"But they are men, remember."
"Well, I wouldn't lay another finger on him if I were you. Let the brute bleed."
"Very well," said George, composedly, sitting down, for he knew perfectly well that he only had to wait a minute for Alec to cool for him to think very differently.
After a moment or two had passed without a word from either, during which the myall sat sullenly and silently with the blood flowing from his wound, Alec said, in rather an ashamed voice—
"I say, Geordie, we can't let that beggar bleed to death."
George sprang up with a glad face.
"I knew you thought so. I only said 'very well' because I was sure of it, and because I can't bear to act as though I thought I were a better fellow than you, old man. Come on, give us the bandage."
George very soon had completed his surgical work, and the wounded man sat without offering to move hand or foot, having failed in his one attempt at vengeance.
"Give him a billy of water to drink, and then tie his feet together with this strap and his hands behind his back, so that he can't get away whilst we are catching the horses."
Murri carried out Alec's instructions, tying the knots with much vindictiveness, grumbling to himself all the time that it would be better to kill the fellow at once and save all this bother. The antipathy that all partly civilised Australian natives feel for those that are still quite wild and savage is one of the strangest results of their progress, and it was this feeling on Murri's part that prompted him to urge the killing of the myall upon the boys.