In Quest of Gold; Or, Under the Whanga Falls

by Alfred St. Johnston

It was Murri who had thus rushed to their rescue.

They now were but three to three, as Murri instantly attacked another of the myalls with the waddy which he had snatched from the hand of his fallen foe. George made a step forward, and quickly swinging his rifle round he brought it heavily down upon the neck of another of the men. But the blow was not a disabling one; he had aimed it at his head, but the wary savage had bent on one side. Before George had time to recover himself and lift his weapon for a second blow his opponent sprang in, and striking him a sickening blow on the top of the head he felled him to the ground. He would have had his head beaten in by the savage had not Como leaped over his master's prostrate body and, showing all his strong white teeth, flown at the enemy. This created a momentary diversion.

Alec saw George fall, and felt sure, from the nature of the blow he had seen him receive, that he was dead. He dealt a wild blow at the man with whom he was engaged and disabled him, and then, with such a yell of fury as a lioness gives when she protects her young, he turned upon his brother's foe. He sprang across Geordie's body as it lay face downwards in the sand, and seizing in one powerful hand the descending arm of the savage, who had kicked Como to one side and was aiming a second cruel blow at the boy as he lay, he began a hand-to-hand struggle with him.

Alec dealt him a crashing blow between the eyes with his disengaged fist as he leaped upon him, and then clasping him in both his arms he tried to bring him to the ground. The myall was a grand specimen of the tall Queensland savage, strong and fully developed, and at an ordinary time Alec would have been as a child in his hands, but the sight of this murderous black slaying his brother Geordie, his only brother, had stirred up such a mad tempest of passion in Alec's breast that he was, for the time, as strong as any three. Every muscle in his strong young body was strained, every sinew and fibre stiffened for the effort, and as he felt the wild mad struggles of the savage to free himself from his grip his grasp seemed to grow stronger, and his clutch upon his hot and swelling throat to grow fiercer every second. Gradually, as the seconds passed, the struggles of the black grew less and less, but Alec never loosed his hold, so maddened was he with rage and despair, till, with starting eyes, the head of the savage rolled over on his shoulder, and when at last Alec's convulsive grip was relaxed, and he turned with a sob of anguish to where his brother lay, the black man fell down—dead.

In the meantime Murri was not idle; he was engaged, upon pretty equal terms, with the one remaining savage. They had neither done any damage to the other, when suddenly the stalwart black, seeing the fate of his companion at Alec's hands, sprang away from Murri, and made secure his position by an ignominious flight. Murri started in pursuit, but he soon saw the hopelessness or folly of it, and stopped. As he did so he saw Prince Tom some little way down the gully, still mounted on Dandy, who, wild with fear at the firing and at the proximity of the shrieking savages, was rushing about the little glen, refusing to mount the steep sides, as Tom was trying to force him to do.

Seeing the state of fear the horse was in, Murri called him loudly by his name several times, thinking that he might try to rejoin them. At the first sound of his name the intelligent creature pricked up his ears and, rearing suddenly, turned in the direction of his friends. As he did so, Prince Tom, dislodged by the sudden bound of the horse, lost his seat and fell heavily to the ground. He could not succeed in disentangling himself, as the horse tore along at full speed; one foot was held fast in the stirrup, and as the maddened horse rushed wildly over the rocky ground to rejoin the others the unfortunate man's head and body were beaten almost to pieces on the jagged stones. When Dandy at last stopped, all trembling and foaming, by Murri's side, Prince Tom was nothing but a bruised and battered corpse.

When Alec's anger and revenge were satisfied, and he felt that the murderer of his brother was dead beneath his hands, he passionately threw himself down by the side of his brother, and, with the unaccustomed tears pouring down his cheeks, he raised his poor pale face from the sand. He could have lifted up his voice and howled like any savage, for he loved this bright young brother of his more than all else in the world beside.

Geordie's face was white as marble, and his eyes were closed as though in sleep, his bright dark waves of hair were covered with the sand in which he had fallen, and a great wide wound, from which the blood had flowed that stained one side of his head and neck, extended across the crown.

Alec, stooping over Geordie, whom he had partly raised and laid against his heaving chest, was calling him by all the old familiar names of their childhood, and was speaking to him as though he thought the boy would hear his voice. He was quite oblivious to all that was going on around him. He had fought a good fight, and it had gone against him, inasmuch as he had lost the brother whom he loved beyond himself. What did anything else matter to him then: the old home station; their wild dream of gold; the struggle he had just gone through? All seemed dreamlike and unreal, and the only fact that was patent to his mind was that Geordie, his dear brother, his better self, was lying dead in his arms. The noon-day heat of the tropical sun poured on him unobserved, his own wounds and bruises were unfelt, and his whole soul seemed to sob itself out in the one great cry he uttered—

"Oh, that it had been me instead!"