In Quest of Gold; Or, Under the Whanga Falls

by Alfred St. Johnston

Now it was that they began to pass numbers of animals all hurrying and rushing along in abject terror in the opposite direction to the horsemen. Kangaroos and wallabies progressing by great leaps; emus flapping their inefficient wings to help them in their flight; bush rats and smaller creatures scuttling along by the side of wriggling snakes and currish dingoes. Overhead were flocks of parrots, pigeons, cockatoos, and other bush birds, all flying away from the great cloud of rolling smoke and flame that seemed to stride with enormous steps after the flying creatures. For the time all enmities between them seemed forgotten; kangaroos and dingoes, snakes and rats and opossums, rushed along side by side in the friendliness of a great common danger.

Every moment as the three hurried on the heat became greater; the speed of the horses now grew less just when there was the greatest need for their swiftness. They could only be kept at the gallop by incessant application of the spur, and the boys hated to punish in this way the faithful creatures that had borne them so nobly, but they knew that the horses' lives as well as their own depended upon their being able to keep up their present pace for a mile or two more.

They could now plainly hear the wild roar and crackling of the awful fire as it consumed everything before it in its devastating march, and the burning air that came in puffs and beat upon them, scorched and withered them. Their very eyeballs seemed to dry within their sockets, and the smarting lids, when they closed them, hardly kept out the awful glare. The natural light of day was gone, for the whole sky was covered with one vast cloud of lurid smoke, and everything looked red and burning from the ruddy light of the sweeping flame.

Still Nooergup, their haven of refuge, lay a mile ahead of them. Murri pointed it out to them, and seemingly close behind it rose the moving wall of flame. Could they but reach those barren rocks before the line of fire encircled it and sped again on its way they were safe; but with failing worn-out horses, and exhausted as the riders were with the heat and want of air, it seemed impossible.

The lips of all three were cracked and bleeding from the heat of this awful sirocco, and their tongues were dry and rattling in their parched mouths. They had drunk and lost by the rapid evaporation from their canvas water bottles every drop of water that they had brought from their last camp, and their unmoistened lips could hardly articulate. When they did speak their voices were so harsh and hoarse and changed as scarcely to be intelligible. Their speed was greatly lessened from each of them having to lead one of the spare horses, for, although these three horses were much less exhausted than those which were ridden, they were in a much greater state of alarm, and much more restive.

Alec's noble and high-spirited horse, Amber, was much less jaded than the horses that George and Murri rode, though it was more terrified and alarmed than any of the others at the roaring and flaring of the now nearing fire. Seeing that his own horse was rapidly failing, and that Amber still had reserve stores of strength, George goaded on his over-strained steed and caught up Alec, who was some few paces ahead. His face, although scorched by the heat, looked very wan and drawn, and no one could have recognised his clear, sweet voice in the sobbing, croaking tones in which he spoke. At first he could hardly utter a sound, but he forced his voice, and made himself heard above the roaring of the advancing flames.

"Arrick, old boy, push on. There is something in Amber yet, though Firebrace is about done up. You can get through and on to the rocks. Make Como come with you."

"Geordie!" cried Alec, in a tone of reproach, and looking round at him with his stiff and bloodshot eyes. "Leave you? We both get through or we die together on this side."

He said no more, but checked his horse, and brought him down to Firebrace's pace, and Geordie knew that further remonstrance was in vain. Would he not have acted just the same himself had he been the better mounted?

They were now within a hundred yards of Nooergup, which was just a little mass of barren tumbled rocks, on a slight elevation, rising, like an island, from the sea of stunted trees, scrub, and tall grasses, that surrounded it on all sides. The rushing line of fire had already reached it, and the huge flames, ten feet in height in their lowest part, were already licking the rocks at the sides with flickering blazing tongues, as though they would consume even the rocks that impeded their progress. But the fire had not passed all along it yet, and just where the rocks stood there was a break in the livid, roaring line.