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 “I should say so,” said Waldron, lost in admiration of the courage
and coolness of these dwellers in the wilderness. “You have had your
share of evils, and something over.”
“It’s all a lottery—the fellows at Burnt Creek used to call us ‘heads
and tails,’ and say we ought to toss up who would be first eaten by
the niggers. I didn’t think it would be such a close thing, however.”
At nightfall the two stockmen came home, and the history of the
establishment was fully disclosed. The overland journey with the
stock had been unusually toilsome, and in swimming a river and
remaining in wet clothes Mr. Heads had contracted an illness which
had taken the form of acute rheumatism, and threatened to cripple
him for life. Fever and ague had fastened their remitting fangs upon
Taylor, and here in this lonely outpost, in the midst of hostile
savages, hundreds of miles from medical or other aid, had the
wayworn pioneers to brave their fate—to recover if their
constitutions proved sufficiently strong, or to die and be buried in
the waste. Such are the risks, however, which Englishmen have ever
been found willing to dare for fame or for fortune.
And such, as long as “proud England keeps unchanged the strong
hearts of her sons,” will they still continue to brave. Fortunately the
stockmen were resolute, active young men, or a very Flemish
account of the cattle would have been rendered. Of course they rode
armed to the teeth with carbine and revolver, and made but little
scruple of using both on occasion.
“I’m blowed if I know how the boss stands it, sitting up there like
an image, day after day. He’s a good shot, and these warrigal devils
knows it, or they’d have rushed the place long enough before now.
I’m that afraid of seeing the hut burned, and them lyin’ cut up in bits
outside, that I hardly durst come home of a night.”
“How are the cattle doing?” asked Jack.
“Well—they can’t help doing well; and they’d do better if these
black beggars would let ’em alone. Better fattening country no man
ever see. Pity you gentlemen don’t sit down handy and be
neighbours for us.”
“I’m not sure that we won’t,” said Jack, in a non-committal tone of
voice; “but we sha’n’t go in for any but real, first-class country, and
plenty of it. We want run for ten or fifteen thousand head of cattle,
at least.”
“Come, Mick,” said Mr. Heads, “you may as well lay this gentleman
on to that Raak country that you saw when you were lost beyond
the range, if you were not too frightened to know what it was like.”
“Well, I don’t say but I will,” said Mick, slowly. “I dare say he’ll
sling me a tenner if it turns out all right. It is country, and no blessed
mistake. This here run ain’t a patch on it.”
“Is there plenty of it?” inquired Jack, with commendable caution.
“We don’t want a mulga scrub and a plain or two. We must have a
whole country side; good water, and twenty-five-mile block.
Something in that line. And I’ll give you——”
“Twenty pounds, after we’ve seen and approved,” broke in
Waldron, who was impatiently chafing to clench the bargain. “So it’s
a bargain, eh?”
“Done—and done with you, sir,” said the stockman heartily. “You’re
one of the right sort; and I’d give a trifle out of my own pocket to
have you alongside of us. I’ll go a bit of the way to-morrow, and put
you up to the lay of the country—there’s room enough and water
enough for half the cattle in Queensland.”
This important stage reached, the rest of the evening was spent in
comparatively cheerful and abstract talk. Mr. Heads took a more
cheerful view of his situation and surroundings, and stated that
when Messrs. Redgrave and Waldron had arrived and fairly put down
stakes, he should look upon themselves as residents in a settled
district. “They had not had a beast speared for a week. Matters were
decidedly improving. If Taylor would only get stronger, he believed
he would be on his legs again in no time. Couldn’t say how cheered
up they all felt. Don’t you, Taylor?” Here the periodical chills came on
the sick man, and he began to shiver as if he would shake his teeth
out soon.
It was held, after due consultation, to be only consistent with the
exercise of Christian charity to remain for a few days, and to comfort
the garrison of this garde douloureuse. The horses profited by the
respite; and when the journey was recommenced the explorers had
the satisfaction of leaving their hosts in a state of mental and bodily
convalescence. Mr. Taylor, having passed over the shaking stage,
began to recover strength, while Mr. Heads, still much restricted as
to locomotion, was hopeful as to ultimate recovery, and inclined to
believe that the heathen would be confounded in due time, and the
persecuted cattle be permitted to eat their cotton-bush unharmed,
free from spears and stampedes.
Detailed information as to route and water-courses was obtained
from Mick Mahoney, the stockman, a New South Welshman of Irish
extraction, who was loud in praise of the grand country he was, in
his own phrase, “laying them on to.” Altogether, matters wore a
more hopeful and encouraging appearance to Jack’s mind than at
any time since the “hegira” from Gondaree. The horses were fresh
and in good heart; their arms and ammunition were carefully looked
to. Some slight addition was made to the commissariat; and Mr.
Waldron, as he rode forth, all adieux having been made, declared
himself to be “as fit as a fiddle,” and ready to fight all the blacks in
the glorious new territory of Raak if it was half as good as Mick
Mahoney had made out.
“I feel like one of the Pilgrim Fathers,” he was good enough to
remark, “just unloaded from the Mayflower, and all ignorant of Philip
of Pokanoket, Tecumseh, and the rest of the Red Indian swells. I
suppose we shall not have any of their weight to do battle with. A
spear like an arrow is a mild kind of weapon enough unless it hits
you. I propose if we get this country, to be kind to these Austral
children of Ishmael, against whom is, apparently, the hand of every
man.”
“The worst possible policy,” said Jack; “after the place is settled,
well and good, but as long as ill-blood lasts you can’t be too careful.”
“I think you are disposed to be hard on them,” answered Guy;
“but of course you’re the commanding officer, and I give in. Only, I
have a strong feeling in favour of a genuine patriarchal reign. The
whole tribe, gradually convinced of the good feeling and firmness of
the new ruler, bowing down to the beneficent white stranger, and,
while toiling for him with passionate devotion, insensibly creating for
themselves a higher ideal.”
 “Dreams and phantasies of youth, my dear Waldron, frightfully
exaggerating the good qualities of human nature, never by any
chance realized. There’s always some scoundrel of a stockman who
undoes all your teaching, or some long-headed crafty pagan who
convinces his brethren of the very obvious fact that stealing is a
cheaper way of procuring luxuries than working for them.”
“It may be so,” said the boy (another name for enthusiast, unless
the nature be precociously cold or corrupt); “but all the same, if we
get this country, I should like to do something for these pre-Adamite
parties, or whatever they are. I think they are very improvable
myself.”
“Up to a certain point, but not a peg further; like all savages, they
lack the power of continuous self-denial; that’s where the lowest
known specimens of the white races immeasurably excel them. Out
of any given hundred of the most debased whites you may get an
individual infinitely susceptible of development by culture. You may
take the continent through, and from the whole aboriginal
population you shall be unable to cull such a one.”
“Well, I know that is the general creed about niggers, as we
comprehensively call all men a few shades darker than ourselves;
but when we annex this kingdom of Raak I will certainly try the
experiment. In the meanwhile, when shall we get to it? I feel most
impatient to gaze on this land of the Amalekites. They have no
walled cities at any rate.”
“If we have luck we may get there to-morrow,” said Jack, “and
camp on our own run, or runs, for we shall have plenty to sell as
well as to keep.”
Steering precisely by the directions given, and a rough chart
manufactured for them, they found themselves quartered for the
first night in a barren and unpromising scrub. However, this was the
description of country described, being, indeed, the occasion of Mick
Mahoney losing his tracks and eventually blundering into the
astonishing land of Raak.
Next morning they were all on the alert, and for the greater part
of the day toiled through a most hopeless and apparently endless
scrub. Evening approached and found them still in the jungle. Guy
began to think that they had missed their course; or that Mick
Mahoney had lied; or that they were going deeper and deeper into
one of the endless waterless thickets which occur “down there.”
Doorival, who by no means relished this description of travelling, and
who had found his pack-horse most vexatious and hard to manage,
suddenly ascended a high tree, and soon as he reached the top
began to gesticulate and call out.
“All right, Misser Redgrave,” he cried out, as soon as he had
deposited himself, with some breathlessness, on the ground; “me
see ’um that one new country, big waterhole, and big hill, like’t Mick
tell you. Plenty black fellow sit down; I believe me see ’um smoke all
about.”
“They be hanged!” said Guy, throwing up his hat; “let us push on
and camp on the edge of it. I don’t want to stop another night in the
wilderness.”
Fired with new hope, they redoubled their exertions, and as the
sun fell in broad banners—“white and golden, crimson, blue”—he
lighted up the welcome panorama of a vast pyramidal mass of
granite, throwing its shadows across a silver-mirrored lake, while, far
as eye could see, stretched apparently endless plains.
The comrades looked at each other for a moment, and then Guy
burst into a wild hurrah, and, taking Jack’s hand, shook it with
unacted fervour.
“By Jove, old fellow,” said he, “this is a moment worth living for,
worth a whole long life in Oxfordshire, with all the partridge and
pheasant shooting, fishing and hunting, dressing for dinner, and all
the other shams and routine of recreation. This is life! pure and
unadulterated; travel, adventure, anxiety, and now Success!
Triumph! Fortune!”
“Don’t make such a row, my dear fellow,” said Jack, more
philosophical, but inwardly exultant, “or else we shall have the whole
standing army of Raak upon our backs. You may depend upon it the
fellows are pretty well fed in this locality; and when that is the case
they are apt to become very ugly customers in a skirmish. We may
as well take off the packs.”
 “What, camp here?” demanded Waldron, in a most aggrieved
tone.
“Why not? You would not have us go on to the lake before we
know whether the tribe is not in force there. No! here we have the
scrub at our backs, and if attacked—and we must keep that
possibility uppermost in our minds—we have a capital cover to fight
or fly in, whichever may be most expedient.”
So they abode there, warily abstaining from making any but the
smallest fire, and deferring possession of the new world till the
morrow.
They had been long on their way to the lake—to their lake—
concerning the name of which they had already held discussion,
before the sun irradiated the virgin waste which lay unclaimed,
untrodden, save by the foot of the wandering savage, before and
around them. The pyramid of fantastically piled rocks rose clear and
sharp in outline on the shore of the lake. The distance, as is usual
with such landmarks in a perfectly level country, was greater than
they had supposed. It was midday when they loosed their tired
horses among the luxuriant herbage at its base, and wandered to
the edge of the gleaming waters, doubly gracious from their rarity in
that land of fierce heat and infrequent pool and stream. Amid the
caves which deeply tunnelled the foundation of this wonder-temple
of Nature they found traces of burial and tribal feast, and the
strange, gigantic Red Hand, the symbol of forgotten rites, traced
rudely but indelibly upon the dim cavern walls. Doorival gazed with
wondering and troubled looks upon these tokens of an older day—a
more powerful organization of the fast-fading tribes.
“I believe big one black fellow sit down here,” he said, with some
appearance of awe and perturbation, a most unusual state of mind
with him, a full-blooded wolf cub that he was, and curiously devoid
of fear; “one old man Coradjee come every moon and say prayer
along a that one murra. By and by wild black fellow run track
belonging to us, and sneak up ’long a camp.”
“We must keep a good look out, then, Doorival,” said Redgrave,
sanguine and fearless in the presence of the great discovery. “Keep
your revolver in good order, and Mr. Waldron and I will pick them off
with our rifles like crows. Help will tell us when they are coming,
won’t you, old man?”
That intelligent quadruped, conscious that he was being appealed
to, but not, let us say, fully understanding the whole of the
conversation, looked wistfully at his master for a minute, and then
relieved his feelings by a series of loud barks and a rush down to the
lake, in the erroneous expectation of catching some of the water-
fowl that thronged the shallows.
They concluded to camp at the lake that day, and on the next to
try and discover the river which they doubted not divided at some
point this magnificent tract of country. The one fact established of a
permanent watercourse, and their prize was gained. They had
nothing more to do but to put in their tenders for as many five-mile
blocks as they pleased of the Raak country. Their fortune was made;
they could easily dispose of a third part of it; stock up another third
with breeding cattle, and after three or four years of very easy
squatter-life—pace the blacks—might consider themselves to be
wealthy men.
 CHAPTER XXI.

“The brown Indian marks with murderous aim.”—Goldsmith.

Late next day they fell upon converging tracks and indications that
the wild creatures of the region walked steadily in one direction,
mostly discovered and collated by Doorival. Keeping the average
direction, they came towards evening upon a noble, full-fed flowing
stream, running north-easterly, and abounding in fish and wild-fowl.
“Hurrah!” shouted Guy Waldron, “this is something like a river.
What a glorious reach that is! We ought to christen it, for I swear no
white man ever saw it before; what shall we call it? I make you a
present of the lake, by which to immortalize any of your fair friends;
but I should like to name this river; or I’ll toss up, whichever you
like.”
“I will accept the lake, which I hereby call Lake Maud—we will
provide the champagne on a future occasion. What shall you call the
river?”
“I shall call it the Marion, after my dear old mother. Heaven knows
whether she will ever see her wild boy again. I should like to have
my head in the old lady’s lap again, as I used to do when I was a
schoolboy, and she used to talk to me in her gentle way, and charm
all the perversity out of me. I wonder what sets me thinking of the
blessed saint now.”
“It won’t do you any harm, Guy,” said Jack, kindly. “Mine died
when I was a little chap, but I shall never forget her, it seems like
yesterday. And now, what about making tracks for civilization—save
the mark—the day after to-morrow? We may run the river down to-
morrow to see if the country gets worse or better, and then we must
head for the nearest place the mail passes and send in our tenders—
the sooner the better.”
“All right. I should like a month here; but one can’t be too spry
about the tenders; there are always such a lot of rascally landsharks
on the look-out for anything like good new country. They might have
got a scrap or two of information out of old Blockham, from which
basis they are quite capable of tendering for all the available country
within a thousand miles of him.”
“Quite true,” said Jack. “I’m glad you see it in that light. I’ve heard
of many a pioneer who has had the hard work of years snatched
away from him by tenders suspiciously close to, but little in advance
of, his own. How the information was supplied Heaven only knows,
but it has been done before now. Didn’t old Ruthven get Yap-yap
and Marngah, all that country side? and didn’t Westrope, who
discovered it, lose heart and migrate to California, disgusted with
Australia, and wroth with the whole civil service from the
messengers to the minister?”
Their exploration fully confirmed the previous high estimate of the
quality of the country. Following the river downward, they came
from time to time upon unusually broad, deep reaches, equal to a
three years’ drought without serious diminution. The plains retained
their character, and were rich in saline herbage, intermingled with
the best kinds of fattening grasses. There was room for half-a-dozen
stations of the largest size; and as far as they could see there was
no appearance of the country “falling off”—that is, changing into the
apparently verdant but utterly worthless spinifex, or the endless
scrubs which multiply labour and decrease profits. No; the Raak
country was as good as good could be, perfect in quality, and more
than sufficient in quantity. They rested contented, and decided to
make back to the settlements with morning light. With that end in
view they shaped their course in such fashion as to strike the Great
Scrub, which they had penetrated after leaving Mr. Blockham’s, at a
point more in the direct line to the settled country, whence they
might send in their tenders for their principality with the smallest
possible loss of time.
 By cutting off corners, and making use of their previous
experience, they managed to reach the border of this jungle tract
late on the following evening.
All that day and the previous night the boy Doorival had been
uneasy and watchful. Had they not known his exceptional courage,
they would have attributed his uneasiness to the causeless fear and
general apprehension so often exhibited by aboriginals when in
strange territory. More than once he pointed out a thin column of
smoke rising at no great distance from them. Sometimes one was
observable on one flank, sometimes on the other, or in their rear.
And as they rode forward it seemed that these tiny vaporous
phenomena were rather less distant than in the earlier part of the
day.
“You see that one?” said the boy, in a low, broken voice, indicative
of dread. “Black fellow talk along that one smoke. One black fellow
’long a hill see you, he make smoke. ’Nother one black fellow see
that one smoke, he make ’um smoke, tell ’nother one black fellow
‘all right.’ By and by, I believe, we see ’um, and no mistake. I think
keep watch, all hands, ’long a camp to-night.”
“Very well, Doorival,” said Jack, “we shall all sleep with one eye
open. Help will tell us when they are pretty close up, and we have
plenty of cartridges all ready for the first round.”
They had approached within a couple of miles of a long cape of
scrub which stretched out into the open country, as a promontory
into the sea, when it suddenly became apparent that they had
entered upon a different description of travelling. They found a wide
expanse of deep sand, level as the blown beaches of the sea,
embellished in large patches here and there with the pink flowering
mesembryanthum, which looked like a great bright flag cast down
on the mimic shore, but deep and toilsome for the horses, so that an
active footman could have run as fast as the struggling, floundering
quadrupeds. Here, in this unexpected trap, suddenly appeared two
large bodies of blacks, who converged, as if by preconcerted signal,
and followed closely upon their tracks. They did not make any
pretence of attack, but followed patiently in the wake of the party,
as if more in the hope that the horses might sink exhausted in the
sand, and so place the party at their mercy, than with the intention
of forcing an engagement.
John Redgrave and his companions had ridden hard that day in
order to reach the point now in front of them, and, ignoring the
possibility of any change of country, had not perhaps exercised
sufficient caution in so doing. Now they saw their error. The horses
toiled, stumbled, and staggered in the deep, yielding sand, while
nearer and still nearer came the savage horde, following up, with
wolf-like obstinacy, their faltering footsteps. At length, when the
timber was distant about a mile, the expedition held a council of war.
“I wonder, if we get into the cover, whether there is any chance of
the fellows following us further,” said Waldron. “My horse is nearly
done, thanks to my unfair weight; but I don’t like to leave him
behind.”
“Plain black fellows never go ’long a scrub,” asserted Doorival; “we
get ’long a timber they stop and turn round. Too much afraid of
debil-debil; but I believe they catch us before that; they close up
now.”
“How can we stop them?” demanded Guy. “I can’t go faster to
save my life.”
“I’ll show you,” said Jack, dismounting; “you lead my horse on
slowly, and be ready to wait for me as I come up. I’ll manage to stop
them.”
“But you are going to certain death,” said Waldron. “I can’t stand
that.”
“Not at all,” said Jack, coolly; “you take my orders: I’m first officer,
you know. Walk on quietly, and leave me here.”
Jack remained where he was, and permitted Waldron and Doorival
to go slowly forward. He looked carefully to his rifle, and as the array
of natives came rather confusedly along he picked out a
conspicuous-looking personage in the lead and fired. The
unfortunate savage threw up his arms and dropped dead in his
tracks. Another fell, desperately wounded, and yet another to the
third shot. The mass of pursuers became confused at this sudden
onslaught. They halted, appeared irresolute, and finally made a flank
movement, and suffered our travellers to pursue their way in peace.
 Jack quickly rejoined his men, who had stopped at the first shot;
they then dismounted, and, leading their weary horses, made good
their way to the cover, where they found firm ground and a
sheltered nook, wherein they rested for the night, thankful to believe
that they would remain unmolested by the dismayed contingent of
the tribes of Raak.
“It was unfortunate that we should be compelled to draw first
blood,” said Jack, as they kept midnight watch, “but it was
unavoidable. If one horse had fallen we should have had the whole
mob upon us at once, without the faintest chance of escape.”
“What made you think of that particular style of defence?”
“I happened to know two explorers,” answered Jack, “who saved
themselves in a similar emergency long ago. Only that they were in
very wet, marshy country. Shirley told me he had never known it
fail; and he being an unquestioned authority I determined to try it.”
“Well, there’s nothing like experience,” said Guy, reflectively. “I
should never have thought of it, though I was just preparing to sell
my life dearly, as the writing fellows call it. To-morrow we shall be
well across this belt of scrub, and I suppose we may consider the
war-path business over.”
“I trust so,” answered his comrade; “we have plenty of obstacles
and troubles before us yet without that. I must say I shall be glad to
see the first bush inn again, unsatisfactory halting-places as they
are, notwithstanding.”
“That tribe give us fits when we go back to Raak again,” observed
Doorival, with decision. “How many men you take, Misser
Redgrave?”
“Plenty of men, plenty of guns, Doorival,” said Guy Waldron; “don’t
you be afraid. You must tell them all about that if they don’t touch
the cattle we’ll be the best friends they ever had.”
“I not afraid,” said the boy, proudly. “You nebber see me frighten,
Misser Waldron!”
“Well, I never did,” admitted Guy; “you are as plucky a little
beggar as I ever saw of your age, white or black.”
For three days they pursued their course through the interminable
scrub, occasionally suffering for want of water, and at other times
rendered anxious by the idea that they had mistaken their course,
and perhaps struck the barren, waterless thicket at a point where it
was broader than they had imagined, in which case they might be a
week or even a fortnight before they threaded its ofttimes fatal
maze. On the fourth day they sent Doorival ahead to see if he could
find any indication of a change of landscape, which would fortify
them in the idea that they had not been mistaken in their
calculations.
To their great joy their messenger returned before sunset with the
welcome intelligence that he had seen open country ahead, and they
would reach it early next morning.
A small supply of water being discovered, the little party camped,
full of sanguine anticipation of the morrow, looking upon the worst
of the journey as past, and already fancying themselves restored to
civilization and free to enter upon the first stage of their successful
discovery.
Their camp-fire was rather larger than usual that night. Some of
the minor precautions were dispensed with. No sign of native trails
had been seen lately, and after their repulse of the Raak army they
felt themselves equal to any ordinary skirmishing party.
The partners talked long as they sat and smoked by the fire. Guy
was unusually excited with the confirmation of their reckoning and
the expectation of a trip to the metropolis for the presentation of
their tenders, in the names of Redgrave and Waldron, for so many
blocks upon either bank of the river Marion, with others, including,
of course, Lake Maud and Mount Stangrove.
“It’s full of magnificent sensations, this rôle of successful explorer,
Redgrave,” he said. “Nothing comes up to it that I ever felt before,
especially when you see plainly before you the unmistakable profits
and advantages. It comprehends so much beside discovery; it’s the
creation, as it were, of a colony of one’s very own.”
“It’s a grand thing in its way,” agreed Jack, with less enthusiasm,
recalling one great enterprise which had looked as fair and yet failed
so fatally. “But, as I said before, many things have to be done yet;
and I’m getting old enough, I fear, to dread the proverbial slip.”
 “I know,” interrupted Guy, with eager scorn; “but there can’t be a
break-down in our case—it’s morally impossible. They must accept
our tenders. We can’t have any difficulty in selling some of our spare
blocks for cash enough to put on store cattle. How glorious it will be
to see them pitching into that lovely saltbush by the lake! I know my
governor would send me out two or three thousand pounds if he
knew I had a real partner and a real station—a country-side of my
own.”
“It all looks very well, old fellow,” said Jack, “and I feel with you
that nothing in the ordinary run of events can prevent our forming a
fine property out of our discovery, which is entirely confined to our
own knowledge. You had better go straight in with the tenders as
soon as we reach the region of her Majesty’s mails, and I will stay at
any convenient township till I hear from you.”
“But why not come down with me?” demanded Guy. “I have lots
of tin to carry us on for a few months, and a spell in town would do
you no harm.”
“I have made no vow,” said Jack, “but I have taken a solemn
resolution”—and a strange light came into his eyes as he spoke, and
into his heart a thrill as he thought of Juandah and his last words to
Maud Stangrove—“a resolution not to resume my position in society
until I do so as the man who has achieved a success; I must return
a leader, a conqueror, or my old comrades shall see me no more. My
barque must sail up the harbour with flags flying and prizes towed
astern, or lie a battered hull for wind and wave to hold revel over.”
“Ha!” said Guy, “stands the case thus? So we are too proud to
bend to the breeze until the wind changes? Well, I understand the
feeling; only you must put me up to all the ways of your Lands
Department, or else I shall get sold or nobbled, or ‘had,’ and then
where will the prize-money come from?”
“It is all simple enough,” said Redgrave. “You will leave with
everything cut and dry, and in writing. You will be able to manage
advances and so on down below, and I shall be all the more handy
to go and take delivery of the first lot of store cattle.”
“By Jove!” said Waldron, excitedly, “I feel as if I were behind them
at this very moment.”
 As he spoke the dog Help rose slowly and, looking out into the
darkness, growled in a low, fierce tone, while Doorival, converted
suddenly into a statue, expressive of the act of listening, with an
intensity apparent in every nerve and muscle, raised his hand in
silent warning. Each man felt for his arms, and placed himself in full
and perfect readiness for the reception of whatever enemy might
appear. The night was intensely dark. Within a few feet of the fire
the thicket was altogether composed of Egyptian darkness. It might
have been solitary as the great desert, it might have contained an
army with banners, for all that could be seen: still evil was abroad,
they doubted not. The dog, whose tongue never lied, growled yet
more menacingly. From Doorival at length came the interpretation of
the faint sounds of the desert.
“Hang that fire,” he said, at last, “I think we big fools for making
it; black fellow coming to rush the camp; I hear ’em stick break just
now.”
Not a sound had fallen upon the less delicate organs of the two
men, and Redgrave, but for the corroboration of Help’s evidence,
would have felt almost inclined to discredit Doorival’s information.
“Sticks break all night in the bush,” he said, “still there’s something
up by the old dog’s bristles. If it were a dingo he would walk out to
meet it; but you see he cowers close by us. Listen again.”
“Your hear ’em now?” said Doorival, in a hoarse whisper, as a very
faint but continuous murmur of voices came in on the breeze. “Black
fellow—no mistake.”
“Every man to his tree,” said Guy. “I vote we clear out to the rear
of the fire, so that we may deliver a converging fire upon the
scoundrels when they come near the light. I call it devilish
unhandsome to try and pot us now we are so near civilized society.
However, they’ll get it hot, that’s one comfort.”
“It was a strange experience,” Redgrave thought, as he coolly
picked out the largest available tree where none were very big, and
with Guy awaited the attack. In utter desolation of that nameless
solitude, with the hour midnight, and the faint but distinct sounds as
of the light tread and hushed voices of the advancing savages,
Redgrave felt as if they were enacting a scene in some weird drama,
and were awaiting the Demon with whose intercourse their fate was
interwoven.
That they would come off victorious, with the advantage of
preparation and the immense superiority of fire-arms, he never
doubted. Still the blacks had the advantage of numbers, and of that
instinctive cunning which renders the savage man no mean
antagonist.
The noises ceased; for some minutes, an unpleasant period of
suspense, they awaited the onset. Then the dog suddenly burst into
a loud, fierce bark, as the still, warm midnight air was rent by a
storm of yells; and a shower of spears, apparently from every point
of the compass, covered the fire and every foot of ground within
some distance with thirsty spear-points.
A double volley, fired low and carefully in the direction of the
thickest spears apparently had some effect, as a sudden cry,
promptly checked, implied. For some time this curious interchange of
missiles took place. Whenever the blacks pressed forward, desirous
of discovering the exact hiding-place of the daring white men, a
steady discharge repulsed them. The whites were well supplied with
ammunition, and the rapidity with which they loaded and fired
deceived the attacking party. More than one man of note had fallen,
and they became less eager in the attack upon a party so well
prepared, so skilled in defence. Apparently a last attack was ordered.
Some kind of flank movement was evidently arranged, and some of
the boldest of the fighting men of the tribe ordered to the front. The
spears commenced to fall very closely among the resolute defence
corps. They appeared as if thrown from a shorter distance. Guy
could have sworn that the spear which whizzed so closely by his
head, as he leaned over to fire in the direction of a suspiciously
opaque body, was thrown from behind yon small clump of mulga.
With the decision of intelligence, or the recklessness of despair, the
dog Help suddenly rushed out and assaulted what appeared to be a
man at the base of the clump referred to. Guy dashed forward to the
smouldering fire, and seizing a fire-stick threw it in the direction of
the combat where the dog was baying savagely, and occasional
blows and spear-thrusts showed that a fight à l’outrance was
proceeding. The brand blazed up for a moment, just sufficient to
display the burly form of a savage warrior engaged in the ignoble
contest. With practical quickness Guy took a snap shot and sent a
bullet through the broad chest, the arms of which at once collapsed.
In the excitement of the moment Guy moved forward, displaying
the whole of his grand and lofty figure in the uncertain light. A score
of spears from the concealed enemy hurtled around him with the
suddenness of a flight of arrows. One of the puny-looking missiles—
they were reed spears, tipped with bone—pierced his arm, another
struck him in the side. Snapping the former short off, and carelessly
drawing forth the other, the wounded man stalked back to his cover,
from whence he, with Jack and Doorival, kept up a ceaseless
fusillade. So deadly was the fire that their assailants dared not
approach more nearly the desperate strangers, who fought so hard
and shot so straight. From time to time a yell, a smothered cry,
proclaimed that a shot had taken effect.
The explorers took advantage of a pause in the attack to draw
together and hold converse.
“Redgrave, old fellow,” said Guy, in tones which were strangely
altered, “I fancy that I’ve lost more blood than shows, or else I’m
hard hit, for I feel deuced faint and queer.”
“You don’t mean it, Guy; surely you can’t be serious in thinking
those two needle punctures could stop you.”
“The one in the arm is only a scratch, though it makes one wince;
but this confounded one in the flank has bitten more deeply, and I
don’t know what to say about it.”
“Then there is nothing for it,” said Jack, decisively, “but to beat a
retreat. If these black devils think you are badly hurt nothing will
stop their rush when they choose to make it. We must take stars for
our guide, and move steadily back, keeping our course as well as we
can.”
“And what about the horses?”
“They must be left to their fate; we should risk our lives, and
perhaps lose them, if we attracted notice now by trying to catch
them.”
“Pacha and all?” asked Guy, incredulously.
 “I believe I could almost suffer my hand to be hacked off rather
than lose him if it were optional,” confessed Jack; “but we must
choose between life and death: the time is short.”
Having communicated the decision to Doorival, and pointed out
the direction, that young person selected a star, and, marching with
eyes steadfastly fixed upon it, the others followed him.
They were not pursued, probably because they were near the
boundary of the tribe that had assailed them. No people while
unmolested are more punctilious in preserving a proper attitude to
friends and foes than the untaught aborigines. They respect the
hunting-grounds of their neighbours in the most conscientious
manner, and are always ready to hunt up an outlaw or criminal who
has taken refuge in the territory of a foreign tribe. Such was one
element of safety upon which the little party reckoned, and by great
good fortune it did not fail them.
By the merest chance it happened that the spot where the unlucky
camp-fire had been lighted was within a short distance of the
ancient and scarcely-observed tribal boundary. So that when John
Redgrave with his wounded comrade and their henchman
abandoned their position they were unwittingly in perfect safety
before they had left the scene of the conflict three miles behind
them. It afterwards transpired that the second chief of the tribe had
been mortally wounded in the last volley. The excitement and grief
caused by his fall aided the retreating party in their silent flight.
All the night through they travelled slowly but steadily onward,
having for their pilot the untiring Doorival, and for their guidance
one friendly star.
As day broke, and the red dawn stole soft and blushing over the
gray plain and duller foliage, they found themselves upon a pine-
clothed sand-hill, from whence they could survey the landscape in all
directions. By the clear dawn-light each man was enabled to scan
the face of his comrade. The pale and changed countenance of the
once gay and volatile Guy Waldron struck Redgrave with a feeling of
wonder and dread.
“Well, it seems that we are clear of these highly patriotic ‘burghers
of this desert city,’” said he, with an attempt at his old manner,
though the pained and fixed expression of his features belied the
jesting words. “Do you think there is a medical practitioner within
hail, Redgrave? though I fear me he would come late.”
“Good God!” said Jack, “you don’t say—you can’t think, old man,
you are really hurt. I thought it was a mere scratch. Let us look and
see; surely something can be done.”
“’Tis not ‘as deep as a draw-well, or as wide as a church-door,’ as
Mercutio says, but I am really afraid that I shall see the old hall no
more, not even the modified home of a club smoking-room. It’s hard
—deuced hard, isn’t it, to die by the hand of miserable savages, in a
place only to be vaguely guessed at as within certain parallels; just
when we had hit the white too.”
“Don’t think of that, my dear old boy,” said Jack, gently, “you lie
down and have a sleep, and perhaps we shall find that you have
over-rated the damage.”
They made a fire; Jack and the boy Doorival kept watch, while the
sore-fatigued and wounded man slept. No sound of fear or conflict
smote upon their ears, as toil-worn and saddened, they passed the
mournful hours. Towards evening Guy Waldron stirred, but moaned
with fresh and increasing pain.
“Where am I?” he asked, as he looked around, with eyes which
incipient delirium had begun to brighten. “Oh, here, on this
miserable sand-hill—and dying—dying. Yes, I know that I am going
fast. Do you know, Redgrave, that I dreamed I was back in the old
place in Oxfordshire, and I saw my mother and the girls. I wish—I
wish you could have met my people, but that’s over—as plain as I
see you and Doorival. Don’t cry, you young scamp. Mr. Redgrave will
look after you, won’t you? Well, I thought the governor looked quite
gracious, and said I was just in time for the hunting season. Every
one was so jolly glad to see me, and then I woke and felt as if
another spear was going slap through me. Oh, how hard it is to die
when a fellow is young and has all the world before him! I don’t
want to whine over it; but it seems such awful bad luck, doesn’t it
now?”
“I wish I had been hit instead,” groaned Jack. “I’m used to bad
luck, and it seems only the order of nature with me. Try and sleep
again, there’s a good fellow.”
“I shall never sleep again—except the long sleep,” answered Guy,
mournfully. “I feel my head going, and I shall begin to rave before
long. So we may as well have our last talk. When I’m gone send my
watch and these things—they are not of any great value—to my
agents in Sidney, and ask them to send them to my people. They
know my address—and, Doorival, come here.”
The boy came, with deepest sorrow in every feature, and knelt
down by his master’s side.
“Will you go home to my father, my house across the big sea, and
tell them how I was struck with a spear in a fight, and all about me.”
“I go, Misser Walron,” said the boy, cheerfully. “I tell your people.”
“You not afraid of big one water, and big canoe?”
“Me not afraid,” said the boy, proudly. “I go anywhere for you—
you always say, Doorival afraid of nothing.”
“All right, Doorival; you were always a game chicken. I should
have made a man of you if I had lived. Mr. Redgrave will give you
new clothes when you go down the country, and put you on board
ship. Mind you are a good boy, and remember what I told you, when
you go to my country, and see father belonging to me. Now good-
night.”
The boy threw himself on his face beside the dying man, and with
many tears kissed his hand, and then, raising himself, walked to a
tree at some distance and sat with his head upon his knees, in an
attitude of the deepest dejection.
“Look here, old fellow,” continued Guy, “there’s a hundred or two
to my credit at the agents’. I’ll scrawl an order in your favour. You
take it and do what you can for the honour of the firm, and my
share of the profits, if there be any, in time to come, can go to my
sisters. It will remind them of poor Guy. I shall die happier if I think
they will get something out of it when I’m gone. Let the boy take all
my traps home in the ship with him. It will comfort the girls and the
old people at home, who have seen the last of their troublesome
Guy. I wish you all the luck going; and some day, when you are
thinking of the first draft of fat cattle, remember poor Guy Waldron,
who would have rejoiced to knock through all the rough work along
with you; but it cannot be. Somebody gets knocked over in every
battle, and it’s my luck, and that’s all about it. Good-bye, Redgrave,
old fellow. I’m done out of my share of hut-building, stock-yard-
making, and all the rest of it. I feel that as much as anything. Give
me your hand—my eyes are growing dim.”
All the long night John Redgrave and the boy watched patiently
and tenderly by the dying man. Shortly before daylight there was a
period of unusual stillness. Jack lighted a torch and took one look at
the still face which he had learned to love. The features still wore
the calm air habitual to the man. The parted lips bore recent traces
of a smile. The square jaw was set and slightly fallen—Guy Waldron
was dead!—dead in this melancholy desert, thousands of miles from
any one of his own name or kindred.
John Redgrave closed the fearless blue eyes, which still bore
unchanged their steadfast look of truth or challenge. He covered the
still face, placed by his side the arm, carelessly thrown, as in life’s
repose, above the head, and, casting himself on the sand beside the
dead, was not ashamed to weep aloud.
How well-nigh impossible to realize was it that, but one short
night before, that clay-cold form had been full of glowing life, high
hope, and generous speech. A fitting representative of the old land,
which has sent forth so many heroes, conquering and to conquer.
The darling of an old ancestral home—the deeply-loved son of a
gallant father. The long-looked-for, dreamed-of wanderer, a demi-
god in the eyes of his sisters. And now, there lay all that was left of
Guy Waldron—lonely and unmarked in death amid that solitary
waste, as a crag fallen from the brow of their scarce-named peak, as
a tree that sways softly but heavily to its fall amid the crashing
undergrowth of the desert woodlands.

That night John Redgrave and the wailing Doorival buried him at
the foot of a mighty sighing pine, covering up their traces as
completely as the boy’s woodcraft enabled them to do, and marking
the spot in a sure but unobtrusive manner, so that in days to come
the burying-place of Guy Waldron should not be suffered to remain
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