“Not much I don’t; but he bit me on the finger, miss. I was a swagsman then, and was gathering wood, as we were to-night, when I got nipped, and my chum tightened a morsel of string round it to keep the poison away from the heart, then he laid the finger on a stone and chopped it off with his spade. Fact what I’m telling you. But the poison got in the blood somehow all the same. They half carried me to Irish Charlie’s hotel. Lucky, that wasn’t far off. Then they stuck the whiskey into me.”
“Did the whiskey kill the poison?” said Archie.
“Whiskey kill the poison! Why, young sir, Charlie’s whiskey would have killed a kangaroo! But nothing warmed me that night; my blood felt frozen. Well, sleep came at last, and, oh, the dreams! ’Twere worse ten thousand times than being wi’ Daniel in the den o’ lions. Next day nobody hardly knew me; I was blue and wrinkled. I had aged ten years in a single night.”
“I say,” said Harry, “suppose we change the subject.”
“And I say,” said Craig, “suppose we make the beds.”
He got up as he spoke, and began to busy himself in preparations for Etheldene’s couch. It was easily and simply arranged, but the arrangement nevertheless showed considerable forethought.
He disappeared for a few minutes, and returned laden with all the necessary paraphernalia. A seven-foot pole was fastened to a tree; the other end supported by a forked stick, which he sharpened and drove into the ground. Some grass was spread beneath the pole, a blanket thrown carefully over it, the upturned saddle put down for a pillow, and a tent formed by throwing over the pole a loose piece of canvas that he had taken from his saddle-bow, weighted down by some stones, and the whole was complete.
“Now, Baby,” said Craig, handing Etheldene a warm rug, “will you be pleased to retire?”
“Where is my flat candlestick?” she answered. Gentleman Craig pointed to the Southern Cross. “Yonder,” he said. “Is it not a lovely one?”
“It puts me in mind of old, old times,” said Etheldene with a sigh. “And you’re calling me ‘Baby’ too. Do you remember, ever so long ago in the Bush, when I was a baby in downright earnest, how you used to sing a lullaby to me outside my wee tent?”