Joshua Marvel

by B. L. Farjeon

"So be it," said Wealberrin. "The others then are ours. Opara has spoken."

"She has with her a mate," said Opara, "whom she has touched upon the breast. Let Wealberrin take two--we two. Then we shall have peace."

Wealberrin would have replied, but as he rose to his feet a wondering expression stole into his face, and into the faces of all assembled there. For from Minnie's gunyah issued sounds so soft and sweet that the night-birds hushed their voices to listen. The breeze was so light that the melodious notes hung upon the air, and lingered long before they died away. The savages clutched each other, and stood transfixed with fear and wonder. What voices were these that were speaking? In their dreams they had never heard any thing so sweet. Opara had said it. Minnie had come from the vault where the moons are made, and was speaking to the spirits of another world. Motionless, with bended heads or with forms inclined towards the sound, they stood like figures of stone, in reverential attitude. And did not move a limb when the music ceased; for a shadow fell upon the moonlit space, and Minnie came to the opening of the gunyah and looked in dumb amazement at the strange scene before her.

And now the day has come upon which the grand ceremony of the Corroboree is to be celebrated. The rival tribes have settled their dispute. Rough-and-Ready, who is the Chorus of the party, tells his friends that Joshua and Minnie are to remain with Opara's tribe, and that he and the sailmaker are to be attached to Wealberrin's. Joshua hints at resistance, but Rough-and-Ready declares it would be madness.

"If there was no woman in the case," he says, "I might counsel differently; but for Minnie's sake we must have no fighting. We might kill a score or two of the natives, but you must bear in mind there are half a thousand of them here now. Then their spears are poisoned. Suppose one should strike Minnie. No, no; submission is our best course." So, with much grief, they are compelled to make up their minds to submit.

All day long, there is great feasting. An emeu has been hunted down, and the fat carefully distributed among the natives; honey and sweet roots have been brought in in abundance, and the bushes have been stripped of their fruit. Rude seats of vines, decorated with flowers, have been placed for Minnie and Joshua in front of their gunyah, and in front of the seats a kind of arched screen of leaves and branches has been erected, through the network of which they can see and be seen. When night comes, fires are lighted, the flickering flames of which give birth to monstrous shadows that flit about the trees, and fill the woods with grotesque shapes. Minnie and Joshua watch with a kind of wonder the shadows created by the fire nearest to them. Now the light goes down, and the black shapes dart through the woods, or run swiftly along the branches, ravenously, and with cruel intent, as it appears; anon, the flame leaps up, and the shadows fly and shift restlessly about, with lightning speed, as if suddenly surprised by an enemy. Their attention, however, is soon diverted from these inanimate creations. The natives are assembling. Men, women, and children troop in from all quarters, and seat themselves round and about the fires in somewhat orderly fashion. There cannot be less than five or six hundred of them. All being seated, a long silence ensues, broken at length by a circle of singers, who chant a monotonous song, narrating how they had journeyed towards the sea into which stars were falling, and how they had found the strangers, and brought them to their camp. As they sing this song over and over again, they beat time with their clubs. A brave then chants a tradition of one of their ancient chiefs, who was compelled to fly before a hostile tribe; all his young warriors were slain, and he alone escaped; but his enemies determined to put an end to him, set fire to the bush around him, and he was encircled by a net of flame. Suddenly the earth opened, and water stole up from the caverns and extinguished the fire, and so the chief was saved, and a great river was made, in which fish was plentiful. In the midst of the silence which follows this song, a man springs from out the shadows. His face is crossed with lines of red and yellow, and his body is painted white. In his hand is a branch of green leaves, and a great tuft of emeu-feathers is on his head. He stands perfectly still for full a quarter of an hour, looking into the sky for the spirits of dead men. What inspiration falls upon him at the end of that time it would probably be difficult to explain; but he waves his branch of green leaves to and fro, and the singers strike up another song, and the musicians beat time as before with their war-clubs, while the chief actor in the scene rushes about, and flourishes his arms in a gradually-worked-up state of the wildest excitement. He vanishes in the shade as suddenly as he had appeared, and in his place leap a dozen men, presenting so startling an appearance that Minnie clasps Joshua's hand in sudden alarm. Flowers are twined round their ankles and above their knees. Some have tails or dingoes wound about their heads, others wreaths of down from the white cockatoo; some have tails of wallabies attached to their peaked beards, and all have feathers in their hair. White rings are round their eyes, their noses are striped, and lines of red, yellow, and black are painted from their shoulders and breasts down to their waists, where a white ring encircles them. The singers burst into song again, and the hideously-decorated figures begin to dance, advancing towards the singers and retreating from them; their motions at first are slow and tremulous, but soon they are leaping and jumping frantically from side to side, each trying to out-tire the others, with such violent exertion as to cause them presently to fall upon the ground in a state of exhaustion. As soon as each recovers, he rises, and dances by himself, and the women utter cries of commendation, and beat the ground in ecstasy. These performers are followed by others, who dance in a serpentine line, until they present the appearance of a serpent coiling and uncoiling itself; as they dance, they make a hissing sound with their tongues, to imitate the hissing of a serpent. And so through the night the Corroboree continues, until, thoroughly worn out, the savages retire to their rest, and the woods that a while ago were filled with such strange life and sound, are lying quiet and solemn in the peaceful light of the stars.

Wealberrin and his tribe are ready to start, and Rough-and-Ready and the sailmaker have come to wish Minnie and Joshua good-by. They go into the woods, out of sight of the natives, and sit sadly upon trunks of trees that have been blown down by storms.

"I have heard say, or have read somewhere," says Rough-and-Ready, striving to speak gayly, "that life is made up of meetings and partings, so that this is quite a natural thing, and not to be repined at. What we've got to do is to make the best of things."

"It might be worse," says Tom the sailmaker, good-naturedly assisting Rough-and-Ready to cheer Minnie's spirits.

"Bravo, Tom!" exclaims Rough-and-Ready. "It might be a good deal worse. We have escaped greater dangers than the present one, and if we act wisely and bravely we shall escape this. But it all depends upon ourselves, and if we lose courage, we lose all. You must bear that in mind, my dear. Why, this day twelve months we may be talking together, and smiling at these experiences which now seem so hard to bear!"