“He traced with dying hand ‘Remorse,’
And perished in the tracing.”
J. G. Whittier.
S
IXTY miles in a southerly direction from the place where Inspector Puttis met with the adventure related in our last chapter, the figure of a man is reposing beside a silent rocky pool, in the heart of a dense jungle. The tropic vegetation around him is part of the same straggling line of “scrub-country” that covers the great, rugged shoulders of the coast range of Northern Queensland with a soft green mantle of indescribable grandeur and beauty. Enormous fig-trees (Ficus), with gigantic, buttressed stems, tower on all sides into the hanging gardens of climbing ferns, orchids, and creepers that swing above in mid-air, and provide the dark, moist 185 soil beneath with a perennial shelter from the sun’s rays.
Save where a brawling brooklet has cut a rugged pathway for itself through the dense undergrowth, or a hoary monarch of the forest has succumbed to age and insect foes and fallen to the ground, no road through the matted growths around seems passable but for the smallest animals. Yet it is in these gloomy wilds that some of the tribes of Queensland aboriginals find their only safe sanctuary to-day, from the white settlers who have driven them from their old homes in the open country at the foot of the mountain chain. It is midday, but the green shadows of the leafy canopy overhead would render the reading of a newspaper difficult work. But although so dark, the forest is not silent. Its great pulses throb and murmur with the pleonastic signs of tropic life. There comes upon the ear the thousand tiny voices of insects and of birds, swelling and dying in a soft-toned lullaby chorus, which, like the murmur of the coast-waves ten miles to the eastward, is never ceasing.
It does not require a second glance at the lonely figure at the little rocky pool to ascertain that it is that of an aboriginal. He is dressed in the ragged remains of a coarse woollen shirt and trousers, both of which garments are so torn with the thousand thorns of the thickets their wearer has just traversed that the wonder is that they still cling to his thin and emaciated body.
Presently the black raises himself from the ground, where he has been reposing at full length upon his back, with his arms extended at right angles to his186 body, after the fashion of aboriginals who have undergone excessive fatigue, and totters towards the little water-hole. First examining the sand upon its banks for footmarks, he next proceeds to bathe his bruised and bleeding limbs. The man before us is Billy, the late Dr. Dyesart’s “boy,” and he is almost in as bad a plight as when we saw him on the eventful morning by Paree River’s side, when the explorer saved the wounded child from the uplifted axe of the squatter’s tracker. Billy is now a young man of twenty-four years of age, well-built, active, and handsome for an aboriginal; but the privations and trouble he has lately undergone have pulled him down considerably. After refreshing himself at the pool, he sits down on a fallen tree, and, feeling in his pockets, smiles to himself as he finds that he still possesses a pipe, tobacco, and matches. He is too fatigued to search for food yet awhile, and here is something to stave off the feeling of hunger for a time. Odd as it may appear to those of our readers who do not know Australia intimately, Billy, although a native, and born a warragal, or wild native, was almost as helpless as a white man in this “scrub” country, as regards finding the means of sustenance. Take an aboriginal from the semi-desert interior of Australia, and place him in the coastal jungles of the north-eastern shores of the great island, and he is hardly more capable of getting his living there than a European, who then saw the “bush” for the first time, would be under similar circumstances. The fauna and flora were all new to Billy; even the snakes were different. This was bad enough, but, in addition, he had only just escaped from remorseless enemies, who might even now be187 again upon his tracks. The dependent life he had led for sixteen years with his old master was much against him, now that he was thrown upon his own resources. Much of his late life had of course been in the “wilds,” but they were very different to those that now formed his hiding-place. And, besides, there had generally been flour galore for “damper” and “Johnnie-cake” making, and always plenty of powder and shot as a dernier ressort with which to procure a meal.
The young man sits smoking and thinking for a while, and then falls to digging away at the rotten wood upon which he is seated,—a small, toothsome luncheon of fat, oily grubs rewarding his operations. Suddenly he stops, and withdrawing the pipe from his mouth listens intently. His marvellous powers of hearing have detected a distant sound that, falling on the tympanum of a European’s ear, would have become jumbled up and lost amidst the confusing buzz of flies and other myriads of tiny noises around him. What the sound is caused by Billy cannot tell, but it is a stationary one, and in a different direction from that by which any of his pursuers are likely to approach. It may be natives chopping down a tree for honey, but it is almost too sharp in tone for that. After listening awhile the young man rises, and, having determined to ascertain the cause of the phenomenon, begins to crawl down the bed of the little rocky creek nearby in the direction of the curious sounds.
Ragged fragments of basalt, straggling tendrils of sharp-toothed lawyer-vines, and other impediments, make his progress slow and painful; but after creeping along the half-dried-up course of the torrent about a quarter of a mile, where hundreds of mosquitoes and188 leeches combined, in a sort of guerilla warfare, to attack the black’s arms, legs, and face, he at last finds himself on the edge of a cliff, above one of those curious, circular, crater-lakes that abound in one part of the great uplands of the wild coast range.
Black walls of basalt rise more or less perpendicularly around the dark, indigo water at their feet. Here and there the ancient lava has crystallized into prismatic columns, or weathered into picturesque battlements and projections, which stand up, like the ruins of some old abbey, above the feathery palms and undergrowth that struggles down the precipitous cliffs in places in avalanches of sunlit emerald or shady o’erhangings of brown and purple.
The dark mountain tarn is some two hundred yards across, and opposite to where the stream, whose bed has hitherto been Billy’s road through the jungle, joins it, the surrounding wall of cliffs seems to fall away, as far as one can make out in the shadows, as if the waters of the lake there found a means of exit.
Cautiously peering through the prickly palms and brushwood, our black friend endeavours to find an open space through which he can proceed on his way; but so dense is the mass of vegetation on all sides that there appears but one road to take, that offered to him by the lake itself.
It speaks well for the superstitionless training Billy had received at his late master’s hands that he at last determined to take water, as a means of continuing his journey towards the sounds that still, intermittently, make themselves heard above the various voices of the forest. For little in nature can surpass 189 the awful, supernatural look of these black, silent jungle lakes, and there was something particularly “uncanny” about the appearance of this one. And when, in addition to this, there was the certainty of those dark waters being the abode of more or less numerous swimming snakes, also the grim possibility of some frightful veengnaan—the local Australian edition of a Scotch “water-kelpie”—lurking in those gloomy depths, we may safely say that it showed Billy to be possessed of a cool courage of no ordinary sort when he determined on trusting his fatigued and wounded body to its inky bosom.
Quickly making up his mind, he wriggles through the springy mass of steaming vegetation upon the edge of the cliff before him,—losing quite a number of square inches of his fast-disappearing garments in the process,—and emerges from the shadows into the fierce midday heat of a tropical winter day.
A drop of twenty feet only has to be made to reach the silent waters at this point, for the storm creek has cut through the brim of the crater basin a dozen feet or more; and Billy is just about to make the necessary dive—as the prickly vines around offer no friendly chance of descending by their means—when he pauses to listen once more.
There are two sounds now audible above the ordinary murmurings of the forest. The clink! clink! of the noise he has followed now comes clearly upon the ear, and he recognizes it as proceeding from the pick of some prospector or miner working a creek or gully below, and beyond the lake. There is a cheerful ring about it that strikes a pleasant chord of remembrance in the mind of the poor, hunted 190 wretch who now hears it; for it reminds him of happy, hopeful days with his old master. But the other sound that is upon the air, and whose purport Billy recognizes as easily as that of the unseen worker’s blows,—there is no mistaking those musical whisperings that are just audible, and seem to come from that broken mass of piled-up grey and purple rock that towers above the scrub a little distance off upon his right hand. The “banked-up fires” of Billy’s savage nature burst up into an energetic blaze as he hears the voices of a party of natives arranging themselves into a half circle, with the intention of surrounding and capturing some prey they have discovered. Billy correctly guesses the purport of these signals, but does not understand the exact meaning of the words, for he knows little or nothing of the coastal languages. What the natives on the rocky hill have in view is evident: it is the busy worker in the gully beyond. Billy forgets his fatigue as he glances round and satisfies himself that he has the start of the hunters, and then plunging into the water, with marvellously little noise considering the height from which he has descended, swims after the manner of a dog rapidly round the lake, keeping close to the cliffs on the side nearest to the approaching blacks.
The natives of most countries situated in the southern hemisphere, ere foreign civilization has crushed them in her deadly embrace, are good swimmers, but some of the inland tribes of Australian aborigines are perhaps able to produce the best of these,—men who can beat even the marvellous aquatic feats of Tongan, Samoan, and Maoris. The blacks of some portions of the central wilds have a fish-like proclivity for191 swimming and remaining for a long time under water that is simply marvellous.
In the muddy water-holes of the great, intermittently-flowing rivers of Northern Australia, we have seen aborigines successfully chase the finny denizens of the deep pools, and bring them otter-like to the shore in their white-toothed jaws. And many a hunted black has saved himself from the cruel rifle of squatter invaders of his native land by pretending to fall as if shot into a river or water-hole, and remaining, apparently, at the bottom. They manage this artifice in various ways: sometimes by swimming an incredible distance under water to a sheltering weedy patch or bed of rushes, where they can remain hidden; but more often by plastering their heads and faces with mud, and remaining, sometimes for hours, with only their nose above water, in some corner where floating leaves, grass, or the like, afford a temporary blind to baffle their relentless foes.
Billy, although by no means as perfect a swimmer as some of his countrymen, showed great skill in the way in which he noiselessly moved through the water to the opposite side of the black lake, and hardly a ripple disturbed its placid surface, above which his dark, glistening head only thrice briefly appeared during his swim.
Arrived at the point he had started for, the young man slowly raises his face again into the hot sunshine behind the leafy cover of a fallen mass of enormous stagshorn ferns, and carefully reconnoitres the summit of the opposite cliffs for any enemies who may be watching him.
None are in sight, so Billy leaves the water and 192 proceeds to climb the rough side of the old volcano crater, and as the rocks are lower and less precipitous than at the place where he dived into the lake, he soon reaches the shelter of the scrub once more. A kind of rugged giants’ staircase, which the overflow from the lake has cut in the ancient lava covering of the mountain, now leads Billy down into a wide, wild-looking gorge, about two hundred feet below the surface of the dark tarn above. Through the centre of this deep gully, and flanked with a dense growth of gracefully festooned trees, runs a clear, silver stream, with a cool, refreshing, rushing voice, amongst the smooth, rounded bounders in its course. Taking its rise in some limestone formation in the unknown depths of the jungles beyond, it has painted its rocky bed of a pine white with a calcareous deposit, that stands out in strong relief to the sombre hues of the overhanging cliffs that here and there jut out boldly from the verdure on either side.
Each recurring wet season sees the whitened boulders swept off towards the sea-coast by the angry brown waters of the “flushed” river, in company with the like that has collected during the interval since the previous rains, and then the fierce torrent, gradually settling down once more into the bubbling little stream as we now have it, sets to work again to paint a fresh strip of white through the twilight forest glades.
Kneeling by the side of one of the chain of snowy pools that stretches into the misty vista of graceful palms and dark-leaved trees, beneath the afternoon shadows of the gorge, is a strange-looking figure, quite in keeping with the wild surroundings,—a thin,193 elderly man, with a ragged, unkempt beard and deeply bronzed and furrowed face, shaded by the most dilapidated of soft felt hats. The spare figure that Billy is now watching is covered with clothes so old, patched, and repatched that one would hesitate to pronounce an opinion as to which of the frowsy fragments formed part of the original garments. A certain yellow tone of colour, something between that of a nicely browned loaf and the lighter tints of a Cheddar cheese, pervades the “altogether” of the old man, for the iron-rust and clay-stains of years of lonely toil amongst the mountains have dyed both skin and rags of one common colour.
A thin but muscular left hand holds the outer rim of a brown, circular iron pan,—called by miners a “prospecting dish,”—and presses its other edge against the ancient’s open-bosomed shirt, so as to keep the vessel firmly in position, as the keen old eyes examine its contents for the cheering yellow specks with a small pocket-lens.
Billy stands looking at the old prospector for a minute, and rightly guesses that he is one of those mining recluses, called “hatters” in Australia, some specimens of which class our dark friend has met before. In fact, Billy’s curiosity as a miner himself makes him nearly forget the approaching natives, in his eagerness to ascertain if the dish now being “panned off” shows the presence of the precious metal in the locality. But this hesitation on his part is not for long. Billy has retained his European raiment at some considerable inconvenience in his flight through the scrub, for the same reason that chiefly prompts Australian aboriginals to put such 194 value upon the sartorial signs of civilization, and now he is to reap the fruits of his forethought.
Many an Australian bushman will shoot a native at sight, without compunction, if in puris naturalibus, and it is a fact that many make it a rule to do so when meeting a “nigger” alone in the bush; but the same individuals would hesitate to pay this attention to a black sheltered in that badge of servitude, an old shirt or ragged pair of inexpressibles whose wearer may possibly belong to a neighbouring squatter or police inspector.
Billy trusts now implicitly to his torn clothes to serve as a flag of truce till he can get a hearing from the man whose life he is probably about to save; and careless of the fact that the old miner has a revolver hanging in the open pouch at his belt, and that a fowling-piece lies by the pick within a yard of the thin, hairy right arm, he girds up his tatters and commences to whistle loudly as he makes his way over the hot boulders towards the curious, propensic figure by the stream-side.
The old prospector turns suddenly as the shrill notes of Billy’s musical trilling echo along the rocky sides of the glen, and, dropping his dish, snatches up the brown old “Manton” by his side.
“Hold on, boss!” shouts Billy, thinking for the instant that perhaps he had been too rash after all, in leaving his shelter amongst the rocks before holding a parley with the stranger.
“Hold on, boss; you’ll want your powder for warragal blacks directly, and better not waste it on ‘good fellow’ like me.”
“Who the devil are you? Move a step an’ I blow 195 your brains out,” responds the old man, lowering the piece, however, from his shoulder.
“I’m white fellow’s boy,” explains Billy, sitting down on a boulder in order to show his faith in the miner’s good sense, and also to give that dangerously excited old individual a chance to examine him and cool down. “I’m white fellow’s boy, and I see black fellow coming after you. They make a circle to catch you. See, I have swum the lake to bring to you this news. I was hidden when I saw them first. They will try to get me now as well as you; you must let me go with you.”
“Where’s your boss?” asks the old miner, glancing round on all sides for any signs of approaching foes.
“My boss is dead. His name was Dr. Dyesart, Dyesart the explorer. Perhaps you’ve heard of him? But you had better clear before the Kurra (vermin) reach us.”
The old “hatter’s” eyes gleam suspiciously at Billy as he speaks again.
“Yer may be a good nigger. But yer too durned well spoken fur a nigger fur my thinkin’. I knew Dyesart once, and I’ll soon find out if ye’re trying ter fool me. But here, take the pick an’ dish, and go on ahead of me down past the rock there.”
Billy picks up the utensils mentioned, and, summoning up all the remainder of his strength, totters along the bed of the stream in the direction indicated by the skinny finger of the dirty old solitary, who comes shuffling along after him.
The part of the ravine the two men are now entering is even wilder than that where they first became196 acquainted with each other. The ground sinks rapidly, as the increasing noisiness of the brawling streamlet indicates, as it leaps from rock to rock on its way, as if rejoicing upon its approach to freedom and the sea. Some way down the gorge, the steamy haze of a cataract climbs up the cliff sides and blots out further view in that direction, and the soft thunderings of falling waters come up the gully at intervals, as the evening breeze begins to stir the topmost branches of the stately trees.
Great black cliffs tower skywards on the left-hand side, and their grim fronts yawn with numerous caves, the cold husks of what were once enormous air-bubbles in that awful flood of molten rock that in the far-off past poured down these mountain slopes from the Bellenden Ker group of ancient volcanoes.
A few more words have passed between Billy and the ancient “hatter,” which have apparently fairly satisfied the latter as to the goodness of the dark-skinned younger man, when the clamour of shouting voices behind them makes both turn round.
The sight that meets their eyes is by no means a pleasant one. Halfway down a part of the cliffs that the two men had passed only a minute or so before, a party of natives has just arrived, all of them naked, and carrying long spears, probably with the intention of cutting off the old digger’s escape down the gully. These sable hunters, seeing that their quarry has, for the time, escaped them, are shouting to their friends up the gorge to join them, for a fresh effort to surround the object of their hatred and suspicion.
“Only just in time, boss!” exclaims Billy, his white eyeballs glowing like coals from their dark setting of 197 swarthy skin, as he watches the rapid movements of the enemy, who are moving along the summit of the cliff towards them. “Those devils got you safe enough, ’spose they’d kept you up there till dark,” pointing to the open part of the gorge.
“But where will you camp? I’m tired. In fact, just ’bout done. I have walked many miles to-day, and have eaten little since three days.”
“This is my camp,” answers the “hatter,” climbing up to one of the aforementioned caves with an agility that a far younger man might have envied. “We can keep out of the niggers’ way here.” And the old man coolly began to collect some sticks and leaves that lay about the entrance to the cavern, in order to start a fire, just as if two or three score of howling savages, all thirsting for his destruction, within a couple of hundred yards of him, was a matter of every-day occurrence to him, and therefore one of no importance.
Night falls quickly, and outside the cave the darkening forest begins its night chorus of many voices, day-choristers retiring one by one. The mountain teal whistle and “burr” in answer to each other; owls and night-jars scream and gurgle in the trees; boon-garies (tree-kangeroos) squeak and bark to their mates, as they leave the branches for a night stroll in the scrub; and every crevice of the caves gives forth its dark legions of flitting bats, some of enormous size, who vociferate shrilly, with ear-piercing notes, as if thousands of ghostly slate pencils were squeaking in mid-air on an equal number of spectre slates.
Inside the cave, which is much larger than its small, porthole-like entrance might lead one to imagine, the 198 two men speedily make themselves as comfortable as they can under the circumstances. There is ample room for the fire that soon lights up the concave roof, of the cavern with a cheerful, ruddy glow, and the smoke rolling out of the doorway keeps the place clear of mosquitoes, who are getting pretty lively outside already.
The old “hatter” has used this retreat as his camping ground for the last few days, whilst prospecting this part of the upper waters of the unnamed creek, that can be heard in the darkness flowing past his temporary abode, and a small but sufficient supply of flour, tea, and sugar is to be seen carefully suspended from the stalactite-like projections from the ceiling of the cave. This provender, with the remains of a couple of pigeons, half a dozen wild turkeys’ eggs and some coohooy nuts give promise of a good “square meal,” at last, to the exhausted and half-famished Billy.
“Yer’ve done me a good turn, and though yer are a nigger, yer welcome ter what I’ve got here,” remarks the grey-headed old gold-seeker after a long silence, during which he has disinterred some of the aforementioned viands from an anti-wild dog pyramid of stones in one corner of the cave.
“Them blarmed devils outside hain’t seen a white face up here afore I’m thinking, and I guess they’ll not bother us till morning. What do you think, Charlie, or Jackie, or whatever yer name is?”
“My name’s Billy, boss,” replies our dark friend, who is endeavouring to keep himself awake by frantically chewing some of the sodden tobacco he has discovered in his pocket. “I think these fellows throw199 spear into cave by-an-by, p’r’aps. I think best keep up here,” pointing to a buttress of rock that, projecting from the walls of the cavern, provides a substantial shield against any missiles flung in at the cave entrance. “But I know little of these fellow-blacks. I come from the flat country, this time, out by the Einsleigh River way.”
“Ugh,” grunts the old man in reply, and telling Billy to “have a ‘doss’ (sleep),” whilst his namesake, the billy, is boiling, the “hatter” proceeds to cut up a pipe-full of very foul-smelling tobacco, looking thoughtfully at the fire meanwhile.
Billy, on his part, is not slow to avail himself of his host’s invitation, and sinking down upon the cold rock floor goes immediately to sleep.
If it should appear, to any of our readers to border upon the incredible, that two men should thus calmly sleep and smoke in the face of danger, that to one inexperienced in the............