At last Tommy Dod came back, and I had not so much to do. One evening, when I went up with some arrowroot, all the blacks in the camp were sitting round in a circle, looking at Goggle Eye. They had taken away the sheet of bark, so as to see him better, and were talking about him, and wondering when he would die, and if Debbil-debbils would take him away.
“I think him die to-night, Missus,” said Billy Muck cheerfully as I came up. “I think him die fowl sing out.”
Goggle Eye gave a little glad cry when he saw me. “Missus,” he called weakly, and I went to him and gave him a little brandy and arrowroot.
“Be quiet!” I said angrily, as the old men began talking about him again. They looked surprised, but obeyed, wondering, I think, why I objected to such an interesting topic of conversation.
Soon the poor old fellow asked me if I would tell my “Big-Fellow God” to chase away the Debbil-debbils. I was very touched, and did exactly as he wished, in queer pidgin English. Then Goggle Eye was happy and contented, and the strange prayer was answered, for he was no longer afraid of his fearsome Debbil-debbils.
Soon after supper he fell asleep, and I left him, and never saw my strange old friend again. Billy Muck was right, and at “fowl sing out” or cock-crow, Ebimel Wooloomool, King of Dullinarrinarr, died, and with him died many strange, weird old legends, and a good big slice of the history of the Blacks of the Never-Never.
Billy Muck, the Rainmaker, was now King, and I suppose that Bett-Bett was Queen Consort. But the tribe will never be afraid of the new King, for he is neither cute nor clever, and I don’t think the wise men will take much notice of him. He is head man, of course, and knows all his Corrobborees, but he is only a kind, simple-hearted old blackfellow, and will never be the absolute monarch that Goggle Eye was.
They buried the poor old King in a very shallow grave, just where he had died. They laid his spears, and his pipe, and all that belonged to him on the top of his grave, covering them over with a sheet of paper-bark, which was kept in place with a few large stones. After that they built his bark humpy over him again, and then went away, leaving him all alone in the deserted camp; for a camp is always deserted after a death. Their new camp was two or three hundred yards away, and never again would any one willingly enter the old one.
South of the Roper River dead men are always put away in the branches of a tree for a long time before burial, but I never heard of this being done at the Roper. I know Goggle Eye was buried at once, and there was a big “cry-cry” in the camp. Every one ran about and pretended to cut themselves with knives, but I noticed that it was nearly all pretence. I don’t believe that any one of them cared as much as I did.