Conclusion
That night Yarloo returned to camp. The sky was so thickly covered with stars that it looked as if powdered silver had been dusted over a tremendous and very dark blue dome. Stobart was fast asleep at the entrance to his cave when Yarloo crept up noiselessly and touched him. He was awake and alert in a moment. The boy's head showed up dark against the stars and the white man recognized him at once.
"Me come back, Misser Stobart," whispered Yarloo.
"Good boy," replied the drover. "Good boy. Does the camp know you're here?"
"Neh. Me come longa you first time. They all about sleep."
Then Yarloo told all that he had done since he went away. Stobart was overjoyed to hear that his son was safe, and hope, which had burnt down very low recently, once more flamed up brightly in his heart. Yarloo had hurried out from Sidcotinga Station, and was too exhausted to undertake the return trip immediately or they would have escaped that very night. They decided to wait for a day or two.
In this they made a great mistake. If Stobart had disappeared that night, while every native in the camp was overawed by his victory over the powerful Arrkroo, he would probably have got clean away, but as it was, he found himself more of a prisoner than ever next morning. Yarloo's return aroused suspicion. Every native in the tribe was afraid of the white man and nobody dared to kill him. Yet they were all perfectly convinced that he was the cause of Wuntoo's illness. If Wuntoo died without the others taking full vengeance on the one who had bewitched him, the old man's spirit would haunt the camp and bring terrible disaster upon it. Therefore, if Wuntoo died, Stobart must die too. So the white man was kept a close prisoner, and was even obliged to keep inside his cave. No one had sufficient courage to harm him, though all their former admiration for him was turned to fear and hatred; but, by sheer force of numbers, they made it impossible for him to escape.
One night Wuntoo was evidently dying. All the men of the tribe who were not actually guarding the prisoner were sitting in a circle with the women, making noisy lamentation. They beat their naked thighs with their open palms, and mournful chants rose from low weird mutterings to high shrill screams as they tried to frighten the evil spirits out of the dying man. A big fire was blazing and sending sparks and smoke high into the darkness, and lightening up the excited faces of the men and women all around.
Suddenly in the middle of the wildest demonstration of grief Coiloo appeared—Coiloo, whom Stobart had saved from death, and whom Mick had treated with such cruelty. He was in a shocking state. The brand-marks had started to fester, and there were burns all over his body. He had come at a critical time. The wailing warraguls looked at his wounds and their excitement got more and more intense. They vowed terrible vengeance against the white man who had done this; against all white men; against Stobart who was at their mercy. If Coiloo himself had not prevented them they would have rushed off immediately to the cave and carried out their designs while the heat of the moment gave them courage. He craftily pointed out that it was far better to kill the white man to appease the spirit of the dead Wuntoo than to kill him before the old man died. The savages listened, hesitated, and then agreed, and returned to the interrupted ceremony of mourning. And all this time the emaciated figure of Wuntoo lay out flat on the sand, lit weirdly by the leaping flames, his chest rising and falling with great effort, and his eyes rolling round with pain.
In the middle of all this excitement Yarloo escaped. He realized that he could do no good for his master by staying in the blacks' camp; so when he gathered from the excited shouts that three white men and some horses were camped out on the plains not far away, he slipped out in the darkness and made the fastest journey of his life. He arrived at Mick's camp in the early morning of the next day, just as the working horses were being driven in. He told his tale. Mick and the boys listened attentively. The drover had trusted Yarloo from the very first day he had engaged him, and he had never had cause to regret it. So, after making sure of all the necessary facts of the case, he responded to the boy's appeal for help immediately and fully.
He cut two thick slabs of damper, put a chunk of meat between them, and handed it to Yarloo. "Here, get that inside you, me son," he said heartily. "Eat all you want. There's lots more where that came from." The whites had already had their breakfast, and Mick at once set about packing the gear, muttering: "If I don't let daylight through half a dozen of those devils, I'll call meself a Chow, I will, straight. Now, you boys, look alive," he shouted to the blacks who were crowding round Yarloo. "You can yabber all you want when we've rounded up that tribe of black cleanskins."
The native stockmen laughed. Everybody was eager for the task. The boys were all from a sand-hill tribe who bitterly hated the wild warraguls from the mountains, and they were overjoyed at the thought of fighting on the same side as white men. Sax and Vaughan were more serious but none the less eager, especially Sax, who would have willingly gone out alone against the whole tribe, if only it would have been a help to his father.
They did not take the whole plant with them. Each man of the advance party had two good saddle-horses; there was one all ready saddled and bridled for Boss Stobart; and a swift pack-horse, lightly loaded, carried all the tucker and water they would need. There were Mick and the two white boys, Yarloo, Poona, Calcoo, and Jack Johnson, all mounted on the best horses in the plant. They had only two firearms for all the party: Mick's rifle which he carried, and his revolver, which he gave to Vaughan. Their chief weapon was "bluff", for a party of seven could do nothing against nearly a hundred armed natives, except surprise them long enough to let their prisoner escape.
They rode hard till about two o'clock, stopped and took a hunk of damper and meat each and a drink of water, and then put their saddles on fresh horses and pushed on. The sun was still an hour high when they came to a thick clump of timber at the entrance to a gully running, up into the mountains. Yarloo, who was the real leader of the party, advised that the horses be left here. The camp was not far off, and the approach to it was quite free from any cover for a mounted man. So they hitched their horses to separate trees in such a way that they could be unfastened in the shortest possible time.
They walked stealthily through the timber to the side of the valley, where they began to crawl from boulder to boulder. It was slow work. They dared not wait till dark. Each moment might decide the fate of the man they had come to rescue. For half a mile they approached the camp in this way, noiselessly, and completely hidden by the rocks. They saw no sign of natives.
All at once a thin, high, quavering sound rose just ahead of them. Others joined it like a pack of dingoes howling in the night. Then the note trembled and came down, getting louder as it descended the scale till it was a deep muttering of great anguish. It started again and again. Every native of the little party shivered. It was a death-wail.
Yarloo turned to Mick, and said hoarsely: "Old man bin die. We hurry, I think."
The rescuers sprang to their feet and ran, stooping low and keeping out of sight. They need not have taken these precautions. Every warragul of the tribe was engaged at the camp, where death-wails rose and fell.
Suddenly a Musgrave native confronted the rescue party. He lifted his left hand and signed to them to stop. There were only two fingers and a thumb on that hand. It was Coiloo. He was armed with spears and boomerangs and a shield. Mick raised his rifle, but Yarloo leaped in front of it. A shot at this time would warn the camp and spoil any chance of success. It was more important to rescue Stobart than to settle a private quarrel.
Coiloo cast a look of deadly hatred towards Mick. He longed to hurl one of these slender spears of his at his enemy, and bury the poisonous head deep in the white man's heart. But he too had a more important task to perform just then. He grabbed Sax by the wrist and sprang up the valley with incredible swiftness. The startled white boy was carried along and quickly outdistanced the others. Coiloo gave no explanation of his strange behaviour. He must reach the blacks' camp as soon as possible. The wailing became louder and louder, and presently Sax heard a sound which gave such fleetness to his limbs that his wiry companion could hardly keep up with him. It was a booming voice which rose above the turmoil of native cries like a strong swimmer battling with the waves.
It was a white man's voice.
Sax recognized it as his father's.
Suddenly the camp burst into view. The lad would have dashed across the open space at once, but Coiloo pulled him behind a rock. A terrible tragedy was about to be enacted in front of that cluster of sordid wurlies. The dead body of Wuntoo lay out naked on the sand. At the head of it stood Stobart, bound hand and foot, and clad in nothing but his tattered trousers. He was about to die. He knew it well, but held his head proudly and looked round at the yelling fiends with great scorn. From time to time his strong voice boomed defiance at his enemies. All around, dancing in almost delirious excitement, were the warragul men, while an outer ring was formed by the women, who kept time with their hands to the chanting which was gradually working their men up to a state of frenzy. Chief figure of all was Arrkroo, once more restored to authority, and about to have his revenge upon his rival. He strode up and down in front of the victim, armed with a huge carved and painted club.
Sax struggled in Coiloo's detaining grasp. He was but a lad, and the odds were a hundred savages against one white boy, but he wanted to leap across the intervening space and stand beside his father. Coiloo's hand was at Sax's neck. He unfastened the string of the luringa and stood up, still hidden from sight. Slowly he whirled the thin slab of wood round his head, hitting it on the ground once or twice to make it spin. The thing gave out a droning sound. The crowd of yelling fiends around the corpse became suddenly quiet. The droning increased to a loud humming. Every eye was turned.
Coiloo handed the luringa to Sax and disappeared. The boy had seen the effect of the peculiar note which the whirling luringa made. He stepped out into the open, swinging the strangely carved fillet of wood round and round his head. The sound grew louder and louder. It seemed impossible that such a small thing should make so far-carrying a sound. The dancing men stood petrified. The women leaped to their feet and became motionless. Arrkroo stopped with up-lifted club. Stobart stood amazed. Sax walked forward slowly.
The tension increased. He was twenty yards from them—fifteen—ten. A movement of horror ran through the crowd. Before he had gone two paces more a shout went up in a hundred terror-stricken voices:
"The voice of Tumana! It is the voice of Tumana!"[[1]]
Sax kept on. Suddenly the tension broke. Like dead leaves before a gale, the natives scattered and fled. Stobart, Sax, Arrkroo, and the corpse of Wuntoo were left alone.
Arrkroo feared the bull-roarer, which spoke with the dreaded voice of Tumana, as much as anyone. Yet he stood his ground with uplifted club. The helpless white man was within easy reach. Arrkroo would not miss his vengeance this third time. He would strike his enemy dead even though it was his last act, for no one can do such a thing when Tumana is speaking without terrible consequences. The sound of the bull-roarer went on. Arrkroo swayed back to gain force for a smashing blow. Then he uttered a wild shout of triumph and jerked his black painted body forward. The club swung——
A shot rang out. The club dropped from the murdering warragul's nerveless hand. It missed Stobart's head by a fraction of an inch. Sax picked it up and rushed forward. But death had already come. Arrkroo's tall figure tottered for a moment, then crumpled up and fell to the ground. Mick immediately dashed across the open space, followed by Yarloo and the three other boys. Coiloo was nowhere to be seen.
Two slashes of a sharp knife cut the hair rope which bound the captive white man and he was free. There was no time for thanks or congratulations. Sax had stopped swinging the luringa; the voice of Tumana had ceased. Already the natives were reassembling, and it was only a matter of moments before they would swarm down on the rescue party, outnumbering it by fifteen to one. A flight of spears fell from the rocks above, doing no harm, but warning the white men of their terrible danger.
They dashed down the valley towards the clump of timber where the saddle-horses had been tied. At one place the track narrowed as it passed between two great masses of rock. Mick was in the rear with the rifle. As he passed this spot, a spear came out from behind one of the boulders. He was not expecting an ambush, and the spear struck his shoulder, entering the top of the lungs and breaking off. He dropped the rifle. As it left his hand he must have pulled the trigger, for there was a report. Sax was running just in front of Mick. He heard the report, looked round, and saw the stockman stagger. He dashed back. His act saved Mick's life, for, as the white boy stooped to pick up the rifle, he saw Coiloo standing behind the rock with another spear ready to throw. Sax jumped in front of his friend and the native paused. Mick was badly wounded, but when he too saw the ambushed nigger, he pulled himself together and dashed ahead after his companions. Sax was now carrying the rifle and he kept in the rear of the party, and prevented Coiloo from throwing that second spear.
Fierce shouting at the camp urged them to their greatest efforts. The Musgrave blacks had got over their scare. They found Arrkroo's dead body lying beside the corpse of Wuntoo. They thirsted for revenge and started in pursuit, not a hundred yards behind the escaping white men.
Stobart and his friends reached the clump of timber. Sax looked back. The pursuit had been checked for a few moments. Coiloo was standing in the narrow gap, holding it against a hundred of his fellow tribesmen. Spears whizzed around him on all sides, but for a time he dexterously escaped death. At last one struck him and he fell, but not before his purpose was accomplished. He had attempted to revenge himself on Mick, and, failing this, he held up the chase long enough to give Stobart, the man who had saved his life, a good chance of escaping.
His gallant death was not in vain. Before the Musgrave blacks reached the trees the rescue party was galloping across the plains. Mick's wound was troublesome for several days, but the man's perfect health stood him in good stead. One night in camp he was bewailing the fact that they had not been able to make a stand against the blacks, but had been forced to beat an ignominious retreat. "I'd like to go back and have a real good scrap," he said.
Boss Stobart looked at him with a peculiar smile for a moment or two, and then took an old black pipe from his belt. It was smeared with clay. Mick and the two white boys looked on with great curiosity. The drover made a little hole in the clay and poured out a few grains of golden sand into his palm.
"Look at this," he said, holding out his hand to Mick. "If you'd care to go back to the Musgrave Ranges with me for some more of this stuff, I can promise you as many scraps with the niggers as you want."
The gold was handed round. "I'm with you," said Mick. "I'm with you, Boss Stobart, whether its gold or niggers you're after."
"And so am I if you'll let me," said Vaughan. "I want to buy back my father's sheep station."
Sax said nothing. He was content to be with his father, and knew that he was sure to be included in any expedition which his father undertook; but no thought of the future could rob him of the supreme joy of knowing that he had been instrumental in saving his father from death in the Musgrave Ranges.
[[1]] Australian blacks believe that the sound made by the luringa, or bull-roarer, is the voice of a strong spirit named Tumana.