The next minute the black faced round, and the rustling of bushes was followed by the appearance of a second figure thirty yards away.
Nic threw up his gun, not to his shoulder, but over it; for the figure was that of the stock man, Brookes, who shouted:
“Oh, there you are, young gentleman. Your mar’s getting in a orful way. She sent Bungarolo to look after you, and then, as he didn’t come back, she sent me.”
“Oh!” groaned Nic, in a tone of disgust; for all his bravery, as he thought it, had been thrown away, and a peculiar sensation of self-humiliation and shame came ever him.
“Yes, here I am, Brookes,” he said. “Then this is a tame black?”
“Tame un?” said the man, with a chuckle. “Oh no, he’s wild enough; I never see one on ’em yet as you could tame. No tame man would go about without trousers when he’s had two pair give him to my sartain knowledge. He’s one as hangs about sometimes.”
“But I mean he is not one of the more dangerous blacks?”
“Oh no, I think not, sir—so long as you treat him well, and he gets treated right enough with soft tack and mutton. He comes to see our other two as you know.”
“But does his tribe live about here?”
“I dunno, sir. Nobody does know. These chaps is like the cockatoos: they swarm about the place one day, and next day there isn’t one, and you might go for a hundred miles and never see one of their blessed heads. He’s wild enough. Hangs about the place, and does a bit of work if he likes it. If he don’t, he goes. These blacks is, to my mind, the only real gents as there is. Look at him now. He don’t want no clothes nor no house, only a hut, as he makes out of a few bits o’ bark and calls a gunyah, perhaps only a mia-mia.”