"The savages! the savages!" whispered Hugh; "I think I can distinguish the voice of Black Peter."
"Scatter the twigs," said Arthur; "put the water-vessels underneath the bushes. Draw these skins into your form, Margaret, and crouch out of sight. Now! now! to cover, all of you!"
They had scarcely given the place the appearance of being unvisited, and drawn themselves securely under the scrub, when the voices were so close to them that they could distinguish, though they could not understand the words. Only Black Peter, who pronounced the language slowly, was sufficiently distinct for them to make out the words signifying "mountains" and "plenty of water."
The party passed close to them, but without pausing, and when the steps and voices sounded sufficiently distant, Arthur looked out, and saw the same men who had besieged them in their mountain retreat, still headed by Peter. All the men were outrageously painted white and red, though they were partially covered with opossum cloaks to shelter them from the rain. Arthur observed that they moved on towards the east, where, at a great distance, appeared a dark line, which he concluded was the mountain-range Peter had alluded to.
One after another the alarmed family appeared from their hiding-places; Baldabella was eagerly questioned about their discourse, and she replied that she had heard Peter say, "White men go to mountain, find much water. Peter go to mountain, find plenty water, plenty white fellow, plenty gun, knife. Kill white man, kill bad fellow Wilkins."
"She's reet! I'll uphold her," said Wilkins. "Depend on 't Peter's heared of some bush-rangers out ower yonder, and he'll want to join 'em. We'se have to keep clear of their track, master. Just look round ye, what chance should we have again a lot of them desp'rate rogues, wi' guns in their hands, and blood in their hearts; and when they're fairly set on, them blacks is as bad; they reckon nought of a dozen lives to get haud on a gun."
"Whither shall we flee?" cried Mr. Mayburn, in a distracted tone. "Speak, Margaret—Arthur—and you, my good man, who, steeped in evil, had yet strength given you to turn away from it, guide and save us! Alas! it is but too true; man, civilized or savage, preserves his innate and original depravity. 'There is none good; no, not one.' Men have spoken of the simple and pure life of the desert; we see what it is in truth."
"Yes, dear papa," said Margaret, "we must bid adieu to the fallacious dreams of poetry, the romance of that golden age when men were virtuous because they were ignorant. These are men to whom the temptations of the world are unknown; men who have never looked on the brilliant decorations of vice; yet they are harsh, cruel, selfish, and faithless. Is this truly human nature, papa?"
"I fear, my child, it is too truly human nature," answered Mr. Mayburn,—"fallen, degraded, unredeemed human nature. Well does a great and wise writer on the natural depravity of man picture the ignorant savage as 'a compound of pride and indolence, and selfishness, and cunning and cruelty; full of a revenge which nothing could satiate, of a ferocity which nothing could soften; strangers to the most amiable sensibilities of nature.' Then what weight of sin must rest on the souls of those who, having been taught the way of truth themselves, take advantage of the frailty of humanity to lead these heathens into the gulf of crime. Woe to those men 'who know the best, and yet the worst pursue.'"
While they watched the gradual disappearance of their enemies, the rain ceased, and Jenny summoned the party to the enjoyment of tea to their dry biscuit, before they resumed their journey, the prospect of which was still unpromising.