Certainly fish were not too plentiful, but the aboriginal crew worked

well, and were lighthearted almost to a fault. They had had no credit

to pledge for the season's stores. They had merely to pick up inert and

unresisting béche-de-mer from among the coral five fathoms down, where

the deceptive sea looked no more than ten feet deep under the squalid

flatties; to smoke and jabber in idle moments; to eat and to sleep, and

to listen to Mammerroo's version of the opening phrases of “The Last

Rose of Summer” on a mouth-organ worn with inveterate usage to the bold

brass. The tune was not quite beyond recognition, and no musician was

ever more in earnest, ever more soul-tied to an elusive, unwritten air

than the black boy who wore little else than his own unwashed complexion

and a strip of red Turkey twill. For long months he had pursued it with

all the fervour of his simple soul, and though it said him nay, still

did he hope and woo. Out of his scanty earnings he bought mouth-organs

by the dozen, for he believed that owing to some defect on the part

of such instruments the tune was impossible save to one. Would he ever

obtain that prize? The organ which could play that tune as he had

once heard it when his boss took him to a concert at Cairns had to

be discovered, and to earn money to buy it Mammerroo shipped on these

detestable béche-de-mer cruises. In the meantime he would play with all

his energies and with endless repetition the halting, nerve-disturbing

notes he knew to be incorrect.

“That boy will drive me mad. He bought ten mouth-organs at Cooktown, and

he hasn't got the one that plays the tune yet. Does this smell like 'The

Last Rose of Summer'? Why, you can hear those fish of yours humming!

What with hardly any fish, the stink of the whole boat, and that

maddening mouth-organ, I feel almost inclined to jump overboard and

marry a mermaid. Let's chuck it.”

“It's you as got the bad breath, Jim. Every man when he gets nasty

temper he gets bad breath. That tune it's little bit close up. He can

play right up to the 'left blooming alone' sometimes.”

“He's taken four months to get up to the 'left blooming alone'! At that

rate it will be years before he gets to the finish. I'll be mad if he

stays on this hooker another month. I'll chuck the three of them--organ,

boy, and tune--overboard.”

“If you make yourself a fool like that, no more work from that boy.

Don't be a fool and spoil this game. We're out till November. Let's make

the best of it.”

It was not clean work. The reek of the fish-raw, cooked, smoked, and

drying in the sun-saturated everything, even the damper. The brown,

shrivelled things were scattered in orderly profusion wherever the

sun could catch them to top them off prior to bagging. The bitter,

eye-searing smoke from the red mangrove fire in the hold, where the

meagre catch of yesterday was lying on a couple of trays, stung the

nostrils. The odour was as interminable as the half-accomplished tune,

and Breezy Bill writhed. He was not new to the game, but bad luck had

been the portion of the ship from the start, and small things irritated

him, rasping his far from sensitive soul.

“I think you are going to catch fever, Jim. That's what's the matter

with you. At the mission I used to read about that bird you call the

brain-fever bird. It just keeps on whistling the same old thing, and

white men go mad. That 'Last Rose of Summer,' it's got hold of you.

Don't be a fool! It's only a good tune half done. It won't kill

anybody--at any rate, a tough old shell-back like you!”

“Oh, bother! Stinks and rotten 'Last Rose of Summer' are driving me mad.

I could stand lots of both if we were doing well. They might be forty

overproof and played by forty bands, and every darned piccolo of them

out of tune, if only we were making money. Come, let's up stick and

away. We can't do worse and we might do better on that bit of 'reef

Mammerroo talks about. Here, Mammerroo, stop that blasted corroboree!

Come and tell us where that little fella reef sit down.”

Mammerroo shuffled down to the hatchway covering and traced a chart of

the locality with a grimy forefinger.

“That fella reef sit down 'nother side Red Hill alongside mainlan'. No

deep water. Plenty mangrove--my word full up pigeon. Reef him little

fella. Full up tit fish, calla-calla, mainlan' black. Fill'um up boat.

Take'm alonga Thors'dilan'. Come back. Fill'm up one time more. Too

much. Full up.”

“The same old yarn. I've been all over that ground. There's no reef

there, and if there had been it would have been found and skinned years

ago,” said dogmatic Billy, with a sneer.

“I see,” said Jim; “the season's over as far as you are concerned. You

can go where you like. I'm sick of it now.”

TROPIC DAYS

The next morning saw the NAUTILUS scudding before a strong south-east

breeze, Jim, true to his name, sulky as a toad-fish. The good wind

harped on the rigging as Mammerroo tirelessly lagged after the ever

evasive tune. Jim heard him not. Billy, in a rage, was inclined to

bundle the boy and his battered instrument overboard, for he saw in the

race north nothing but a waste of time.

Three days later the NAUTILUS anchored to the north of Red Hill under

the lee of a low mangrove island uproarious with nutmeg pigeons.

All hands turned out to prospect, with Mammerroo as pilot. He was not

long in locating the reef--a forgotten and neglected patch that teemed

with fish. Béche-de-mer lay in shallow water, thick and big, by

the ton.. The reef, with its clear sandy patches, seemed to be the

gathering-ground, the metropolis, the parliament of the curious creature

which makes feeble eddies with its distended gills, moves with infinite

and mysterious deliberation, and which, though it may be two feet long

and three inches thick, can pass through a half-inch space, constricting

its bulging body during the progress.

The mangroves of the islet provided the best of fuels for the

preservative smoke. The fortnightly steamer passed not so very far out,

so that it would be possible to send away a couple of tons at a time

without leaving the locality or suspending work for more than an hour or

two.

With cheerfulness and enthusiastic haste all started to work. No

irritating odour, no vexing tune, was perceptible or audible. Boys

brought in such quantities of fish that the mates could hardly cook and

cure them. Money was being coined, and the making of money begat dreams.

Seamen do not invariably build castles in the air. They devise aerial

fleets. They build bigger, better, and faster boats to sail on bluer

seas into more prosperous and happy havens than belong to this too

substantial world. Each sketches out the boat of his desire, and fits

her with wondrous comfort and conveniences. He glances, approving head

thrown back, up her tall, tapering, well-oiled masts, silver-topped

with golden trucks. He paints her in rival colours, rigs her with silken

sails, names her after a sweetheart, and sails away to lands fairer than

any of the isles of the Pacific--those isles of dreams where in coral

groves the gold-lip is embarrassed with pearls of ineffable lustre and

of excessive size.

As they day-dreamed they gathered in actual riches, for the lazy fish

were big and almost overlying each other in their crowded spaces.

Never was there a happier béche-de-mer cruise, for the prospects of good

wages soon and a quick return to accustomed camps overladen with the

spoils of the Cooktown stores made each boy as joyful as a cherub and as

industrious as a scrub hen. Mammerroo saw visions of mouth-organs,

one of which was sure to contain the coveted tune. Little deaf Antony

thought of tobacco unlimited, a silver-mounted pipe, and plenty of

unforbidden rum. Indeed, most of the boys contented themselves with

these ingredients to fill the cup of happiness. But big lazy Johnnie's

fancy went to a small jockey's cap of red and yellow, to be worn with a

football jersey of orange and green in stripes, and blue trousers. This

gorgeous costume was to compensate for present pains and humiliation,

for he had nothing but a scanty and dirty loin-cloth, a necklace of

grass beads, and a chip of lustrous black-lip pearl-shell stuck in one

ear. As they worked they let their fancies range, and thus was the

toil eased and the bags of dried fish safely stowed in the hold.

With twenty-eight bags in prime condition, the NAULITUS sailed out to

intercept the steamer--the LAVA KAVA. The honest stuff was sent off to

the agent at the Island post, and back the stout little vessel went to

the reef.

“As good as a gold-mine,” said Breezy Jim, who every day became

breezier, so that he threatened to develop into a gale of good humour.

“Better than splitting coco-nuts at the Mission Station,” said Billy

Boolah.

“Do you ever feel like chucking Mammerroo overboard now?”

Another fortnight saw another big load on the way to the agents.

Mammerroo poured out his soul in fervency over the limping phrases of

his besetting tune, and even Boisterous Jim applauded his persistency.

“That boy will catch 'The Last Rose of Summer' some day if the

mouth-organ market holds out. I'll give him the best to be got in

Cooktown, and I'm bothered if I don't teach him the tune!”

Late one afternoon a strange sail came into view. Slowly the big cutter

made for the anchorage, for the wind, busy elsewhere, could spare only a

few idle puffs for her business.

“That's a dago, I bet,” said Bill. “And I know who it is! Why, it's that

humbug, Black Charley!”

“We'll have to be pretty spry, or he'll have some of this patch. We'll

head him off, and ship what we've got to-morrow.”

A flattie slid over the side of the cutter and plopped into the water,

and Black Charley, with a couple of downcast boys, came alongside the

NAUTILUS.

“Hullo, Bill! Hullo, Jim! How's yous getting on? Yous drop on good

place. I see yous boys picking up fish like a hen picking up corn.”

“Not much,” replied Jim. “It was pretty thick, but it was only a small

patch, and we've pretty well cleaned it up. Sent away half a dozen bags,

mostly mainlan' black. Too close in to be much good.”

“Well, I suppose you'se no objection to me anchoring here for a bit and

'seeing what I can do with the leavings?” said Black Charley.

“We found the patch, and it's too small for two boats. We'd be better

friends if you cleared off and left it to us,” replied Jim. “But if

you're up to dirty tricks stay where you are. We don't want sneaks on

board this craft.”

“It's no good being nasty. All the fish on the Barrier don't belong to

yous. I got a ton and more on board now, and I'm going to run out with

it to-morrow.”

“So are we. Come on board and have a drink”

It was late in the afternoon when the smoke of the LAVA KAVA showed

south-east. Both boats were waiting as she slowed down in her course,

and while they made fast transhipment began. Then she steamed slowly

ahead.

“Better send you'se boys back with the NAUTILUS,” suggested Black

Charley, “and me and my mate will take yous back when we've had a drink

and a bit to eat. It's a long time since I've had a decent feed, and

Captain Andrews, he won't mind.”

Breezy Jim and Bill agreeing, the NAUTILUS cast off, with instructions

to anchor at the old spot and to work until the bosses returned.

There was more than one drink as the steamer forged ahead, with Black

Charley's cutter romping and curtseying behind. Then tea-time came, and

the captain asked his guests to remain. Black Charley had had so many

refreshments that he was scarcely fit company for the saloon, so he

offered his excuses and they were accepted with politely veiled relief.

The mates told of their bad luck down at the Barnards and the Palms;

how they had been driven away by the unmusical black boy in desperate

pursuit of “The Last Rose of Summer,” and of their great stroke of luck

on the reef of which he had told.

“There's plenty more fish on it yet. We'll be troubling you to stop for a

couple of months yet.”

“You won't be making a very early start to-morrow if we jerk your boat

much further,” remarked Captain Andrews, with a smile.

“Come,” urged Bill. “We'll hunt up Charley and cut away back.”

The well-contented partners strolled on deck, anticipating a very tipsy

Charley, whom neither steward nor bo'sun could discover.

The sun had just set. A bewildering blank astern excited a wide and

comprehensive survey, and there in the blue-grey of the south-east Black

Charley's big white-winged cutter was fast fading from view.

When the partners got back to the reef, via Thursday Island and

Cooktown, a fortnight later, the boys were there, looking somewhat

jaded. The NAUTILUS was as trim as ever, for which the owners were

sufficiently thankful; but cute Black Charley, working both crews day

and night like galley slaves, had mopped up the patch as clean as the

floor of a hospital ward.

“We've bin had proper, Bill, old fellow. Let's up and away for Cooktown.

Mammerroo moans for that mouth-organ!”

And the Christian in Billy Boolah smiled as he hummed “Left blooming

Alone.”

“PASSETH ALL UNDERSTANDING”

“Whence has the man the balm that brightens all?”

BROWNING.

Though not popular, perhaps Tsing Hi was the best known of his

contemporaries on the tableland through which the Palmer River wanders

a hundred miles from the Gulf of Carpentaria. Short, slimly made as a

fourteen-year-old boy, nimble, fussy, plausible, he stood out from

among his countrymen as one having authority, while he posed among

the Europeans as a kind of diplomatic agent, explaining away

misunderstandings, conciliating grievances, and generally comporting

himself as the chartered representative of the horde of yellow new-chums

which invaded the most sensational of all Australian goldfields. He

appeared to have cousins among every fresh shipload from China, as well

as among the hundreds who ferreted in the gullies. There was not a white

man, from the Police Magistrate to Frank Deester's off-sider, with whom

he was not on terms of easy familiarity.

Had he not often confidentially consulted the Warden when a cousin had

blundered into the hands of the police, embarrassing that flustered

official with torrents of half intelligible speech, the purport of which

generally was to flout the proceedings with evidence of indubitable

alibi? All this he translated to his countrymen as proof of personal

influence with court authorities, and, what was more to the point, made

them pay for it.

No case in which a Chinaman was concerned as the accused, or plaintiff,

or disinterested witness, but Tsing Hi took, if not an official, an

officious part. Every new-comer from the Flowery Land passed through his

hands. He knew what personal property each possessed, and the value of

the gold of the lucky departing ones. That he prospered exceedingly was

evident. The fact was expressed in his costume. Beyond the court fees

as interpreter, the merry, chirping little fellow had really no lawful,

visible means of support. Yet he glistened and gleamed with emblems of

riches. He was a dandy from the soles of his shiny elastic-side boots

to the crown of his jaunty hard-hitter. Across a yellow waistcoat hung

a very aggressive chain, from which dangled a huge masonic jewel

in gold-and-blue enamel, and the frequently consulted watch--a big,

bold-faced lever--ticked with snappy determination. Tsing Hi had much

more to live up to than the huge watch, the chain, and the emblem;

but they seemed to constitute special and peculiar insignia. They were

always to the front. He was one of the men of his day and scene--to

be admired, feared, and to be conciliated by his fellow-countrymen all

along the traffic-torn road.

The dust from that tortuous road rose in an earth adhering cloud from

out which honest, clean-souled men came like pain-distorted spectres,

wearing grey tear stained masks with pink-rimmed eyeholes and mud edged

mouths. But the dust was less distressing than that which Tsing Hi threw

in the eyes of bewildered mankind by this burst and gusts of speech.

In the heyday of his fame and prosperity Tsing Hi disappeared.

His absences were customary, for did he not flit here, there, and

everywhere? The police were not troubled to make inquiries. They knew

where he was, and the reason for his sudden retirement from accustomed

scenes. The next day all Byerstown knew also.

Tsing Hi, within the rough-hewn walls of the lock-up, was sad and

silent. He had been arrested for gold-stealing.

It was a clear case. Hundreds of complaints had been made. Dozens of

suspects had been shadowed, until a quick-witted detective intuitively

fastened the responsibility on the court interpreter, who, on the

instant of arrest, had become dumb.

The ransacking of his hut revealed a magazine of riches, the earthen

floor beneath the bunk being honeycombed with pits containing easily

portable but valuable property. In a jam-tin were several nuggets, among

them the very specimen which Bill Haddon had given to Mrs. Sinclair,

landlady of the Carriers' Arms--a plane of crystal from which rose a

wonderfully true pyramid of gold. It had been admired by hundreds,

and could be sworn to by everyone who had seen it. There was the white

sapphire, with a tell-tale flaw running down the middle, which had been

found in the hopperings at Revolver Point (where fighting Cameron made

his pile) by Sam Kickford, and likewise bestowed on Mrs. Sinclair as a

“curio,” and because that bounteous lady had mothered the unlucky Sam

and nursed him through the fever which took him to the very gates of

a filthy hell. Dozens could swear to it, but ever so many more were

capable of bearing witness against Tsing Hi on account of the specimen

which Sam's mate, who had died of the fever, had given to Mrs. Sinclair,

having picked it out from the face of his drive. It was a slug of rough

gold in the shape of a tiny canoe, with an upright splinter of white

quartz at each end. Sam's mate had intended it for a girl down at

Ballarat, and she eventually got it--an emblem of what might have been.

Dozens of fancy slugs were brought to light, in addition to two hundred

ounces of fine gold against which no one could make good claim.

Another tin held six rings, two of decidedly suspicious metal, the

others genuine and with good stones. A fine pearl was wrapped in a

fragment of silk. A pale green jade amulet, with three sets of. Chinese

toilet contrivances--ear-cleaners, tongue-scrapers, back-scratchers--in

ivory, were in a box with two rolls of gold-embroidered silk illustrated

with weirdly indecent scenes. Three gold watches wrapped in silk

handkerchiefs were stuffed into a ginger-jar. The sordid hut was a mine

of wealth, and the buzzing town became furious. It had accepted Tsing

Hi as a character, but not as a bad one. Being deceived, it swerved

from tolerance to righteous indignation and absolute wrath. The quaking

thief, not too comfortable, for the bloodwood slabs seemed too frail

a partition against the virtuous anger of the crowd, was condemned

forthwith.

All the identifiable gold and other property was handed over to those

who successfully established claims, and Tsing Hi, limp and dejected,

passed into the custody of Tim Mullane for escort to Cooktown.

Tim was rough and raw, teeming with good-nature and blessed with a

brogue as thick as the soles of the massive boots made for him by

his cousin Terence at misty Ballinrobe. The once perky Tsing Hi slunk

alongside the far-striding Tim, and Tim looked down at him and was half

ashamed of such a “wee scrap of a Chinkee” as his first prisoner.

“Come away wid ye, me little fella--come away. Doan give me trouble, and

ye'll fin' me gintle wid ye. Thry to maake a fool af me, and be the Holy

Saints ye'll have occasion to be sorrowful.” And he picked Tsing Hi

up with one hand and set him down again with as big a jolt as such a

fag-end of humanity could expect to produce. Tsing Hi remained meek.

The crowd was unanimously against him. Big Tim might jolt him again and

again rather than he would take the risk of venturing among his recent

friends, for tales of his thieving, his acceptance of bribes, and

imposition of levies, were coming in so fast and thick that the crowd

would have relished adding something on its own account.

Before daylight next morning Tim left with his disconsolate captive, who

wore handcuffs and was manacled to the “D's” in the saddle of the horse

which he bestrode manifestly ill at case. In front of him was a huge

swag containing the unidentifiable gold, three watches, three rings,

silk stuffs, three pairs of elastic-side boots., several pairs of

puce-coloured socks, flash neckties, four hats, three suits of clothes,

and other clothing., All this was his own, to be handed over at the

expiration of the sentence. Tim merely held the inventory. There was

some sort of gratification for ill-doing, for the swag contained a

fortune. He savagely reflected that six months would soon pass. He would

then vanish from “Qee'lan,” to enjoy himself for the rest of his days.

The sadness which had stagnated during the past week began to dissolve.

He sought to make a friend of his escort.

“I tink we cam' harp way to-ni', Tim.”

“Shut up, you implicating tadpole! Wasn't I ordhered to hold convarse

wid me prisoner? Spake win Ye're spoke ter and be civil, Or I'll jolt

the teeth troo your hat!”

Tim jogged on, and the led horse bearing Tsing Hi jogged after. Tsing Hi

bumped until he was fain to lean heavily on his precious swag, trying to

discover by sensation an' unbruised part of his body on which to jolt.

“Hi! hi!” he shouted. “Horsey, him no goo'! You l'me walk!”

Tim whistled and jogged. Tsing Hi jolted and whimpered. The hot miles

wriggled slowly past. Dust lay a foot deep on the track. It was a

windless day. Tsing Hi, gripping with fearful intensity his swag, could

not lift a finger to wipe the stains which stood for many tears and

coursed down his cheeks in tiny rivulets, making puddles on his cramped

hands. He, the dandy, smothered in dust, weeping, sore in every

bone, blistered and scalded, pondered over his petty sins, moaned

continuously, and longed for the hard floor of the gaol.

He, a disciple of Confucius, found no present relief in the tags of the

master's philosophy that he could call to mind. Tears made him a grim

spectacle. The beautiful yellow waistcoat was indistinguishable beneath

dirt and dust. His carefully tended queue shook out in disordered

loops, and finally dangled, dust-soiled, behind. His trousers worked and

wrinkled up to the knees, chafed his unaccustomed skin, and still Tim in

a cloud of dust jogged on singing:

“Until that day, plase God, I'll shtick

To the wearin' o' the green.”

It was a poor little prisoner, but his first and his own, and Tim

was elated, and when a true Irishman is happy he becomes poetically

patriotic. But happy though he undoubtedly was, even Tim was not sorry

when the chance came of stretching his legs and incidentally sluicing

down the dust. The halfway house looked cool and clean to him. In fact

it was neither. It must have appeared a celestial scene to moaning Tsing

Hi. The rough upright slabs (once rich yellow, now dingy) promised some

sort of refuge from the dust, and the narrow strip of verandah a thin

slice of shade. The mound of broken bottles at the rear betokened

the drinks of the past, while the mind dwelt lovingly on those of

the present. Three panting goats, all aslant, but tressed themselves

determinedly against the end of the house, and two boys, long since dust

immune, occasionally hunted the goats into the sun and away among the

ant-hills. But when Tsing Hi slid from the horse and into the shade, he

felt like a saint in bliss. They gave him water, and he wailed until

Tim silenced him with threats of jolts and locked the manacles round the

middle post.

Tim sighed profoundly as he scented beer. “I do belave I'm dhry, Jerry.

Give's a long un. I've swallowed mud by the bucket. Give the wee little

divil outside a pannikin o' tay. Maybe it'll revoive, him!”

Tim drank long and well.

“I've heard about the case,” Jerry said, as he filled the thick glass a

third time. “Fancy the little beggar, an' him commin' and goin' as flash

as ye make 'ern, and pickin' and thavin' all the time. Maybe he got the

ear-rings the missis is after missin'.”

“Nawthin' o' the sort's in the swag we took with the raskil.”

A bit of dinner in the back room waited, for Jerry believed in keeping

well in with the force. Tim fed heartily, and, in spite of dust, heat,

and the chatter of the children, dozed, to wake with a start.

“Me sowl to glory! It's aslape I've bin! Let's hav' a look at the little

fella and be off.”

The horses stood limply, as much out of the shade as in, the big swag

leaned against the wall, the handcuffs lay half buried in the dust, but

Tsing Hi had vanished.

“Me sowl to glory! The little divil's scooted! It's a ruined man I am!

In the name of the Saints, why is blasted Chinkees made with han's an'

'em like a 'possum? Look at the wee han's on 'em to slip out of

darbies like the same. He's slipped out as aisily as meself out of a

horse-collar, and the face a' him as bould and as big as the hill o'

hope! I'm the ruined man, I am!”

“Off after him,” advised Jerry. “There's his tracks.”

“Just none o' your blasted interfarances! Lave 'm to me. He's away back

to hell, an' I'll folly him! How much does I owe yer, Jerry!”

“Nothing at all, sure, Tim. 'Tis little ye've had, and yer welcome as

posies in May, though it's little we see of 'em here. And good luck.

Shall I tell him away, back to look out V'

“Say nothing and be damned to yer! Keep your mout closed and lave me to

do the bizinis me own road,” shouted Tim as he disappeared in the dust,

led horse, swag and all.

A mile and a half back and a bit off the road lay the narrow, sheltered

flat between two forbiddingly barren ridges which Hu Dra, the gardener,

had converted into an oasis. Thin-leaved tea-trees fringed the little

dam whence the industrious fellow hauled water for his vegetables.

Drought-stricken, broad, blue-leaved, scented ironbarks stood in envious

array on the steep sides of the ridges, and grass-trees, blackened at

the butts, struggled with loose boulders for foothold. The muddy water

which the forethought of Hu Dra had conserved created the green patch

which insulted the aridity of the ridge. He was a proud and happy man,

a follower of the healing Buddha, a new-churn with scarce a word of

English, and a gardener. He had a way with vegetables. They prospered

under his hands, and he also prospered, for next to gold, vegetables

were highly prized in that dry, almost verdureless country. Just now he

swayed along with a pair of heavy baskets slung on a bamboo all the way

from Wu Shu, as the pilgrim under his load of sin, and as he swayed he

sang in a weak falsetto a ditty which sounded like--

“Nam mo pen shih shih chia

Man tan lai lei tsun fo;

Hu fa chu t'ien p'u sa,

An fu ssu, Li she tzn.”

His baskets, each screened with languid gum-leaves, held the week's

output of his garden, representing in money value at least two pounds.

It wag not likely to yield half as much, for, being a new-chum, he was

fair game, and it was considered smart to impose on his good-nature.

He also paid through an agent a weekly levy to Tsing Hi, which he

understood purchased the tolerance, if not goodwill, under all and every

circumstance of the dreaded police and the populace generally. It was a

tax; but Hu Dra was patient under such exactions, as all his ancestors

had been. They were unavoidable, inevitable, a part of the mystery of

life, and consequently to be endured, if not with complacency, at

least without murmur. His profits for the week might total one pound,

a princely sum considering the scene and circumstances of his birth and

upbringing in far Li-Chiang, where his father had reared a large family

in a shed over a sewer, and had never possessed property or estate worth

more than five shillings. Soon, if this money-making business continued

to thrive, he would return thither. He might--for had he not been reared

to the art of living in such places?--resume the sewer habit; but with

three hundred pounds in good English gold what sewer in Li-Chiang could

not be transformed into Paradise?

One basket contained a huge fruit which he understood his white

customers to term “plonkn”; with it was a broad-bladed knife, with which

he would slice off slabs according to demand. That one item might

bring him in more money than his revered father's fortune. Wrapped in

day-dreams, he hummed again his chant, dwelling on the refrain with

lyrical gladness--

“Li she tzu.”

Perhaps it was the name of the maiden he proposed to ask to share his

fortune and his portion of the sewer, and so he repeated--

---“Li she t----!”

A big, strong, authoritative hand had gripped him by the shoulder.

He screamed. The baskets sat down plump.

“Come away wid ye! I've cotched yer! I'll tache ye to escape from lawful

custody!”

“No savee! No savee!” screamed Hu Dra.

“I'll tache ye, thin V' shouted Tim, and Hu Dra reeled under the

severity of the first lesson--a back-hander across the face.

“Wha' for?” asked Hu Dra, still staggering.

“Come on! You know wha' for! I'll stan' none o' yer wha' for's!”

Hu Dra clung to the basket-stick threateningly.

“Fwhat! Resisting the pollis in the execution of dooty. Me bhoy, ye're a

new-chum or yer niver wad be so bould. It is sarious bizinis.” The stick

flew out of Hu Dra's hands, and, as if by magic, he found his hands

clamped in iron bands, which pinched his wrists excruciatingly.

He yelled with vexation, fear, and pain.

“Ye can holler as much as ye have the moind ter. Be jabers, the next

haythen Chinkee that gits out of the darbies I clap on'm 'll be a

slippery, slathery eel, and meself after fergittin' to maake a knot in

his taale! Come quiet, me good haythen, and I'll dale aisy wid yer.”

Hu Dra securely manacled to a scented gum, Tim dealt with the baskets,

capsizing the contents and belabouring them with the bamboo until they

looked as if they had been the playthings of a baboon. Hu Dra watched

the foundation of his fortune vanish. He wailed.

“Come away, me bhoy! I arrest ye, Tsing Hi, fer escaping from lawful

custody. Ye may be charged also with resisting the pollis in the

execution of dooty. It's a sarious charge. If ye come quiet I'll maake

it aisy fer ye. If ye maake it a haard job for me, be gorra I'll inuake

ye sorryful!”

Hu Dra gathered that it was a case of mistaken identity. He endeavoured

to explain that he was Hu Dra, and not Tsing Hi. Tim curtly informed

him that he was none other than Tsing Hi, that he had been convicted of

stealing gold, and while on the way to Cooktown had wilfully and with

malice aforethought escaped from legal custody. He would be taken to

Cooktown at once. Hu Dra understood but little of the harangue, but

being a pious Buddhist, having once climbed the Holy Mountain to gain

merit, and being in the hands of a strong man armed, he accepted the

fate of the moment. Meekly he followed Tim to the spot where the horses

had been left, and was hoisted into the saddle and manacled. It was all

a dreadful mystery, but he was sage enough to accept hard facts.

“Me Hu Dra,” he explained over and over again, in vain repetition.

“Ye're Tsing Hi, I tell yer. Ye're Tsing Hi in the name of Her Majesty.

Haven't I arrested ye as sich?”

“Me Hu Dra,” reiterated the captive as they jogged on. “Me come Coo'tow'

one yar.”

“Shut yer mout! Didn't I tell yer before that ye're Tsing Hi? Didn't yer

wilfully and knowingly escaape from me whin I was having a bite to ate,

and I had yer tied to the post at the shanty back beyant there! Naw,

I'll hear no more of yer Hu Rahin'. Kape a civil tongue betune yer

taath, or, be gorra, worse 'll happen yer.”

Hu Dra was patient. He thought of his pilgrimage long ago to the top of

Mount Omei. Was this the reward he had gained?

He solaced his soul by murmuring the pious invocation which all pilgrims

to the Sacred Mount have perpetually on their lips--“Om mane padme om!”

Torn from his secluded garden and happy and profitable toil, bruised and

manacled, bundled on to a fear-provoking horse, hurried off he knew not

whither, through a drought-stricken land under a searing sun, the road

reeking with dust--what a plight for a devout Buddhist, who had sought

to avert calamity and prolong life by the ascent of the chill mount

where, alone in all the world, is revealed the “Glory of Buddha.”

Mystic that he was, he found sure comfort in pious meditations. Present

pains of body and mind vanished as with half-shut eyes he drifted into

the chill realm where he hearkened to chants of priests, the tinkling of

the temple bells, the fervent response of hundreds of pilgrims as meek

as himself--“Om mane padme om!”

Such was the potency of the mechanical repetition of the all-healing

words that Tim presently found himself echoing them, and brought himself

up with a jerk.

“It's all haythen rubbish and cussing. The pore fule's daft wid the hate

and the dust and the welt I give him. Shure it's the way I have to be

sorry for the crature.”

Like the refrain of an infectious song, the musical phrase would not be

banished from Tim's mind and lips, and so the tough, rough Irishman

and the gentle exile from the Flowery Land went on their way, scarce

conscious of the grimy miles, both dreamingly hailing the jewel in the

lotus.

Three days later the travel-stained pair arrived at Cooktown, where Hu

Dra--henceforth to be known officially and authoritatively, and in spite

of all protest, as Tsing Hi--was duly consigned to the custody of the

lock-up keeper, to await escort to the town where his sentence was to be

served.

“He's that quare in his hid,” Tim informed Jock Egan, who now had

charge. “He's bin Tsing Hi-in and Hu Rah-in' and Paddy Om-in' (d'ye know

the maan, Jock?) all along the thrack till it's fair fascinated I am.

And barrin' him bein' the very thafe o' the wurrld, it's a poor honest

body he be. Shure it's little enough truble he give me, and me all alone

be meself. An' the swag of him! Glory be to God, I dunno but it's wort

five hundred pounds if it's wort a sint! Yirra! but it's weery I am.

It's little slape I've had. Shure the whole beesely thrack be lousy wid

shnaakes; and show me the man as cud slape shweet wid maybe four of the

varmint all ascroodging and squaaking nath his blanket!”

“It's quare in yer head yerself,” ye're exclaimed Jock. “Be off to bed

wid ye. If the sargint gets ye a-talkin' like that, he'll be afther

thinkin' ye're in dhrink.”

“Then, me sowl to glory; he'll jist be thinkin' fwhat I'm wishful for.

It's that farefull dhry up there on the Palmer I could dhrain a bucket.”

“Get to bed, yer fool! Ye're talkin' that wild, ye'll have no care for

yerself. It's meself that'll git the good woman beyant there to git ye a

cup o' biling hot tay.”

With that Jock got him out, with papers all in order.

Hu Dra had disappeared from the tableland as suddenly but not as'

tracklessly as a phantom. Lonely men in their tents and three or four

mothers of families in their slab humpies looked out vainly for him for

three days, anticipating necessary vegetables, and, being disappointed,

slandered him courageously, while they found consolation in the

reflection that if he ever came his round again they would distress and

vex him by withholding payments for the vegetables of the past. Not

a customer but owed him something. His country men gave notice of his

disappearance to the police, and black-trackers off-hand told a graphic

and obvious story. Hu Dra had begun his weekly round when he had been

attacked by myalls. They had capsized his baskets and wantonly battered

them to pieces. For him had been reserved the customary fate. He had

been hustled off to the gorges contiguous to Hell's Gates, to be killed

and eaten in peace and comfort. His hut, his cherished garden

were forthwith occupied and tended by another of the race-claiming

cousinship. The newcomer even demanded payment of debts owing to his

unfortunate relation, but the whole population sniffed with such vigour

that the claim was not persisted in. Once a Chinaman had left the

district unceremoniously, more especially at the forcible persuasion

of flesh-hungry blacks, his dues lapsed by unanimous consent. He became

merely a fragrant remembrance. It is so still, and the virtue is as

virile as the odour of musk.

To himself Hu Dra was always so. Be his official and authoritative title

for the time being what it might, he was determined not to sacrifice his

identity.

The gaoler found him a docile and obedient creature with an abiding

affection for plants, which sprang up under his hands like magic.

Within two months corners of the desert yard began to blossom, to bear

cucumbers and radishes, and to be fragrant with shallots.

The pride of the gentle gardener lay in a few plants of zinnias close

to a dripping tap. In bright red, gold, and white, he accepted them as

substitutes for the sacred lotus, and prison flowers never flaunted more

freely. As innocent as they, he deftly, tirelessly trained each plant,

caressed each opening bud, cherished it as if it were a jewel, and

found surcease of the pangs of exile, easement for the restraints upon

liberty, and blissful consolation. Tendance upon the garden under the

strait shadow of wall was to him, not a duty, not a pastime, but a

ritual. The captive was happy, for here was the end of his pilgrimage.

Exemplary conduct, combined with the art with which he forced salads

from the boorish soils, found him favour and earned privileges and

concessions.

Hu Dra kept no count of the passing months. What was time to a

contemplative Buddhist whose being was permeated with the hope of

release from delusions and sorrow and of attaining final sanctification?

One morning he was summarily marched into the presence of the big

loud-voiced man whose orders were obeyed with instant smartness, who

told him, to his amazement and despair, that he must depart with his

property. The seals of a sack were broken before him, and its contents

displayed and duly accounted for--a sleeping-mat, a small red blanket,

the elastic-side boots, two scrolls of sinfully painted silk, a hard

round hat stuffed with gaudy handkerchiefs, three watches and varied

jewellery in a ginger-jar, the quaintly carved toilet devices, the

jam-tin full of nuggets, and a chamois-leather bag delusively heavy with

fine gold.

The same authority which had ordered his affairs ever since he had been

torn from the burnt hills now commanded him to begone.

For nigh upon two years he had dwelt passively in dream-land. This was

but another wonderment entrancingly agreeable. Without endeavouring to

elucidate the incomprehensible, he accepted the gifts of the gods, and

asked for a yellow zinnia. It was a reality, a guarantee, an assurance.

Good, though gruff, the gaoler was wont to say that his departing guest

gazed on the flower with almost religious fervour and mumbled over it

a prayer; and the gaoler's insight was true, for in comparison with a

flower, the masonic emblem, the pride of Tsing Hi's life was to Hu Dra

but tinsel.

It passed all understanding.,

Hastening to escape from the land of bewilderment and easily gotten

riches, Hu Dra-the quietest, the happiest, the wealthiest of a great

company of his fellows boarded a steamer for Hong-Kong.

Many a long year after, Tim, who had blossomed into a sub-inspector,

had retired on pension, and had lost most of his brogue in the process,

confided in me the whole story.

“You see, my friend, it was either the sack or Chinkee for me. I got the

Chinkee. There were plenty of 'em!”

TIME'S FINGER

“The more cleer and the more shynynge that Fortune is, the more brutil

and the sooner breketh she.”--CHAUCER.

High up on the auspicious shoulder of the Island mountain stands

the Sentinel, a coarse, truncated pinnacle of granite, roughened

and wrinkled by the toll of the moist breezes, alternating with the

scorching flames of the sun. It overlooks the league-long sweep of

the treacherous bay, with its soft and smothering sands, the string of

islets of the Yacka Eebah group, while Bli and Coobie lie close under

foot, set in a swirling sea.

One aspect of the Sentinel commands all the map-like detail of Pun-nul

Bay, with its labyrinthian creeks among a flat density of mangroves,

like lustrous, uncertain byways in a sombre field, erratic of shape,

magnificent of proportion. Beyond are many islets--dark blue on a

lighter plain. In the distance, on the other hand, islands and islets

trail away until lost in the vague blending of sea and sky; and for a

background is all Australia. In front alone does the Sentinel peer

over uninterrupted space, and not always, for at times patches of white

filigree mark the outliers of the Great Barrier Reef.

Looking up from Pun-nul Bay before sunrise, the base of the Sentinel

'was swathed in white--night's rumpled draperies not yet tossed aside.

As the east glowed it stained the mist pink, and so warmed it that it

parted into patches of luminous fluff which floated up and dissolved

into crystalline air, and the great lumbering rock stood naked and bold

in the sunshine.

Then it was that the apex of a splintered peak beyond the Sentinel

glittered, and that Chutter-murra Wylo, the one survivor of the

truculent natives, told once more of the wonderful stone for which

many had ventured, which had caused the disappearance of several, which

decoyed man and beast, and stored their bones close to the awful hole

whence issued the smoke which made the rain, and the dread lightning,

and the thunder.

None ever ventured there now; but sometimes in the early morning the

stone twinkled for a moment like a malignant sprite, watchful all night,

but abashed yet impudent to the authoritative sun.

Chutter-murra Wylo had so often indicated the exact locality of the

stone, and had described its dire influence with such sincerity that,

when it twinkled, a resolution which had been long in the back of my

mind became wilful and imperative. He said that it was “on top, along

oo-nang-mugil”--a gloomy place among rocks--and that the old men of the

country had been wont to say that this particular “oo-nang-mugil” was

the favourite resort of the “debil-debil,” the to whose arrogance and

awful deeds the bones of man and beast bore terrifying testimony.

Between the Sentinel and a spur to the south is a narrow ravine, from

which in the rainy season mist rises like jets of steam, and this

was the very spot whence the lightning and thunder ranged when the

“debil-debil” lifted the mighty stone which blocked the entrance to

the cave of the winds. All about was fantastic ground, peopled by evil

spirits who resented the intrusion of human beings and inflicted upon

trespassers peculiar punishments. Ill befell everyone who invaded that

remote, almost inaccessible, uninviting region, at the very centre of

which the alluring stone glittered. Of those who rashly determined to

gaze at the prodigy at close quarters, some never returned. Those who

did come back were vexed with burning and smarting pains; they suffered

illnesses; their skin broke out into blotches; they became old

and enfeebled prematurely and all, whether they survived for a few

irritating weeks or a few sad years, wore to the end a startled,

awe-struck air. “That fella no more sit down quiet; him frait all time,”

Wylo explained. And the stone was good to look at. Sometimes it was

white like water; sometimes blue, like the sea; sometimes red, like

“carrie-wy-in-gin” (sunrise). Sometimes it shook, and then it became so

bright that the eyes were dazzled. The star-like stone had been on

the rock for all time, protected by distance and mystery. Was it not,

indeed, the eye of the “debil-debil” who had custody of the lightning

and thunder imps, and could it not be elevated or depressed like the

eye of a sand-crab? No intruder had ever escaped its vigil or the

consequences of his temerity.

We were camped under the lee of a low sand-dune, the top of which

commanded Pun-nul Bay. As the wind swayed its scalp-lock of twisted

shrubs, the dune quivered, and rivulets of singing sand, almost as

fluid and as unstable as water, trickled down, for it was one of the

rubbish-heaps of the sea, over the brink of which waste was unceasingly

shot.

The maze of mangroves whence weird hoots and bubbling cries and sharp

clicks came at night, the stealthy sand marching over the land, the

barren slopes of the mountain, and the misshapen rock, gave one's

thoughts a twist in the direction of the vague and mysterious. Wylo's

continual harping on the wonderful stone renewed the old longing for

adventure. He had seen it from a safe distance, but from the present

aspect only the indecorous glint at sunrise was visible.

The stone was a crystallised fact, but why had the blacks invested it

with such ill omen? Here was a worthy quest--a beautiful if not precious

crystal betokening the actual presence of a wary demon guardant over

the mouldering skeletons of Wylo's forefathers! What quest could be more

sensational or likely to be so famously rewarded?

Wylo was prepared to climb the mountain to the base of the Sentinel,

but no higher. Secrets hidden from his intemperate, insistent gaze must

surely be inconsequent. Once and for all, the legend of the crystal

might be disposed of at the cost of two or three hours' climbing. I

would bring it back to prove to Wylo that no irreverent “debil-debil”

would ever again blink at the sun from that particular spot. As for the

skeletons, they were, without doubt, as mythical as the evil spirit, and

in any case a few old bones were not to scare me from venturing to the

boldly obvious summit of the mountain.

Wylo went wellnigh naked, carrying a day's provisions and the rifle. I,

too, was lightly clad, but wore thick-soled boots, freely studded, and

with a tomahawk felt efficiently armed.

Beyond the entanglement of the beach scrub the way was open, though

rough, with granite boulders half hidden among rampant blady grass. The

country was decidedly hostile to the climber, though far from actually

forbidding, and with Wylo in the lead--for I held myself in reserve for

the final clamber up the ravine, to which the ascent to the base of the

Sentinel was merely a prelude--the pace was respectable and sure. Closer

acquaintance forced a certain sort of respect for the Sentinel, which

was more massive, more venerable and time-worn than could be imagined

from afar off, while all the scene below seemed softer and smoother and

more fairyland-like than in reality.

Having indicated what he deemed to be the direct route, and firmly

resolving to take no risks by peering into the domain of the

“debil-debil,” Wylo sat in the shadow of a huge boulder whence he could

command a view of the entrance to the rock-bestrewn gorge. Not more than

eight hundred feet separated the spot from the summit of the peak. A

couple of hours at most and I would be down again, and, semi-seriously,

I counselled Wylo to stop where he was until late in the afternoon, and

if I had not then appeared to return to the camp, where he was to remain

for a couple of days, when he would be at liberty to make his way to the

head of the mangrove creek where the boat was anchored, with the design

of bringing help to kill the “debil-debil” that detained me in his

clutches. He was not too cheerful in his parting injunctions. “No

good you fight'm that fella. Suppose he catch'm you, he kill you one

time--finis. No good me come back. Me clear out quick!”

In all seriousness he undertook to “sit down” for two days, and

finally imparted advice which might enable me to out-manoeuvre the

“debil-debil,” and either curb him or throw him out from his lair “with

wondrous potency.” Up the gorge I would find a prickly bush, from which

I was to cut a leafy branch as a frontal shield. Then, when the

fiend swooped upon me, its long arms and pliant hands, furnished with

needle-like nails, would become embarrassed by the “nails,” of the

branch, and while it howled and danced I could “kill'm alonga leg” with

the tomahawk. I was to be careful not to look up, for the eye of the

“debil-debil” was so bright and hot that it burnt up mortal sight,

leaving the intruder a blind and hopeless victim.

Discreetly valorous, Wylo was quite enthusiastic, anxious, indeed, that

the quest should be accomplished by an audacious white man and at no

risk to himself. Therefore did I accept his counsel gravely, and in

parting promised to bring down one of the hands of the long-standing

terror of the mountain as proof that I had exacted the last penalty for

many demonic deeds.

Thus, good-humouredly, I began to clamber up the ravine through a

perplexity of shrubs growing among loosely packed stones, thankful

for strong boots and hands toughened by the sun. Overhanging trees and

shrubs almost converted the ravine into a tunnel, but here and there a

greenish light wrought changeful patterns on the gloomy rocks, and ferns

of sombre green with unfolding fronds of ruddy brown occupied crannies

and crowned rocks favoured by drips. No sound of animal life came to my

cars, but an ever-increasing current of air was perceptible as the walls

closed in and became almost precipitous.

The narrow footway was swept bare of loose stones and vegetable rubbish,

save where the wet-season torrents had scooped out basins, or where a

ledge of resisting rock made a wet-season water fall. Such places had to

be discreetly scaled, for the rock was worn to polished smoothness and

hand and foot holds were few and far between. Aerial roots, thin as

whipcord, hung from the branches of trees crowding on the brink of the

ravine, and with tasselled terminals sopped up moisture. A melancholy,

humming monotone pervaded the ravine, seeming to increase in

remonstrance and warning the higher I ascended. Wylo had told of the

noise like a steamer's whistle a long way off. His local knowledge was

being authenticated at every step. Such a sound was almost uncouth in

such a locality; and there, overhanging a jutting angle of red rock, was

the predicted bush with keen prickles thickset on limber branches.

Half amused, I climbed to the spot, and, clinging precariously to the

principal stem, cut off a branch which, falling into the ravine, slipped

several yards down the smooth floor. It was not worth recovering, but

a certain half-humorous sense of obedience to the black boy's cautions

induced me to return for it; and as I trimmed off some of the prickles

that it might be grasped comfortably, a stone clattered down, bouncing

on the rock almost at my feet.

A substantial mystery! What invisible agency had given this hard fact

its force? A gleeful chuckle followed by a discordant crow dissipated

doubt-the stone had been dislodged by an industrious scrub fowl raking

on the brink of the ravine. A sense of fellowship with the harsh-voiced

bird manifested itself. A transient sensation of relief--I had not been

conscious of the least mental depression--followed the thought that in

and about the ravine there were other living things besides myself and

snakes. The death adder, the head of which I had fatally bruised just

now, had been the only sign of life, and it had been as dull-coloured

and almost as inert as the rock on which it lay--an emblem of death

at home in this almost lifeless seclusion. Dwelling with amusement on

Wylo's suggested precautions, I bore the branch before me as I climbed

a steep face, the tomahawk in my belt, intent for the time being, and as

cautious and suspicious as a black boy. On the lip of what seemed to be

a hollow a fig-tree grew, the naked, interlacing roots of which made the

final stages of the ascent easy and safe. Briskly hauling myself up, I

stepped over the edge of the depression, and the solid rock lapsed and

slid underfoot.

In a flash the head of a python arose, and with gaping jaws struck as

the branch fell from my hand.' In a moment I had whipped the tomahawk

from my belt and slashed at the body of the snake squirming at my feet,

as, baffled for a moment by the falling branch, it gathered itself for a

second attack.

Few of the enemies of man are more easily disabled than a snake. Always

zealous in obedience to the Biblical law, it is honest to confess to a

decided preference for elbow-room when engaged in its actual fulfilment.

This was a fight with man's first enemy in close and awkward quarters--a

precipice behind, walls of rock in front and at either hand. Three times

my length, strong enough to constrict to death a giant, wily enough to

seek the cover of the matted roots of the tree, several points were in

favour of the snake. My first wild haphazard stroke, which had merely

scored its flesh, seemed to have roused its vindictiveness. Once in

those coils, the chances of victory would be remote indeed.

Part of the python's still gliding length was within reach, while (the

forepart resting on a branch) the head was but slightly higher than

mine, though beyond the radius of the tomahawk.

The bulging head drew slowly back, as the snake released sufficient of

its length to encompass me. The yellow, blinkless eyes, with knife-edge

pupils, flashed with the hate of agelong feud as I edged against the

wall. My arm was free. The lust of battle tightened every nerve. Neither

flashing eyes nor strangulating length made for fear. The hitherto

all-conquering snake, lord and master of the ravine, bade defiance,

joining issue with the craft of its kind.

Slowly the pendant portion increased as the subtle beast seemed to

concentrate all its energies on one triumphant, invincible effort.

Anticipating the fateful instant, I slashed with all my force at the

portion of the body within reach, ducking simultaneously. Shooting over

me, the head of the enemy struck the rock with brain-bemuddling impact.

For once the serpent had been foiled. With jaws awry, the head swung

limply, like a ceasing pendulum. One blow with the back of the tomahawk

established the right of man to wander at will among the rough and

secret places of the mountain.

Still did the swaying reptile cling with a single coil round the

figtree's branch, while chill blood dripped and splashed among the

intertwined and snake-like roots. A sudden tug brought the body down a

squirming mass. With rough-shod heel, I fulfilled the letter of the law,

bruising the battered head, and then were revealed the bosses by which,

with the tail, the snake had sustained its dead weight.

Was this the “debil-debil” which had scared so many from the quest--a

python which any man might kill in the open without running any risk,

and which a black boy, with time on his hands, would joy to eat? Yet I

own that I was somewhat flustered, and not a little tired and bruised

and angry, because such an impediment had had to be cleared from the

track. Was there not cause for indignation? Why should a gormandising

serpent, full to repletion, lie slothfully across a highway open to

all, to the checking of a holiday-making mortal in lawful pursuit of

a demon-protected crystal? Let me once more vindictively stamp on its

head.

But which way? Here was a dead and unscalable wall to right and left and

in front, and all in deep shadow. I estimated that another one hundred

feet would take me to the mountain-top, whence it would be possible to

survey the scene in relation to the bejewelled rock. Descent was the

only practicable preliminary towards further ascent. Utilising the

interlacing roots of the fig-tree, the way down was easy enough, and,

choosing the left wall of the ravine, I began a perilous climb out of

gloom into sunshine, upon a conglomeration of immense granite boulders,

over which the Sentinel cast a shadow. This shadow indicated that the

ascent had occupied at least three hours, and in my self-complacency

I had calculated to beard the “debil-debil” in his den, dislodge the

crystal, and be back at the camp gloating over the escapade to open-eyed

Wylo in less time.

Though a night was to be spent in the haunt of the evil spirit, yet

would I proceed. I found not one but many “oo-nang-mugils,” lowering

caves and clefts in which scores of fearsome “debil-debils” might lurk,

but which, as far as a vigilant mortal could detect, were given over to

innocent bats and those sun-loving swiftlets which rear their young in

nests adherent to rocks in dusky places.

Over and beneath boulders, squirming through bolt-holes and up flue-like

openings, bruised and with bleeding hands, at last the top was reached,

harsh with granite, and there to the right, on a gigantic splintered

boulder which seemed to block the end of the ravine and to peer down

into the blue bay below, was the crystal glinting in sunshine. It was

not more than fifty yards away, and, easeful of mind, I sat down to

munch a piece of damper. Close by a patch of vivid green moss indicated

the existence of moisture and the further possibility of water. Sure

enough, twenty yards down spongy moss and fern spread over a lip of

rocks, and from dangling tufts and drooping fronds water dripped in

melodious splashes into a shallow depression, and overflowed in a

fan-shaped film. The facets and apex of the crystal reflected harsh

brightness as unsullied as the moss-filtered, unstable drips which

gathered second by second and were gone. How like those drips, how

unlike the scarred, time-chastened rock, that steadfast slip of light

which since the dawn of creation had flashed messages across the

unresponsive sea.

From a ledge in which ferns and orchids grew in careless

profusion--bird's-nest fern and polypodium and white-flowering

orchid--the crystal might be reached by a little manoeuvring. But why

hurry? Every minor crevice was embossed with spongy moss, from which

sprang modest little flowers, a flower of mountaintops alone, lacking a

familiar name, but which in its dainty form and rich mauve is none the

less precious. While all the rest of the way had been barren or gloomy,

here was brave sunshine and space, a jewel-like crystal, and moss and

ferns and flowers, and calm and cool serenity which' bespoke remoteness

from the “debil-debil” and all his works, and from the noisy cave of

the winds. Magic there was in plenty-the air tingled with it--that

exhilarating, mind-expanding silence of mountain-tops which is the most

thrilling magic of all.

Leisurely glances at the mass of granite from which the crystal shone

showed that from the ferny ledge it would be beyond reach, and that

unless care was exercised in the dislodgment it might fall among a

confusion of boulders far below and be lost for ever. My plan was of

to build a buttress of loose stone on which to stand to tap it with the

tomahawk. Like a miniature railway cutting, the ledge ran out on the

face of the rock, so that standing upon it one looked down into the

ravine; but it was broad enough to afford safe and even convenient

footing.

As a final preliminary to the beginning of operations, I clambered up

on to the ledge. Ferns grew among decaying vegetable matter in masses

difficult to push through. Polypodiums with brown, oak-leaf like,

infantile fronds clung tightly to the rocks with furry fingers, and the

birds'-nests were big enough to conceal a man. A broad and comfortable

path it was, leading directly under the crystal, and with haste and

confidence I pushed along, smiling inwardly at “shynynge” fortune, to be

in another moment dismayed by her “brutilness.” The earth sank under me.

I shot into an acute fissure with ferns and dust piled overhead!

Gasping and coughing, I cleared away the smothering rubbish, to find

myself a fixture--jambed fast between walls of granite. Deceptive ferns

had masked the crevice. I had walked along a treacherous track until at

a weak spot it had given way as the gallows' trap beneath the feet of a

murderer.

Light came from ahead, too. There the lancehead-shaped fissure opened on

the ravine, whence it was flushed with cool air.

Was ever mortal in such a plight? A drop of eight from the spacious

top of the mountain had lodged me a prisoner in the narrowest of cells.

Dismayed but not despairing, I struggled frantically, working with

shoulder and arms against the walls of granite. The right foot was

firmly fixed, while a sensation of easiness was perceptible with regard

to the left. Gently yet firmly, and fearful lest the slight grain of

comfort might be fraudulent, I felt the weight of my body on the left

foot, while scrutinising in detail the horrible trap into which the

crystal bait had lured me.

There, a few feet below and further towards the ravine, was the skull

of a human being, and still further down, where space was more confined,

other bones were fixtures. There was a weird fascination about the

skull, for at noon it would receive the benediction of the sun, and the

diurnal glare into the secrets of the crevice had made a patch of white

desert in an oasis of grey mould. The bones below, green and earthly

with age, lay in disorder and confusion--poor fragments of the framework

of man and harmless beasts, sharing a common fate.

Though fast a prisoner, nothing to live on but hope and fresh air, a

sense of relief, somehow, sometime, established itself in my mind.

Most of the significant features of the adventure had been faithfully

foretold by Wylo--the prickly bush, the snake (archetype of the fiend),

the mocking delusive stone, the stored bones of man and beast-all as he

had described. He must have known more than he had voluntarily told, and

assuredly would he come', when he would coo-ee, and I would shout

for very joy. In the meantime would I possess my soul in patience and

conserve all the strength of my lungs and power of endurance.

Just beyond the platform of ferns a splash of lovely tints illuminated

the edge of the time-recording shadow--the solar spectrum produced by

the prism which had beckoned from afar. Was there no escape from the

wizardry of the crystal? No hope of evading comparison of its beauty

and permanence with the muddy and fleeting passions of mankind? Yet how

fruitless its functions--to glorify for aeons the intractable rock,

and to leave it ever unstained! For once in all the centuries may not a

human hand be interposed between those ineffectual flames and the surly

rock? Cannot even that small measure of space be overcome?

A few inches from the tips of my outstretched fingers were the prismatic

tints with which the crystal daily registered the decline of the day;

but not for all my striving and all my wit could I get within reach.

They were as remote as the creating sun!

The narrowness of the cleft forbade effort to reach down so that I might

unlace my boots. There wan but one chance of deliverance--the coming of

Wylo. And would he, agitated by superstitious awe, dare to venture into

the haunt of the evil spirit when he began to realise that I, too, had

fallen into the clutches he so much dreaded? Yet he must come! Of what

special impiety had I been guilty that so rare and terrible a fate

should have been reserved for me. He must come!

Yes. Listen! I hear his coo-ee far below! He is making his way up the

ravine! And with, all my vocal power I coo-eed and yelled. But the

muffling rocks stifled all noise at lips. Listen! Yes! The sound

again--merely the mellow cadences of a swamp pheasant whooping among the

blady grass.

Wylo dared not venture to the very door of the cave of the winds. I was

alone with my fate! Could I master it?

The clean-cut shadow crept up the rock, and with it the colour splash

receded. As I gazed it glittered and was gone. It would not be visible

again until the next afternoon. Would I be here to watch it illuminate

the rock once more? Could I contain myself until then, and perhaps

after, and for day after day, until the last? And were my bones to

be added to the secret horde mouldering within a few feet of the

mountain-top? A few feet of nothingness--mere empty space--separated me

from lost and lovely liberty, and with frantic hands I strove against

the hard face of the rock, and cried aloud in agonising protest.

The old rock had disregarded similar protests and supplications, and had

endured like infantile pushings! Call, and who shall listen? Push and

shove and fight, and what availed it?

In my delirium I cursed and blasphemed, and “full of shriekynge was that

sory place.”

Darkness followed brief twilight, and up the ravine came the murmuring

I had heard below--a sobbing sound which at first affrighted and then

soothed, for it could be nothing but the echo of the sea on the curving

beach below; and in its comfort that lulled all ineffectual clamour, and

eventually to fretful but frightful sleep. Always I awoke panting with

thirst, stiff and strained, and with unmanly cries of fear and pain

on my lips, while the chaste stars danced across the narrow slit as I

strove to stem the turbid stream of despondency.

About midnight a singular peacefulness possessed me, overcoming me in

spite of myself. Feverish impatience and resistance seemed futile, and

in my resignation I began to realise that to avert cramp and disablement

from cold--for a chill, moist breeze from the ravine played continuously

on me--some sort of exercise must be undertaken.

My left foot was certainly not so compressed as the right. Though

it could not be raised, it was possible to move it ever so slightly

forwards and backwards. Might it not be possible, by never-ceasing

friction, to so abrade the edges of the sole of the boot that it might

be reduced to such dimension as would permit it to be raised?

With all the force of my mind concentrated on the one idea, I began to

work in a passion of patience. At first the play of the boot was hardly

to be registered; but hour after hour of ceaseless and calculated effort

not only counterbalanced mental tension and imparted some degree of

warmth to my body, but so amended the shape of the boot that it began

to move with some degree of freedom. The more easy the fit, the more

cautious and calm I became.

No insipid monotony pervaded the remote, cold crevice. The operation was

lubricated with hope. Once every heart-beat--for I kept strict tally, as

further mental relaxation--my boot rubbed against the rock, and each

rub wore away minute particles of leather. As time passed and the work

became still easier, it became more engrossing, until calmness gave way,

and every nerve thrilled with excitement, and I was convinced that

I would win a joyful passage from this narrow strait by dint of the

resolute continuation of the simplest of processes.

But the long night was not to end with such placid and entertaining

occupation. Absorbed in it, sternly waving off all sense of weariness or

despair, I was staggered and stunned by the fall, among an avalanche

of fern debris, of a heavy living body on my head and shoulders--a

grunting, struggling thing which kicked and scratched.

With a despairing shriek, 'all my vibrant nerves collapsed, as in the

darkness and confusion I fought against infernal odds. For one appalling

instant I was convinced of the reality of Wylo's most diresome fact, and

did furiously believe that I was actually entrapped in the stronghold of

a demon at that moment, intent upon tearing me limb from limb. The most

fantastic and horrific of nightmares was actually materialised.

But at that instant a familiar odour sluiced away all mystery. This

struggling thing, from the shock of which my very soul still trembled,

was but a fellow-victim--a wallaby which, feeding along the ledge, had

happened on the trap made by my fall.

In a flash of remorseless energy, I seized the panting body, felt for

the throat, and, expelling pity from my heart, gripped until all was

still. How precious and comforting it was! And once again all my powers

of will and muscle were centred on a single design and action as with

machine-like rhythm the boot wore itself against the rock. Disengaged

from every other theme, my mind dwelt on the one steady, inevitable

purpose. Rub! Rub! Rub! And I fancied I saw leathern dust fall like

filings from iron down deeper into the crevice. Before dawn the boot was

working freely, and with one arm on the compressed body of the wallaby

to case my weight, rest was possible. The plan for the disengagement of

the right foot, painfully rigid and cold, was perfect in theory. Would

it hold in practice? When the left was free I would, by friction of the

iron studs In the sole, wear away the laces of the engaged boot so that

the foot might be withdrawn.

But physical weakness became imperious. The distraction of cramped

and bruised flesh had to be withstood the while the constancy of the

function was maintained. Continual comfort came from the dead body of

the ill-fated wallaby--a sort of fellowship, and a feeling that with its

co-operation the contest between living flesh and blood and the inert

force of the mountain was not altogether one-sided. Light was certainly

cheerful, but the crevice filled with mist which distilled on the rock,

and a chill current of air benumbed my aching limbs.

Under the pressure of fierce determination the task persisted, until,

quite unexpectedly as it seemed, the boot was free; and then, shoving

and squeezing the wallaby as a cushion for my right arm, the sole of

the left boot began to rasp away at the instep of the right. In such a

constrained position the operation, which could be persevered in by fits

and starts only, was exasperatingly slow. The sun sopped up the morning

mist and boldly explored the crevice, revealing the marvellous precision

of the space between the walls. No work of art could be more regular.

The sheer simplicity of the trap made it the more effectual. The

sunlight showed, too, that the fissure was the skylight of a cave which

opened out on the ravine. Dry boulders were strewn about fifty feet

below, while ahead I could catch a glimpse of a narrow ribbon of blue

sea. This provoking sight of unattainable water aggravated thirst almost

beyond endurance. Throughout the night had my longing increased, but

now the pangs were extreme. The most gratifying of all drinks--cool,

fern-filtered, flower-decorated water, water dripping in iridescent

spangles from green moss soft as velvet--splashed incessantly into a

hollow out there a few yards away in the free space of the mountain.

Here, manacled with “adamant eterne,” in an agony of impatience I

quaffed the thirst-stimulating draught of unsatisfied longing as I

strove fitfully to wear away the stubborn strips of leather which held

me in bondage. In a doze or dream the action went on. Startled, I awoke

to find myself pommelling with inane savagery the poor crumpled body of

the wallaby, and to the realisation that the imprisoned foot was loose

in the boot.

A luxurious stupor took possession of my mind. I was at liberty to work

out of the crevice knees and shoulders; yet an impalpable force detained

me. It was not that I was not master of my fate, but that out there in

the glare of the sun was patient water, dripping for the refreshment

and cleansing of my grimy lips. So enchanting a thought was not to be

abruptly ended. Was it not deliciously dreamy to hold myself in

suspense awhile, to linger over anticipated sweetness and prolong blest

gratifications indefinitely?

Strange drowsiness and peace bewitched the sunlit chink. Why should I

struggle more? Could I not, in fancy, hearken to the measured splash of

the drops from the sodden moss? Could anything be more consoling than

this cushion to my bruised and aching arms? Ease and sloth were sweet

indeed. I was free, but not at large. The amazing adaptability of the

human mind had reconciled me in a few suffering hours to this confined

space. Verily do I believe that the overcoming of this subtle anodyne

demanded the expenditure of more vital force than the sum of all the

long-sustained automatic exertion by which I had won physical release.

One supreme mental tug and the baneful torpor was dispelled, and with

stiffened legs and bruised hand@ I began to screw myself up to the free

air cautiously and painfully; and there, in a beam of light from the

crystal, was the slow-dripping flower-bedizened water-celestial nectar

to parched lips.

Hours after I awoke as from a dream. Far below a column of smoke showed

that Wylo still watched. My first act was to send up a responsive

signal. In a fit of petty passion I flung the toil-worn boot into the

ravine, and began the descent by way of the spur to the west.

Wylo seemed scared by the sight of the staggering and tattered

scarecrow, barefooted, and stained with blood and dirt, who stumbled

into the camp at dusk, too weary to talk, almost too spent to eat;

and to this day he is convinced that I was actually detained by the

“debil-debil,” whom I had overcome by some means of which wonder-working

white men alone have the secret.

After two days' rest I climbed the mountain again, blocked the fissure

with loose stones, and built a buttress, standing upon which I tapped

the crystal gently with the tomahawk. It quivered. A shaft of rainbow

tints dazzled my sight. I tapped again. As I touched it it third

time, the fragile finger with which the gaunt old rock had scorned the

plodding centuries vanished in a splutter of spangles!

THE SOUL WITHIN THE STONE

“These ghosts of the living and of the dead assuredly illustrate in

a striking manner the mysterious workings of the human mind, and the

unsuspected influence of soul on soul.”--PRODMORE.

Not more than a hundred yards from its mud-besmeared mouth the

convenient mangroves disappear and the little creek assumes becoming

airs. Huge tea-trees, with cushiony bark, straddle it, and ferns grow

strongly in all its nooks and bends. When the big trees blossom in

watery yellow, yellow-eared honey-eaters, blue-bibbed sun-birds, and

screeching parrots in accordant colours, assemble joyously, for the

aroma, as of burnt honey, spreads far and wide, bidding all, butterflies

and jewel-backed beetles which buzz and hum, to the feast, until the

aerial anthem is harmonic to the rustle of the sea.

The sturdy feet of the trees stand in black peat, through which the

water from the wholesome hills oozes and dribbles, and the russet stain

from discarded leaves is on their white bases. Russet, too, is the

surface of the ever moist soil. Some element in the water derived from

pacted roots of palm and fern tinctures whatsoever in it lies, so that

the bottoms of the shallow, erratic pools are thick with russet slime.

All above is bright and pure, and the water which flows over the

slime-smudged roots limpid and refreshing. If you cut into the bark

of the tea-tree you will find water in beads and trickles, water which

sparkles with purity and has a slightly saline taste. The bare roots

alone suffer defilement.

Many a tall tea-tree stands sentinel on the margin of the creek, and

there are groves of slim palms with narrow truncated leaves--palms which

creep and sprawl over vegetation of independent character, and palm&

which coquette with the sun with huge fans. Orchid& display sprays of

yellowish-green flowers, which contribute a decided savour to the medley

of scents, and palm-like Cycads meander from the low bank out Into the

forest.

But there is one tree which, if not superior to the rest in broadness

of base, height, fairness of bark, and fullness of bloom, has especial

endowment. It stands at the spot where generation after generation of

the original owners of the soil has crossed the creek, wearing a waving

path upon which ferns ever encroach and which every flood amends. In a

recess in its massive roots reposes “Kidjo-bang,” the restless stone--a

boulder, man's-head size, stained with a rim of sober brown.

This is its accustomed scat. It roves the locality, returning,

swallow-like, to the close-fitting hollow of the root. The embraces of

the root are sometimes so strong that the dingy stone may not be moved.

But the floods of the wet season maintain an unceasing cataract to its

dislodgment, and then, according to the legends of the blacks, it begins

to “walk about.” It may rest a month just out of reach of the disturbing

water among the ferns. It has been known to appear mysteriously on the

sandy beach two hundred yards away, to which spot it is said to travel

by way of the grass lands, avoiding the slur of the muddy creek.

Whether it seeks change of scene beyond the ripple of dead leaves and

spoil of the flood, or whether it ventures out on to the open beach,

where the breezes from the Pacific play upon it, the round white stone

returns, independent of the agency of man, to the sanctuary which time,

ever-flowing water, and the hospitable roots of the tree, have combined

to afford. It is there this day. Should it be taken to one or other of

the blue islands in the broad bay, sooner or later it will be discovered

nestling cosily in the grotto in which the dyed slime smears it as with

pale blood.

To the ordinary investigator of the whimsicalities of “Kidj-o-bang” the

blacks betray no secret, though they would verify, with what to them is

proof positive, that it does on occasion appear in unexpected places

and unaccountably reoccupies its cell. Discreetly pursue the subject and

peradventure you may be told precisely why the stone may not always rest

in the one spot in the whole world which it fits as a kernel its shell.

It has been, they assert, associated with an evil deed of which it is

now the emblem. Among the many the mysteries of “Kidj-o-bang” dwell

with the past, though it is still associated with the ceremonies of the

bestowal of totemic names on the children of a certain father.

More than one legend concerning it is extant, and the young fellows of

the present day frankly scoff at them all, while the old men believe

each other's versions and repeat them with bated breath. They cannot

discredit stories which were accepted as established facts when they

were young, which no one then ever dreamed of doubting, and which

provide a comfortably satisfactory account for otherwise perplexing

incidents.

Musing on the spot, the legend of the roving stone usurped my thoughts.

The trivial and uncertain notions of the black boy who was the first to

tell it, and by theatrical gestures to illustrate its verities, became

more and more indistinct. The soothsayers of the long past had been

forbidden by Nature to doubt that which was the lore of the camp. Was it

that Nature re-asserted her influence--that the essences of the scene,

subtle and pervasive, had recurred, creating a receptive spirit, so

deep a religion of assent that shadow and substance intermingled to my

bewilderment? I was permitted to be a sensitive percipient in the midst

of the ashes of shiftless folk who had passed away, catching but a

casual and deceptive glimpse of the coming of the desolating white man.

Piln-goi, the black boy, had wandered up the creek. A thrilling silence

prevailed. Stooping down, I laved my hands in the softly flowing water,

idly intent on lifting the stone. The tawny slime defeated irresolute

efforts, and my slipping hands bestowed a baptismal splash.

Instantly I became conscious of a strange presence, and, glancing

over my shoulder, saw an unfamiliar black boy lurking behind a

glistening-fronded Cycad.

The whole scene had undergone wishful transformation. The white-barked

trees, purified of smears from the sooty fingers of fire, stood out in

splendid contrast to a richer, thicker, a flowery undergrowth. Tall fern

trees spread green cobwebs to entrap sunbeams. The Cycad under which the

boy crouched was slim-shaped, and its foliage resembled that of one of

the most beautiful of ferns, with languorous, dolorous fronds, while it

was crowned with a huge fruit of golden-brown. All the scene had

been wondrously transfigured. Time's treacheries had been defeated.

A garden-like age had been restored. The sword-leaved orchid dangled

yard-long sprays of brilliant yellow flowers, which saturated the air

with delicate perfume. Fearless birds fluttered among and hovered over

the pendant blooms, whistling and calling. Water-rats sported in the

lily-bespangled stream, and a platypus basked, on the bank.

From the strained and expectant attitude of the boy, it was apparent

that he was hunting. He stepped cautiously out of cover, and, using a

wommera of dark wood with oval clutches of white shell, threw a spear

into the long grass. A kangaroo, mad with fear and pain, staggered

forward, knowing not whence fate had struck it, and, lurching

helplessly, sank among the ferns on the margin of the water. Ignoring my

presence the boy, having completed the hunter's office with a blow from

a nulla-nulla, called in a thin, shrill voice:

“Yano-lee!” (We go this way).

In a few seconds a young girl of his own race stepped through the leafy

screen. She cast casual glances at the dead kangaroo, and without saying

a word to her companion came to the pool, stooped down beside me, and

drank eagerly and noisily, using a scoop improvised from a leaf. Her

back glistened with perspiration, and her coarse, fuzzy, uncleanly hair

ceased in tufts on her neck. It was a slim and shapely little figure.

The plumes of the orchid, golden and syrupy, swayed over her heedless

head and seemed to caress it. Her eyes, round, large, and brimful of the

bewildering eagerness of youth, relieved the unobtrusive expansiveness

of her nose and almost atoned for her savage lips. Though almost

touching me, the most shy, wild creature of the bush seemed unconscious

of my presence. She was in fact and deed:

“We have the receipt of fern-seed; we walk invisible.” I was the

phantom--invisible, intangible. The pair beside, the unembarrassed

realities.

Do phantoms reflect? That privilege was mine. Let memory treasure every

detail of the scene, every vestige of its incidents.

“Kidj-o-bang” had vanished. There was its cell. A full and stainless

stream, in a gurgling cataract, sparkled over the big root, while high

among the blossoms birds clambered incessantly for nectar.

The primitive pair were at home, but not at case, In this Garden of

Eden. They spoke in mumbling tones, of which I could catch but stray

phrases, though I listened eagerly. Presently the girl took up two

dry sticks, and, using one as a drill between the palms of her hands,

essayed to make a fire.

The boy imperatively intervened. “Poo-nee imba!” (No fire).

The girl started up, and instantly both slid into the jungle as silently

and as tracklessly as snakes.

The dead kangaroo, the expectant phantom (gifted for the time being with

a faculty more subtle than any moral sense), remained alone among the

birds and the orchids, while shy pencil-tailed water-rats began to sniff

and peer among the sedges. So enthralling was the scene that time passed

insensibly. The sun was overhead when the pair reappeared noiselessly.

Smears of shell and grit betrayed an intervening meal of oysters. Swarms

of green ants, in a scramble for food, almost obscured the blood-stains

on the fur of the kangaroo, and, brushing them away, the boy made and

enlarged with his fingers an opening in the body, and having torn out

the heart, liver, and kidneys, made a fire, scarce a hand's-breadth wide

and smokeless, on which the meat was singed prior to being munched with

grim deliberation. They ate largely, some of the flesh from the hind

quarters being also eaten, scrap by scrap.

Were they fugitives? Tall and strong, the boy was as alert and

suspicious as a dingo. Every sense was strained. He seemed intent upon

subduing the very noises in his head as he slowly crushed his food and

gulped.

A forlorn cry, half appeal, half gurgle, filtered through the leafage as

from the beach, and on the instant the jungle had soundlessly absorbed

the affrighted pair. The handful of fire and the mutilated kangaroo

remained as the only evidences of the handiwork of man.

What of the intruder? The cry was almost too weird to be human. Again it

thrilled through the leafage, a trifle stronger, and seemed to convey a

threat commingled with a prayer for succour.

The scene held me. I was powerless, but not indifferent; capable of

sight, incapable of action or utterance. Something in the tone of the

voice told of a member of my own race in sore distress. Yet I could not

respond to his appeal or move to his aid.

Half an hour of intense silence passed, and then a lusty shout startled

the air. Surely, I thought, the wayfarer who makes such outcry in this

unpeopled wilderness is an uncouth fellow who has lost his way and

thinks to dialogue with echoes for relief of loneliness. Presently the

cracking of branchlets and a rumble of discontented phrases told of

someone blundering along through the mangroves. Accustomed to the

gentle sounds and the delicious silence of the jungle, the clumsy noises

irritated while preparing me for the sight of the intruder--a big,

aggressive, weather-scored man, his only clothing a pair of short pants

of canvas, stained with wear and stiff and whitened with frost like

sea-salt. The ocean had but an hour ago cast him like its scum on the

beach.

He burst on the scene to plunge his broken lips into the water at my

feet. Like the natives, he drank long and noisily, and when his thirst

was allayed called to an imaginary mate--“Pietro, Pietro!” cursed freely

when no answer came, and whimpered like a babe.

Huge of body, strong of limb, bully and brute stamped on his coarse

features, yet did his dread of loneliness piteously overcome him. His

bald pate, hung about with scant reddish ringlets, had been roasted by

the tropic sun until it glowed, and eyes and nose strove for supremacy

of inflammation. An unkempt moustache did not hide teeth of disreputable

tint; chin and jowl were covered with a fortnight's growth of streaky

hair.

Turning from the water, he saw the dismembered kangaroo, and, seizing

one of the legs, tore the flesh from the bones and with ravenous greed

began an uncleanly feast. The impure drank of the pure water and gulped

the strong flesh until his gorged stomach swelled cask-shape, and then

he slept as noisily as he had eaten and drank.

A leathern belt, cracked and whitened, furrowed his distended girth,

and as he lay stretched with the sun scrutinising his face, flies and

mosquitoes and carnivorous green ants feasted on his blood at will.

Each leaden-tinted, lean fly revelled until it assumed similitude to

a colouring grape, some “reeled to and fro and staggered like drunken

men”; bloated mosquitoes and green ants, commingling, made a living

mosaic on the skin of the unconscious man. What could the assaults and

stings of myriads of insects avail against fatigue so formidable?

But a decree had gone forth that the sleeper should wake, and who is man

that he should flout imperious commands? The merciless sun insisted. The

strong man fidgeted under the persistent blaze. Perspiration poured from

his skin; he snarled; his eyelids twitched and quivered; the veins

of neck and forehead throbbed ominously. The sun does not tolerate

disobedience. A thin trickle of blood issued from the grimy nose, and

with a snort the man awoke, his flame-red eye% swilled with enforced

tears. Dazedly he plunged his head into the water and drank greedily,

and, sitting up, spat sullenly and with signs of disgust and contempt.

What comfort could cold water afford so repleted a stomach?

Having disdainfully spurned the remnants of the kangaroo, he sat head

between knees, grumbling against fate. To him the fruitful and pleasant

land was disconsolate. A castaway, he had drifted on to its welcome

shores, and all that it could offer was loneliness, cold water, the raw

flesh of a strange animal, and denial of the solace of sleep. Out of the

depths of his misery and dejection he called imperatively on his God,

and taking from the lining of his belt a thumb-sized purse, of netted

silver, displayed a glorious pearl, which he held aloft, and with an

admixture of supplication and imprecation proffered it to the Most High

as grudging ransom from a God-abandoned country.

Who is there that delights not in the susceptible purity of pearls? The

gem which symbolises virginal placidity was like to be contaminated by

the coarse handling of the fretful, bargaining castaway.

Did I lean forward acquisitively to accept it from the noisome fingers,

reluctant that so serene a prize should be retained in so coarse a

setting?

The man started, for the votive offering had vanished, and blasphemous

lamentations and curses against the Supreme Being, whom he abused for

defrauding him of fortune by trickery, shocked the quietude. Then a

spasm of religious fervour jerked him to his knees as he patronised the

Almighty for having accepted a pledge for safe-conduct from death-like

solitude. After transports of impious piety, as uncouth and boisterous

as his struggles through the labyrinth of mangroves to the purifying

water, he sat bareheaded in the sun.

Steamy heat distilled strong aromatic odours from the myriad leaves;

languid flowers gave copiously and of the best of their fragrance; ferns

and lotus did obeisance to high noon. The birds had ceased to whistle,

and the droning of bees gave to the upper air slumbering rhythm of its

own.

Again the intruder slept. Again the sun commanded and he woke raging.

Standing, he cursed both loud and long, eyes protuberant, face purpling

under the strain of vindictive oaths.

What an unflattering contrast to the unclad natives who had dominated

yet blended with the scene-the girl the prototype of a swaying palm, the

boy that of a tough young bloodwood beside the creek, among the topmost

branches of which a crimson-flowered mistletoe made a splash of colour

in harmony with the single red feather from the wing of a black cockatoo

which the soft-tongued youth had entangled in his hair.

This gross, profane, sun-smitten, sea-rejected herald of civilisation,

disowned by his fellows, disinherited of the world, defiled the spot,

and his voice created an inaugural discord.

With arms uplifted, he muttered ineffectual curses against his fellows,

upbraided his saints, and defied his deity. But while his lips frothed

with the passion of a stuttering tongue, the provoked but just genius

of the spot passed sentence, and swiftly and silently the messengers of

Death came. Four slender spear& penetrated his shaggy chest, as with

a &cream which ended lit a gulp he splashed back into the water. His

struggles and splutterings soon ceased. Silence resumed its fascination.

Blood welled from the mouth and nose and spear wounds, which the eager

water carried off in wavy, independent streams, while the dead face

whitened.

Many minutes elapsed before a dozen white-eyed natives cautiously oozed

through the Jungle, stimulating each other's nervousness by reassuring

gestures. Certain that the trespasser on their dominion was incapable of

mischief, they began to chatter, showing fidgety interest in the body,

which they touched and poked fearsomely with spears.

Dead eyes stared unblinkingly at the sun through a curtain of water,

which had already cleaned them of heat and passion, and wisps of red

hair drifted over the forehead.

The untimely yelp of a dingo some few yards in the jungle inspired a

similar response from one of the men, and without shyness or reserve the

boy and girl joined the throng, and all began to talk excitedly. Some

of the men assumed threatening attitudes towards the girl, who stood

submissively, while the boy talked in a rage of excitement. He had

chosen his mate, and would not, even on pain of summary death, abandon

her.

So trivial an incident as the love affairs of boy and girl could not

compare with the phenomenon in the water. The crisis was momentary.

Amazement was pictured in every face, and not a man but subjected the

bleeding body to gross contempt and what passed among them for ridicule.

They mimicked the high stomach as they stood, as the dead man had stood,

with arms aloft in rebellion against his lot, and fell back, as he had

fallen, screaming, to kick and wallow on the ground. Here was plot and

matter for ludicrous corroboree, the first rehearsal of which took place

on the scene.

Soon curiosity took possession of the unstable actors. The belt was

removed, and on the purse being fumbled with, several small pearls fell

out. They were disregarded; but the strong man of the party looped the

belt about his own inadequate waist, the girl hid the purse (which had

been passed from hand to hand) in her hair, while the men tore the bone

buttons from the pants and fitted them into their ears as they strutted

foppishly.

The dead eyes stared defiantly up into the sky, the face whitened, and

the stains of blood seemed to settle on it.

A harsh sound came as an electric shock, and I heard as from afar off

Piln-goi shout:

“You bin sleep long time, boss! Big low water. We fella look out

pearl-shell!”

The scene had resumed everyday aspects. The sun concentrated its rays on

my head through a rift in the jungle, and the stone, stained dull red,

lay in its cell, while rootlets fringed with tawny slime wavered over

it.

Had soul communed with soul on that illusive borderland we range in

dreams, the emblem of a deed of blood eloquent to reveal its secret? And

now that the tale is told, will it cease from bewildering the simple old

men of the soil who with one hand grapple the magical past and with the

other the realities of the present?

Piln-goi's impatience drew me from the spot and out on to the reef laid

bare by the ebb. The beguiling pearl still eludes him, but memory holds

a rarer treasure than all the fecund sea contains.

End