Arrival of the native police—The murderer caught—Examination—Jimmy is taken to Cardwell—Flight of the prisoner—The officer of the law—Expedition to the Valley of Lagoons—A mother eats her own child—My authority receives a shock.
When I arrived at the station I talked with the natives about the event. They seemed to be surprised, but observing that I knew all about the matter, they found there was no use of assuming ignorance, and they began to converse with me about the murder as a matter well known to them. Thus I secured all the details in regard to this horrible affair. But they held it perfectly proper for Jimmy to kill the white man who was unwilling to share his food with him. I made them understand that this was not my view, and threatened to send for the police. This threat I would also have carried out, had not, three days later, a sergeant of the native police, with a few troopers, accidentally come and encamped at Herbert Vale. He had been in Cardwell to fetch provisions and liquor for his chief, who lived on the table-land.
When the blacks saw the police their memory again failed them. It was no longer Jimmy who had murdered the white man, but two other blacks, Kamera and Boko. In a certain sense this was true, for a year and a half previously they had actually murdered a white man. It was thought that he had been eaten by a crocodile, and now for the first time it was discovered that a murder had been committed, but this man was not Jimmy’s victim. By confusing the two events, they tried to draw attention away from Jimmy. For Kamera and Boko they cared less, they being strangers, but Jimmy belonged to their own tribe and must be saved. The boldest and most experienced of these “civilised” natives therefore sought to make friends with the police. They brought them their best women, carried wood and water for them, and tried to serve them in every way. I told the police sergeant what had happened, and requested him to arrest Jimmy, who could be found at a great borboby which was to be celebrated just at this time two or three miles from Herbert Vale.
The next day the sergeant went to the borboby to arrest him, taking with him three of the blacks at the station, and also the Kanaka, in order that they might identify Jimmy.
While he was absent, the postman came from Cardwell. When he learned what had happened, he remembered that he several times had felt a bad smell where the murder was supposed to have taken place—that is, near Dalrymple Creek.
We now hoped that the sergeant would bring the murderer in the evening, but he returned without the prisoner. Three persons called Jimmy had been shown to him, and they all denied having perpetrated the murder. The natives who had gone with the sergeant to the borboby had declared that the right Jimmy was not there. I knew this to be not true, and so I requested the sergeant to make another effort. The Kanaka told me that the right Jimmy really was there, and that it had vexed him to see that the sergeant would not arrest him. The sergeant had given all his attention to the fair sex, and had taken no interest in finding Jimmy.
As I insisted that the murderer should be arrested, the sergeant started off early the next morning, again in company with the Kanaka. He now took with him two of his own men and handcuffs for the culprit. In a few hours they returned with the prisoner, and I was sent for. It was Jimmy. He was handcuffed; his suspicious face was restless, the blood rose to his face, and if a black man can be said to blush, then Jimmy did so now.
Under the storehouse, which stood on high posts, there was a large room surrounded by a lattice. Here the court was held. The prisoner was brought in by two of the troopers, and the examination began. The persons present were the sergeant, the old keeper of the station, the postman, the Kanaka, and I. The blacks stood outside the gate and watched the whole proceeding with the greatest interest.
The sergeant, a tall powerful man, who was the representative of the law there, began the trial by snatching a throwing-stick from one of those standing outside and striking Jimmy on the head with it, in order to force him in this brutal manner to tell the truth.
“You have killed the white man,” he kept repeating, and added new weight to his words by inflicting fresh blows; but the criminal denied everything, while he tried to protect himself with his fettered hands.