“Say don’t want to go along. Shanter make um go.”
“No, no, don’t hunt them.”
“No,” cried the black, volubly; “hunt wallaby—hunt ole man kangaroo.”
He grinned, and holding his hands before him, began to leap along the track in a wonderfully clever imitation of that singular animal last named, with the result that the horses snorted, and the bullocks set up their tails, and increased their pace.
“Be quiet!” cried Norman, whose eyes ran tears with laughter. “Yes, you are right, Tim. He is a rum one.”
“I meant it seems rum to be walking along here with a real black fellow, and only the other day at Harrow.”
“Black fellow?” cried their companion. “Hi! black fellow.”
He threw himself into an attitude that would have delighted a sculptor, holding back his head, raising his spear till it was horizontal, and then pretending to throw it; after which he handed it quickly to Norman, and snatched a short knobbed stick from where it was stuck through the back of the piece of kangaroo skin he wore.
With this in his hand he rushed forward, and went through the pantomime of a fierce fight with an enemy, whom he seemed to chase and then caught and killed by repeated blows with the nulla-nulla he held in his hand, finishing off by taking a run and hurling it at another retreating enemy, the club flying through the air with such accuracy that he hit one of the horses by the tail, sending it off at a gallop.
“Norman! Rifle!” cried the captain from far behind; “don’t let that fellow frighten those horses.”