector Puttis does not appear
to expect his black trooper to answer the question put to him, but
marches up the verandah and back again. Then he halts opposite
Yegerie, and examines him as to how he has performed instructions
given him.
“Everything right?”
“All lite, Marmie,” replies the boy, saluting again. “Mine bin come
up werry slow. Mine bin come longer ribber. No leabe it any tracks”
(Anglicé, All right. I have been delayed by following up river bed,
in order to leave no tracks).
“What tracks you see?”
“I bin see tracks longer six yarraman. I bin catch it; see um mob” (I
have seen the tracks of six horses. I have seen also the party). “I
bin see one white beggar, one pickaninnie white beggar, three black
beggar. One fellow Myall, him make it the walk all about longer mob”
(One wild black walked alongside the party).
“Ah, that’s right! Who’s on guard at the camp?”
“Sambo and Dick, Marmie.”
“Run ring round camp. Report to me if you see a track directly.
That’ll do. Dismiss.”
The boy salutes and disappears silently.
We pause here to explain that on the vast majority of up-country
runs the native station-hands reside in villages of huts, built
by themselves in close proximity to the head and out stations. No
other aborigines are allowed even to cross the run, far less to live
on it. On the arrival of a “rounding-up” party or a police troop
at a station, a guard is generally placed over the station black
camp, to prevent any of its inhabitants giving the alarm to such
runaway blacks, or Myalls, who may be camped—in contravention of
the squatter’s decrees—in the vicinity. The police officer has just
commanded Yegerie to walk round the camp and see if there are any
signs of such a messenger having escaped the sentries and set out
during the night.
Half an hour passes, and then the musical clatter of cups and plates
is heard in the dining-room, as the breakfast things are laid—or, to
speak more accurately, flung—upon the long table, in serried rows, by
a laughing, chattering bevy of dark-skinned damsels belonging to Mr.
Manager Browne’s harem.
There are few up-country bachelor squatters but solace themselves for
the absence of white ladies by indulging their leisure moments in the
society of a private, selected circle of native girls—popularly known
as the “stud gins.” Many of these dark-eyed houris are remarkably
handsome, and after a year or two at “Government House” they are
relegated to the black camp for the use of the black and white
station-hands.
But to return to Inspector Puttis. With his usual abstemiousness he
drank but little last evening, and his nerves are in perfect order
for the day’s, or rather night’s, work before him. He is, of the
whole “rounding-up” party collected beneath the hospitable roof of
Borbong head-station house, the only one that feels much inclined for
breakfast that morning.
So when Charlie, the clean, yellow-faced Chinese cook, informs him
that the morning meal is “all lie” (Anglicé, all right, or ready),
he turns immediately towards the glass-door of the dining-room. But
just then the rattle of a buggy coming at a furious pace towards the
station arrests his attention, and he waits to see who is so rash as
to drive so fast over the rough ground.
“Giles, for a tenner!” he mutters half out loud; “no other fool would
drive like that.”
The dust cloud occasioned by the arrival of the vehicle presently
subsides, and, amidst a crashing of breakers suddenly applied and a
volley of blasphemy, a pair of reeking horses are pulled back on to
their haunches. Then a red-faced, burly form clambers slowly down
from the trap, and after kicking an attendant “boy” gives him some
directions, and waddles hurriedly towards the house.
“Well, Puttis, I’ve found you at last.”
“Morning, Giles. Want me particularly?” inquires the police officer.
“Want you? Yes, by Jupiter! Haven’t I driven all night from Bulla
Bulla to try and catch you?”
“Indeed!” observes the smaller man, keenly observing the excited face
of Mr. Giles, as he mops it with a red silk handkerchief. “Come in
and have a nip.”
The squatter half turns, by force of custom, towards the door, then
he stops, and says hurriedly, “No, I won’t. Here, come outside. I
want to speak to you first.”
“You’ve had good news, Giles,” remarks the Inspector, his sun-dried
cheeks wrinkling up into a grin, and exposing his large, canine teeth.
“How the devil do you know?”
“Never mind, old friend. What have you to tell me?”
The men stroll out by the kitchen garden, where Giles takes a seat
upon a low, rustic gate, beneath a sweetly scented gum-tree. Looking
nervously round about to be sure that they are alone, the owner of
Murdaro turns to his companion, and in a low voice asks, “What have
you done about Angland?”
“Nothing,” replies the Inspector; adding hurriedly, “Did you tell
Miss Mundella you were coming to see me?”
“Thank the Lord, I’m in time!” exclaims Giles, quite ignoring
the question put to him. “Now, listen ter me, Puttis, and don’t
interrupt. Firstly, you mustn’t interfere with Angland. I’ll explain
why directly. Secondly, I’m going to repudiate my agreement with
Lileth.”
“Stay!” exclaims Puttis, half shutting his eyes and causing his
parchment cheeks to warp once more into a sardonic smile. “In that
case, must make fresh bargain.”
The low, wooden gate groans beneath Mr. Giles, as he shakes his podgy
sides with a series of defiant laughs, which he raps out with a
double, postman’s-knock-like abruptness.
“Ah!” thinks Inspector Puttis, looking at him, “he has the air of a
man who holds good cards. Wonder what his game is?”
“I am going to repudiate my agreement,” repeats Mr. Giles. “I am
going to repudiate everything.” His voice grows more cheerful and
confident as he proceeds to disclose his intentions. “And if you’re
the sensible chap I take you ter be, you’ll just listen ter what I’ve
got ter say.”
The police officer leans over the low gate, and, nodding his head as
a sign that he agrees to keep silent, prepares to listen. “I’ve had a
letter from Angland,” the squatter continues, “which has altered my
opinions of him. He writes from Palmerville to say he’s just returned
from where that—where Dyesart the explorer pegged out.” The sonorous
clanking of a bullock-bell, the signal for breakfast, here interrupts
the speaker. “There’s tucker ready, so I’ll cut short what I was
going to say. Angland writes to say he finds as I’m indebted to him,
as heir to Dyesart, for a large amount; but don’t intend pressing me,
as was his uncle’s wish. And then, blow me if he don’t say that he
wants to marry Glory! When I told the gal blessed if she didn’t seem
to expect it. And lastly, what d’yer think of this? If he ain’t found
my little Georgie!” The speaker’s sensual face looks almost handsome
for an instant, as a momentary blaze of parental pride and love warms
the sinful old heart. “Yes, he’s found my little Georgie as I lost
six year ago!”
In the excitement caused by disclosing the news of the discovery of
his long-lost son and heir, Mr. Giles springs from the gate, and
after performing a short _pas seul_ upon the ground,—much resembling
the clumsy prancings of a pole-prodded street bear,—he turns to
Puttis, and suddenly seizing his hand wrings it violently.
“How did _he_ get hold of boy?” asks the Inspector, as the squatter
resumes his seat upon the gate.
“Oh, I’ll tell you all about that another time.” Mr. Giles’s face has
resumed its ponderously would-be cunning expression as he goes on:
“Not only that, but it appears Dyesart had just discovered a whacking
big mountain of gold, or something of the sort, up there, just before
he kicked the bucket,—a sort of second Mount Morgan, and I’m to have
a share in it.”
Inspector Puttis faces round at this, and beneath the stern,
determined stare of the little man, Mr. Giles feels and looks very
uncomfortable.
“Congratulate you on your luck. Lost son restored. Rich son-in-law.
Debts forgiven. But,”—the police officer grins as he growls the next
words,—“but you’ll not forget your friends? Awkward rather if Angland
should happen to hear of your late contract with your niece, eh?”
“We won’t have a row about it!” exclaims Giles weakly, avoiding the
Inspector’s gaze; “why should we? And look here,” he adds in a tone
in which the bully gradually becomes discernible,—“look here, I’ve
got copies of certain letters you’ve received from Lileth about
Angland. Ah! that’s got you, has it? And I can prove you received
them, that’s more. You can’t prove I had anything to do with ‘this
arrangement,’ as Lileth calls it. I defy you to do it.”
“Don’t try it, old friend,” observes Puttis, pulling his moustache;
“don’t try it. I’ve got the ‘joker’ to play yet. Don’t forget that.”
“You mean my nephew,” responds Giles. “I’ve squared him all right.
And I can prove, moreover, that it was you got him a hiding-place at
Ulysses. Can you beat that?”
“Yes!” hisses Puttis, whose inventive genius is only equalled by
a valuable faculty he possesses for bringing all kinds of novel
resources to his aid upon an emergency arising. “D’you remember the
musical box Miss Mundella received from Brisbane a month ago?”
“What has that got ter do with all this?” asks Giles, looking in a
puzzled way at the calm, firm face that is grinning coolly up at him.
“Well, old friend, musical box all sham. ’Twas a phonograph. All your
talk taken down. Even your swear words.” The speaker pauses a moment,
then adds, “Have another card to play. Do you want it?”
Mr. Giles remembers the fact of a so-called musical box having
arrived at Murdaro, which Lileth had informed him, and with perfect
truth, had been broken in coming up from the coast, and would not
play. Like all ignorant persons, he has an almost superstitious dread
of the more modern appliances, of which he has read such wonderful
stories in that sole source of his information regarding the outside
world, the weekly press. It never for a moment enters his head that
Puttis is “bluffing him,” to use a colonial term. Giles has been
flattering himself up to this minute that he is at last free from
the machinations of his tyrant niece, and the horrible thought that
she has still got him in her power, and can reproduce his late
conversations with her by means of a phonograph, so flurries his
loosely strung brain, that for a time he becomes quite unable to see
that, for their own sakes, neither Puttis nor Lileth are likely
to take that step, even if it were in their power to do so. It is
not so much that he fears how he might suffer in body or estate at
the hands of Angland, should his villainies be made patent; but
rather a sneaking, cowardly horror of what his circle of squatter
acquaintances would think of him, should they discover by means of
this threatened _exposé_, how he, Giles, the man who has always
loudly affected to consider woman as an inferior creation, has been
all this time guided, even governed, by one—and a young one at that.
Before a minute has elapsed, however, the squatter has recovered
considerably from the effects of the shock that Puttis’s words have
dealt him, and his wits are sharpened by the very desperateness of
his position.
“That’s mighty clever of you both, that is,” Giles says, with an
attempt at a careless laugh—which breaks down as he catches sight of
the Inspector’s watchful, grinning face. “Look here, though this plan
of yours might hurt me with Angland, what good will it do you? You’ll
all be in for conspiracy to defraud.”
“Pshaw!” exclaims Miss Mundella’s _fiancé_, “Angland won’t prosecute
his father-in-law. We stand behind the father-in-law. But here’s
Browne coming to drag us in to breakfast. Say, what about deed of
partnership in run for Lileth? Must I play my joker?”
“I’m going to repudiate all that, I tell you,” replies Giles
doggedly. “If you’re fools enough to bring it into Court, I’ll swear
I was drunk or something.”
Inspector Puttis grins again, and, drawing an imaginary card from
his pocket, leans forward as if to play it, and speaks in a low,
hurried voice, for Mr. Browne is slowly approaching.
“Once upon a time there was a stockman on Nango run; let me see, he
was head-stockkeeper if I remember rightly. He had a sister, and her
only fault was a blind devotion to the interests of her brother. She
was——”
“Curse you, what d’you mean?” gasps Giles, going through the
eye-bulging and general inflammatory symptoms which we have already
had occasion to describe.
“The owner and manager of Nango at this time,” continues Puttis in a
louder voice, for Mr. Browne, seeing his friends are evidently busy,
has moved away again, “at this time was a wealthy young man, who had
been bred and born to believe in the Jewish system of salvation.” Mr.
Giles continues silent, though breathing stentoriously. “A successful
trick was played upon the Hebrew squatter.”
“Don’t go too far,” gasps Giles, adding pleasantly, “or I’ll wring
your blooming neck.”
“I won’t risk it, old friend,” laughs Puttis coolly. “I’ve shown you
corner of card. How d’you like it?”
Mr. Giles does not appear anxious to criticise the appearance of the
figurative “joker,” and remains silent.
“If things must go to Court,” the Inspector continues in a careless
tone of voice, “we’d have to show a reason why you should have
made present to Lileth of share,—a _quid pro quo_. Now, a certain
agreement made between her mother and you would nicely suit our
purposes. I think you take my meaning.”
Both men again remain silent for a time, then Inspector Puttis
closes the interview with the following words, by which he routs his
opponent entirely, “You know me, Giles; I don’t shirk at the hurdles.
If too high I’ll break the timber. Now Lileth’s entitled to this
share and more. I’m not very partial to half-bred Jewesses generally,
but this one I know to be an heiress, although she’s not aware of it
herself. Besides, she’s the niece of a very dear old friend.” The
little man grins up at his big victim, with the same kind of smile
that no doubt a small spider puts on, could we but catch it doing so,
when in the act of putting the finishing turns to the silken hammock
in which it has managed to swaddle an intrusive blue-bottle.
“Yes, friend Giles, I’ve started on last lap. Don’t stand in the way.
Will be worse for you. Don’t want to tell Lileth how she came to be
heiress. Would spoil my chance with her. Would hate me. Secret need
never be unearthed. But if you attempt repudiation, or Lileth goes in
for jilting me when she gets her own again, then out comes my trump
card, my little ‘joker.’ Now, old friend, let’s go to breakfast. Hope
you’ve got a good appetite.”
An hour after this conversation, Inspector Puttis despatches a native
trooper with orders to recall two others, who are watching a party of
horsemen approaching Borbong run.
After some clever manœuvring the “boy”—known officially as Native
Constable Dick—succeeds in discovering his fellows, without
attracting the attention of any of the members of the cavalcade
which has been under their surveillance, and the three blacks return
together stationwards. Not long afterwards the travellers, who are
Claude, Don, Joe, and the two desert trackers, prepare to camp just
within the Borbong boundary, by a water-hole lying in the course of
Agate Creek. Close by on their right hand rise the dark, bush-draped
heights of the rocky promontory forming the boundary between Murdaro
and Borbong runs, in whose fastnesses Billy had waited for Claude’s
coming.
“Big fellow rain come alonger night, _muckerie_” (Anglicé, heavy rain
to-night, friend), observes General Gordon to Don, as the two return
from hobbling out the horses; and the white youth, to whom Claude
has decided to impart the secret of his birth upon the morrow, goes
straightway and informs our hero what the native meteorologist has
prophesied.
“Well, we’ll have to put up with wet jackets, my boy,” answers
Angland, “for Billy and Williams have got our tents with them at the
mine. But perhaps,” he adds, looking at the darkening cliffs, “we’ll
be able to get a dry roost for the night up there somewhere, if there
are any caves about. Tell Gordon I want him.” The black villagers,
whose hamlet is only some four miles distant, fortunately know of a
suitable shelter, and soon the party are spreading their blankets
beneath an overhanging, smoke-discoloured slab of granite, some fifty
feet above the plain. Down below, beyond the water-hole, the horses
are feeding upon a patch of herbage, whence comes the musical jangle
through the darkness of a solitary bell, which is clanking against
old Rupert’s busy jaws.
Claude feels very happy as, forming one of the picturesque group
round the fire, he sits smoking beneath the rocky portico.
To-morrow, all being well, he will feast his eyes and soul in the
presence of the girl he loves so well; to whom, blessed thought, he
can now, being wealthy, approach honourably as a suitor for her hand
and heart. To-morrow he will see his little friend Don—now “George,”
but always to be Don to him—welcomed to a home where a parent and
sister await him. To-morrow, taking his uncle’s cloak upon his
shoulders, he will begin the great Work of Humanity to which the dead
explorer has asked him to dedicate half of the vast wealth of the
“Golden Cliffs.”
To-morrow the wonderful prophecy concerning the mysterious
_Pillythilcha Doolkooro_—whispered and repeated for many cruel years
by trembling slaves and fugitives in tireless camps—will begin its
humanizing fulfilment: a bright to-morrow of mercy for the unhappy
race that Dyesart had pitied, beginning with the emancipation and
protection of the villagers who had succoured the doctor’s faithful
servant Billy—without whose devoted courage and assistance the
“Valley of Glowing Embers” would still be waiting for a hand to rouse
the great slumbering Moora-moora to defend His children.
Claude sits smoking long after his companions have fallen asleep,
for his brain is far too busy with happy thoughts for it to become
drowsy. By-and-by he notices that Gordon’s prognostications are
about to be fulfilled, and rain-clouds are flying across the starlit
heavens from the north-east,—dark, shadowy masses of vapour, “like
flocks of evil birds,” heralding an approaching thunderstorm.
“If the creek rises we shall be cut off from the horses,” thinks
Claude, as he hears the awe-inspiring mutterings of thunder echoing
down the valley.
“Suppose I must go out and turn the brutes back this way myself,”
he says to himself, adding in a louder voice, “Here, Joe, you young
rascal. Come, turn out and lend me a hand.” But the youngster sleeps
on, or pretends to do so, and Angland, hearing the heavy drops of
rain that, like skirmishers before the advance guard of the shower,
begin to pat, pit-pat, plop around, thinks that it is a pity to
disturb the boy, and determines to go alone, as the horses are at no
great distance, and so save the youth a ducking.
Angland therefore rakes up the fire into a blaze, so that it may
serve as a beacon to guide him on his way back to the camp, and as he
steps forth into the darkness he hears the buzz of a heavy tropical
rainfall coming nearer and nearer over the forest leaves.
Stumbling down the hill the best way he can in the darkness, over
awkward boulders and through detaining brushwood, Claude soon finds
himself upon the plain. The horse-bell sounds delightfully near
at hand, and crossing the bed of the creek with some difficulty,
he finds it already knee-deep in water, although quite dry when
he passed it three hours before. Another minute or two and he is
alongside of the bell-horse, and by stooping can distinguish the
heads of several of the others standing out against the lighter sky
on the horizon like inferior silhouettes. Then, as if some one had
pulled the string of an enormous shower-bath suspended in the great
black cloud overhead, down comes the rain in one mighty cataract
that floods the plain around with tons of water per acre in as
many seconds,—a true tropical shower that will fill the half-empty
water-holes in a few minutes to overflowing. It is not long, however,
before the downfall lessens in violence, and then, using old Rupert
as a blind, Claude drifts gradually towards the other horses, which
are momentarily revealed by the white glare of lightning flashes.
Some of the animals are naturally rogues at any time, and now are
doubly difficult to approach, having become timid and treacherous
under the combined effects of heaven’s fiery and watery display.
After a hard fight, however, a series of highly scientific strategic
movements brings the work of unhobbling to a close, and mounting his
own mare barebacked, which Claude knows he can reckon on as a good
swimmer, he drives the little mob of horses across the level ground,
now six inches deep in water, towards the river. An almost constant
succession of lightning flashes shows to the rider the frightened
animals before him for the first hundred yards,—then, suddenly, the
electric display ceases, and the rain pours sullenly down; and Claude
finds himself sitting on a wet, trembling steed in perfect darkness,
without the slightest idea of which direction he ought to pursue in
order to find the camp, whose fire he has long lost sight of.
Our young friend, whose bush experience has not been lengthy enough
to teach him to trust his steed rather than himself in such an
emergency, now goes through the usual bewildering tactics of a new
“hand.” One minute pushing on hurriedly, the next stopping to listen
for Rupert’s bell, anon trying to retrace his steps, till he is
completely lost, and as cold and miserable as he was jolly and warm
half an hour before.
By-and-by the storm begins to withdraw from off the face of the sky
like the black edge of a magic-lantern slide, and a patch of starlit
heaven shows towards the east, shining all the brighter apparently
for having had such a washing.
Claude now gradually makes out that he is close under a cliff, and
strains his eyes into the darkness to see more; when, hiss! and the
blackness before him is suddenly dissolved into fire. A blue-white
column of flame has leapt from the cloud above and struck the earth
close in front with frightful force, and everything around whirls
into sparks, chaos, then silent darkness.
For, unconscious of the mighty crash of thunder that, like a thousand
exploding shells, follows instantly upon the flash, Claude is lying
stunned and bleeding beneath a tree against which his frighted steed
has thrown him, on the other side of the valley to that where his
camp amongst the rocks is situated.
CHAPTER XXI.
FATE’S AVENGING HAND.
“Thou hast said well; for some of you there present,
Are worse than devils.”
_The Tempest._
Taking advantage of the storm whose parting fusillade has left Claude
_hors de combat_ for the time being, Manager Browne’s “rounding-up”
party, under the skilful generalship of Inspector Puttis and
Sub-Inspector Morth, has completely invested the native village upon
the rocky promontory.
It is made up of strange constituents, this murderous shooting party.
Squatter J.P.’s are there; youthful “rouse-abouts,” some of these
youngsters only a few years released from the sanctified thraldom of
a Christian home in the old country; reckless, godless stockmen; a
colonial legislator, who has made a name by howling for separation
from England; and numerous blacks, oiled, naked, and anxious for
their work to begin.
There, in the darkness, around the unconscious villagers, amongst
wet, dripping rocks and slimy brushwood, crouches a bloodthirsty
circle of Native Constables, naked, save for a cartridge-belt and
a red band round the head, and armed with Snider carbines and
tomahawks; and with them are a number of no less sanguinary white men.
Regardless of the majestic fury of the roaring elements overhead,
of the heavy, drenching rain, of dangerous snakes and poisonous
thorns, and with the fierce, sweet love of slaughter warming each
individual’s heart with its terrible excitement, the cruel cordon has
shrunk its wreath of death nearer and nearer around its slumbering
prey; and now some thirty pair of eyes are watching the small glimmer
of the black camp-fire, and thirty fingers itch to pull the smooth,
cold triggers against which they rest.
On all sides is the noisy dropping of water from the leaves, and
occasionally a dead bough, sodden with moisture, and thus suddenly
grown heavy, breaks from its parent tree, and crashes through the
underwoood with startling echoes.
But it is not our purpose to describe the sickening scene of murder
and rapine that follows, when towards four o’clock Inspector Puttis
gives the revolver shot signal to commence the holocaust. We have
already rendered to our readers a faithful account of a similar
occurrence in an earlier chapter. To those gentlemen who, taking a
special interest in such kinds of sport, have honoured our pages
by perusing the same, we will respectfully point out that they can
obtain their fill of it by making their way to up-country Australia.
Partly for the benefit of such “sports,” and partly for another class
of reader, our publishers have deemed the late Dr. Dyesart’s map of
the “Wicked Island” worthy of reproduction with this our narrative of
his nephew’s adventures.
So, instead of “potting” a few “buck” niggers, or tomahawking a
woman or child, or otherwise assisting the police (Queensland Native
Mounted) in the execution of their duty, let us follow Mr. Wilson
Giles and watch his movements and actions, which more nearly affect
our story.
It having been reported to Mr. Morth that a party of runaway “boys”
are encamped a few miles from where he is assisting his senior
officer in the development of his plan of attack, the sub-inspector,
taking a few native troopers with him, starts off to investigate
matters in this new direction, being accompanied by Mr. Giles and a
few other gentlemen.
After a dark ride of an hour the party reach the cliffs which Claude
Angland has descended only a few hours before, and, leaving their
horses with a couple of station-hands, creep silently through the
shadows after their black guide.
Presently each man feels, rather than hears, the whispered order to
halt, and Mr. Morth glides forward like a snake to reconnoitre.
As ill-luck would have it, at the time when the police officer raises
his keen eyes above the edge of a sheltering rock that commands a
view of the camp, the only members of Angland’s party in sight are
General Gordon and the Myall black, whose friends, a short distance
off in the village, are in like imminent peril to themselves. Both
are naked; for having discovered Claude’s absence, and guessing
something of what has happened, they are about to set forth in
search of him. Don and Joe lie in the deep shadow of the rock and
are invisible; neither does the feeble illumination afforded by
the wood embers reach the blankets, pack-bags, and other civilized
impedimenta, and warn the scout that what he takes for a warragal
camp is at present occupied by the “boys” and belongings of a white
man.
On the other hand, Morth recognizes Gordon, as he stoops over the
fire for an instant to light his pipe, as a runaway from Murdaro
Station. So crawling backwards to his waiting friends and troopers,
he commences to arrange them quietly round his intended prey.
The early morning sky is now clear and star-studded, and in another
hour or two another day will have begun.
The men creep forward amongst spiny grass trees, rocks, and
tree-stems, but are not yet in position, when, above the roar of the
creek hard by and multitudinous noises of a water-laden scrub,—all
veiling the approach of the foe from the occupants of the granite
shelter,—comes the muffled sound of a distant rifle volley.
The stalkers hear it as they slink through the darkness, and know
that their friends have commenced their work of destruction at the
village. The runaway “boy” Gordon and his Myall friend hear it also,
and guessing its fearful import spring to their feet and stand
trembling to listen, as the faint echoings of a few more single shots
follow the first discharge.
The tall black forms of the aborigines before the firelit granite
background offer too tempting a pair of targets for certain of the
younger members of the attacking party to be able to further restrain
their sportsmanlike proclivities.
Out from the blackness two rifles spit forth their ringing, sparkling
tongues of flame, and Gordon, leaping upwards without a cry, tumbles
forward into the shadow of the rocks below the camp.
Then the crash and blaze of many rifles follow, as other figures,
startled and hesitating in which direction to escape, are seen moving
past the fire.
Mr. Giles, who is the nearest of Morth’s party, covers one black form
rapidly and pulls the trigger. As he does so the cliff echoes with a
wild, boyish scream of mingled agony and terror.
There is something so piercing in that note of anguish, something
that seems so like some echo from the past, that hardened as the
squatter is by a large previous experience of such scenes, he feels a
passing pang of remorse tapping at his heart strings.
Morth and the other men are scrambling back down the hill; some
making for the horses, others for the creek. For, as though bearing
a charmed life, the Myall, having hitherto escaped unhurt from the
hail of bullets aimed at him, is now bounding over the plain with the
speed of an antelope towards the river’s angry tide.
Giles thus left alone—for he is not the kind of man to hurry after
the others—reloads, and then turns to descend the cliff; but
something makes him alter his mind, and without knowing exactly why,
he clambers up to the ledge whereon his victim is lying.
As the squatter’s head rises on a level with the camp, he starts as
if he had been bitten by a snake; for the dull-red glare of the fire
shines upon pack-bags, blankets, billies, and other objects, that
tell him at once that a terrible mistake has been made, and that this
is no wild blacks’ camp, but that of some party of travellers.
Then fearful thoughts begin to paint a vivid prophecy in his mind of
what is to follow.
And forgetful of his age and the stiffness of his limbs, he drags
himself frantically upwards, till, upon the granite platform, he
sinks upon his knees where two little forms lie almost side by side
before the glowing embers.
Then, as if mocking the horrified wretch’s agonizing fears, the fire
flares up before the rising morning breeze, and upon the side of a
leathern satchel suspended from a bough hard by he reads the name of
Claude Angland.
A sickening odour, resembling roasting pork, is beginning to make the
air heavy around, and a little pulseless black hand lies cooking on
the ashes. But Giles sees nothing with his staring eyeballs but one
small, pallid face, that even in the ruddy light of the fire lies
white as marble upon the dead body of a ragged-coated dog.
No need for Giles to search for the marks by means of which Billy and
Claude had discovered the identity of the long-lost child.
With fearful, awful clearness the distracted man sees his dead wife’s
features in those childish ones now gasping at his feet.
A groan bursts from his lips,—the deep moan of a soul too paralyzed
with torture to feel further torment for a time.
Raising the child into a sitting posture, Giles madly tries, with
shaking fingers, to wipe away the dreadful froth that is oozing from
poor Georgie’s mouth.
As he does so, his touch seems to rekindle, for a moment, the waning
spark of life within the boy’s fragile frame. The pallid lips open to
gasp out their last words on earth, and Giles, bending to catch them,
hears Don murmur,—
“Don’t ’it me. Ain’t doin’——”
Then the expression of pain fades off the child’s features, and a
smile of peaceful restfulness comes to take its place, as with a sigh
the curly head falls back on Giles’s arm, and the spirit takes its
flight. And at that moment Giles—as Giles—dies too. His feeble brain,
whirling round with a wild and ever wilder rush of fearful changing
scenes and thoughts, suddenly breaks down.
A madman lifts the dead child from the ground, and, leaping over
stocks and stones with a fearful, ape-like agility, vanishes into the
darkness.
And none witness the false step in the dark or hear the maniacal
howl, as, from a cliff hard by, a form resembling that of Murdaro’s
owner, clasping something to its breast, spins downwards into the
angry waters of Agate Creek.
CHAPTER XXII.
LAST WORDS.
“Hear a little further,
And I will bring thee to the present business
What’s now upon us; without the which this story
Were most impertinent.”
_The Tempest._
“SYDNEY, N.S.W.,
“_March 10th, 1890_.
“MR. RICHARD SHAW, _Te Renga-renga, Drury,
New Zealand_.
“Dear Dick,—I have at last a few hours to myself, during which I can
sit down quietly, here in my room, which overlooks the Botanical
Gardens and ‘our beautiful harbour,’ and write to my relatives and
friends.
“I was very glad to get your letter yesterday, and learn that you
are all well up to date. As for myself, I am pretty well, thank
you. After getting rid of the ophthalmic troubles which seized
upon my eyes whilst I was lying ill in the fly-pestered north, I
went to Brisbane, where, of course, I got low fever. My trip to
Melbourne,—Smelbourne the _Bulletin_ calls it, and rightly,—which is
the dirtiest if the most go-ahead city in Australia, however, set me
up and fattened me, but also gave me typhoid fever. It was only a
slight touch, however, and the return voyage to Sydney has put me on
my legs again.
“Since last I wrote I have pretty well arranged all my affairs on
this side of the water, and you may expect to see me in New Zealand
before very long. I may as well run over the chief items of interest
that have eventuated since I last wrote, before setting forth for
your edification the outline of the scheme that I shall probably
adopt for carrying out my uncle’s idea of ameliorating the condition
of the Australian aborigines.
“In accordance with my uncle’s half-expressed wish, in the letter
of instructions which I discovered at his grave, I have made my
respected friend and adviser, Mr. Winze, a quarter proprietor in
the marvellous ‘Golden Cliffs,’ and he has started for the north to
superintend the erection of the chlorination plant at the Mount,
where already a small village has sprung up in the desert round the
‘doctor’s’ no longer lonely resting-place.
“Glory is still staying with her friends in Brisbane, and I am
starting by to-morrow’s boat to interview her upon a very particular
subject, the result of which confabulation I will communicate to the
‘Mater’ next mail.
“I have gathered no information which tends to throw any fresh light
upon the terrible occurrence at Agate Creek. I was so long laid on
the shelf at the shepherd’s hut at Borbong run that the perpetrators
of the crime—if a crime was committed—upon the night of the storm had
ample time to hide all traces of it. At any rate, when I revisited
the site of the camp amongst the rocks, there was not the slightest
indication of anything wrong having taken place there.
“Giles’s body, as you know, was found, and so was Morth’s. The
latter, a police officer, was drowned trying to swim his horse across
the creek after a fugitive black fellow. The former probably met with
his death in a similar manner. I cannot think that Giles intended
to attack us, having, as I have ascertained, received my letter
previously; besides there were too many witnesses about. I rather
expect that Giles and Morth’s party mistook our camp for that of some
Myall natives. It is by no means the first time such a mistake has
occurred in the colony. And cannot we see the finger of Fate in all
this? The sins of the father, Giles, visited upon the child, my poor
little friend Don. I miss the little fellow tremendously.
“The people in the neighbourhood of Murdaro keep very close about
the affair, as all the powerful squatters round had a hand in the
‘rounding-up’ party that destroyed Billy’s villager friends, and
with little doubt our camp as well. It would be a very risky work to
attempt an investigation. To tell the truth, also, I have not pushed
for an inquiry into the matter for fear of something turning up that
might prove an extra source of pain to Glory, who has been fearfully
cut up, poor girl, as it is, with the double loss of her father—of
whom she was very fond—and her brother, to whose return home she was
looking forward with so much pleasure.
“Glory is supposed to be under the impression that it was the flooded
state of the creek that caused the loss of the _père et fils_; but
I am afraid the poor girl has an inkling of the dreadful truth, or
rather what I take to be the truth.
“Miss Lileth Mundella, to whom I had the pleasure—to cut a long story
short—of communicating the fact, which I learnt from certain papers I
found at the grave, of her uncle Giles having unjustly kept her out
of a large share in Murdaro run, has apparently already made good use
of her new position as an heiress, for she writes to say she is about
to marry a wealthy squatter near Bourke.
“Inspector Puttis has therefore been jilted. Nor is this the
only misfortune that has befallen this gentleman,—who, although
personally unknown to me, took a good deal of interest in your
humble servant, as you are aware, some time since,—for he has, upon
the ‘recommendation’ of the Commissioner of Police, resigned his
commission in the Black Corps.
“Mr. Missionary Feder, with whom I am in business communication,
informs me that Puttis’s late _fiancée_ has probably been the cause
of this energetic officer’s enforced withdrawal from public life.
“And now with regard to my uncle’s letter of instructions and scheme.
“It would seem from the papers which I discovered in the tin box
addressed to me at the grave, that my uncle Dyesart was what
is called a disappointed man, and that the lady who jilted him
afterwards married Giles and became the mother of Glory. Mrs. Giles
died in giving birth to little Don, or rather George.
“I gather that the wild speculation or gambling—call it what you
will—in mining concerns, that ultimately caused uncle to begin life
again in the colonies, was the outcome of this disappointment. And
that this, combined with a hope to be able to return my mother’s
fortune, which had gone with the rest, had more to do with my uncle’s
ceaseless wanderings, than any real belief in the wonderful Golden
Hill that he had been told of by the dying miner. It was during
these wanderings that my uncle was shocked with the treatment of
the aborigines by the whites, and he has commissioned me, or rather
desired me, which amounts to the same thing, to use a considerable
part of the wealth thus suddenly placed in his hands for the
amelioration of the condition of the Australian blacks. Dyesart
had intended publishing a book upon this subject, and I quote
the following from his MSS. in order to show you a sample of his
thoughts. After recounting a number of cases of cruelty that had come
within his personal knowledge, he says:—
“‘After habitual crime, especially after that which involves cruelty,
the human mind, so prison and other authorities say, loses that
correcting sense of right and wrong which John Stuart Mill, and other
experts in Socialism, tell us is one of the foundation stones of a
stable social system. This sense is as valuable—perhaps more so—than
those of seeing, hearing, et cetera. Taking it for granted that
it is by the senses alone that we hold any communication with our
fellows, it follows that any individual must have his mind impaired,
as far as those particular senses of which he has become bereft are
concerned. And that such an individual’s mind may not be further
impaired by the privation of such sense or senses, arises only from
his not endeavouring to reason about things concerning which that
sense or those senses could alone give him information. He compares
only what he perceives, and therefore continues to make comparisons
which, however limited, are still correct. For example, there are not
uncommon cases of men who, as regards colour, do not know green from
red; or again, where taste is concerned, a much commoner case, cannot
tell the difference between ’47 port and a poisonous concoction of
logwood, sugar, and other ingredients. Such defects or impairments
are commonly discovered and avowed by the persons affected, and they
rely on the judgment of others concerning those things of which they
have themselves no accurate sense. A man could not assert, without
fear of being judged insane, that green was red; and, following the
same argument, can he say without undergoing a similar risk that a
cruel, cowardly, or murderous action was either than what it is? If,
however, his sense of right and wrong are missing, from hereditary
taint or the benumbing influence of criminal companionship, he may
possibly believe such actions to be commendable; but whilst in the
society of sane persons, with minds of the usual capacity, he will
hardly express his own contorted opinion—say, that taking pleasure in
the slaughter of defenceless and healthy men, women, and children is
an honourable action, and worthy of a brave and good citizen.’
“It is not so much the ultimate destruction of the aboriginal
race, as it now exists, that my uncle seems to have hoped might be
prevented, nor did he apparently deplore that such a thing should
take place eventually. He says that a native race, in order to
survive the changes wrought in its surroundings by the incoming of a
foreign and superior civilization, must have within itself the power
of being able to change its customs and mode of life, and of rapidly
adapting itself to the new order of things. It must, in fact, be like
that singular animal, the armadillo, of South America, which, having
altered most of its habits since its native wilds have become the
home of European settlers, has, so far from dying out, increased in
number of late years.
“It would appear that my uncle doubted whether the Australian
aborigines possess this necessary power to any extent, although he
mentions cases of blacks who have become useful colonists as farmers
in N.S. Wales and South Australia.
“His two main arguments against the present attitude of the
Australian Governments, as regards the native population, are,
firstly, the great amount of harm that this rampant demon of cruelty
and slavery is working upon the foundations of the growing national
life of Australia; and, secondly, the fearful waste of useful lives
resulting from this inhuman policy.
“He says that the intermarriage of a certain class of European
settlers with the native women would be ‘a consummation devoutly to
be wished,’ and that this should be encouraged in every possible
way. In the rougher parts of the colonies a European woman is out
of place as a settler’s wife. She becomes more or less debased, and
cannot, upon a return to civilization, so readily resume the more
artificial style of life as can her husband.
“Native women, on the other hand, make first-class wives under such
circumstances, and the resulting half-caste progeny generally make
useful members of society in those cases where they have a fair
chance afforded them of doing so.
“He then goes on to point out, by means of numerous examples,
how offshoots from various European nations have derived renewed
physical vigour from crossing with the dark-skinned aboriginal
inhabitants of different parts of the world, and gives instances
of men who, belonging to families which exhibited those infallible
signs of a decaying race, failing teeth and hair, have, by marrying
with Australian and New Zealand native women, become the parents
of children of splendid physique and good mental powers. ‘Spain,’
he says, ‘threw away the chance that Providence once gave her of
becoming perhaps the mightiest nation upon earth, when she destroyed,
instead of intermarrying with, the natives of South America, who had
a superior civilization to that of their conquerors.’
“Now for the plan I propose to adopt:—
“I shall endeavour, for a commencement, to work through the machinery
of Missionary and Aborigines’ Protection Societies already existing.
In such cases where I find officers of the Black Police drawing
salaries as ‘Protectors of Aborigines,’ I shall endeavour to draw
the attention of the public to the grim joke thus perpetrated, by
means of newspaper articles and pamphlets, to thus get other persons
appointed.
[Illustration: SLAVE MAP OF MODERN AUSTRALIA.]
“From my uncle’s and my own observation, the weak point in the
present missionary system, as carried out in Australia, is the fact
that, after the raw material—the native children—have been converted,
by education, into an article worthy of a place in the civilized
world, there is really no market for it.
“As a rule, the girls begin life as servants, are led astray,
and finally become prostitutes, or the concubines of settlers or
squatters. The boys generally are relegated to the black camp with
their uneducated brethren.
“I therefore propose to endow each native girl with land and capital,
upon her passing a certain time and standard in one of the farm
schools I shall establish in various parts of the country.
“Any white man making one of these girls his wife will obtain a
quantity of land and small amount of capital. I am pretty certain
that the Governments of the various colonies would assist in such a
movement by giving the land, as it would ensure its being settled
by a good class of settler. These at present form the main body of
wandering ‘wallaby’ men, who seldom marry,—chiefly from want of funds
and suitable partners,—for the white women who would marry men of
this sort make neither desirable wives nor healthy mothers.
“I will also endeavour to get reserves placed aside for the natives,
as is done in New Zealand, and there farm schools will be opened.
In these reserves adult natives can find a safe refuge from the
squatters, and will be registered. If they assist upon the farm, they
will receive payment for same in kind. No attempt will be made to
force civilization or education upon the adult natives, as this never
has any practically good results. The children and young natives
will be brought up apart from the adults. Infanticide, which is now
the rule, not the exception, amongst station blacks, will disappear
as the natives are granted protection, a means of earning food, and
relief from the burden of keeping their offspring. Boy natives, after
passing a certain standard at the farm school, will be apprenticed to
various tradesmen and farmers, and will be granted land or capital,
after becoming proficients in their special line of business,
wherewith to start upon their own account. Inspectors, accompanied by
interpreters, will constantly perambulate the country with the object
of informing the natives of the advantages offered by these schools
and reserves, and for the purpose of prosecuting any one committing
atrocities upon the aborigines. Premiums will be offered for a
series of articles and papers upon the best means of protecting and
utilising the native race.
“Having given you this rough outline of my plan, I must bring my
epistle to a close. Perhaps I could not commence my campaign better
than by writing an account of my search for the grave. By Jove, I
will! I append a newspaper cutting, showing that some one else is
moving in the matter.
“Yours regardfully,
“CLAUDE ANGLAND.”
(“_South Australian Register._)
“THE BROTHERHOOD OF MEN.
“THE CONDEMNED PRISONER JACKEY.
“_December 16th, 1889._
“We publish to-day two letters called forth by the Court
proceedings in the case of Jackey, the aboriginal who at the
last criminal sittings in Adelaide was found guilty of murder
and sentenced to be hanged. One of these, signed ‘Gauntlet,’ is
directed to the treatment said to be commonly meted out to the
blacks on distant stations, and more particularly in Queensland.
The writer, who informs us that he speaks from personal observation
and from information gained from thoroughly trustworthy sources,
in reality only repeats an oft-told tale. The atrocities practised
upon the natives in various parts of Australia—sometimes in
retaliation for treacherous and barbarous acts committed by them,
but very often without any such excuse—have been horrible, and
even now it is undeniable that there are some who think as little
of enslaving or even shooting a black as of killing a mangy dog.
This certainly cannot be said of all run-owners. Even in the far
interior there are men who have gained the confidence and goodwill
of the aboriginals by treating them with kindness and giving
them fair payment for what they do. There is too much reason to
believe, however, that the system of compulsory service, or, as
‘Gauntlet’ describes it, of downright ‘slavery,’ accompanied by
cruelty, does prevail. The protection professedly afforded to the
natives in remote portions of the country is a protection only in
name. They are practically at the mercy of the settlers, who,
if they are so disposed, can ill-treat them with impunity. What
chance has a native of having his testimony believed as against
that of a white man? He has to grin and bear the kicks without
receiving any large amount of salve in the way of halfpence. It
is quite time Australia recognized better its duty towards the
blacks, and gave them the full benefit of the protection of the
laws to which they are made amenable. With all respect to the
tribunals of justice, it is impossible to say that the trial of
Jackey for murder was satisfactory. We say this without reflecting
for a moment upon the judge or jury,—who conscientiously exhausted
every available means for getting at the facts, and who could not
on the evidence well have come to any other conclusion than that
which was arrived at,—but it is impossible not to feel that the
prosecution had immense advantages over the accused. And this
brings us to the letter appearing elsewhere signed ‘Veritas.’ If
the facts are as there stated, and it is as an eye-witness that
our correspondent—who will doubtless be easily identified by those
chiefly interested—writes, Jackey, on his way down to Adelaide, was
treated with shameful brutality. Had the luckless creature been
already found guilty of the worst crimes in the calendar, he could
hardly have been dealt with with greater severity, but in point of
fact, according to the maxims of British law, he was at the time an
innocent man. It was, of course, necessary to take all reasonable
precautions for preventing his escape, but will any one say that
this object could not have been secured without subjecting him to
such inhuman treatment as ‘Veritas’ describes? Had he been a white
man the picture drawn of him heavily manacled, forced to sit hour
after hour upon camel back in a most painful position, under a
broiling sun which heated the irons upon him until they burned him,
would arouse intense indignation throughout the length and breadth
of the land. And why should it be different when the victim of such
usage is a black fellow? The matter is one that should be strictly
inquired into, as well in the interests of justice and of humanity
as of the aboriginals, who are necessarily so heavily handicapped
in their dealings with white men.”
FINIS.
Transcriber’s Notes:
- Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
- Blank pages have been removed.
- The original spelling, hyphenation, and punctuation have been
retained, with the exception of apparent typographical errors
which have been corrected.