“Him”—meaning the soap—“bite eye belonga me,” Bett-Bett explained.
Chapter 3
“Shut-Him-Eye Quick-Fellow”
The King we were talking about—Bett-Bett’s uncle, you know—was called by the tribe Ebimel Wooloomool. The white people had nicknamed him “Goggle Eye,” and he was very proud of his “whitefellow name,” as he called it. You see, he didn’t know what it meant.
He didn’t have a golden sceptre. Australian kings never do; but he had what was quite as deadly—a “Magic Death-bone.” If you had been up to mischief, breaking the laws, or doing anything wrong, it was wise to keep out of his way; for every blackfellow knew that if he “sang” this bone and pointed it at you, you would very quickly die.
The white man says you die of fright; but as it is the bone-pointing that gives the fright, it’s the bone-pointing that kills, isn’t it? But I’ll tell you more about this by and bye.
The first time I met Goggle Eye, he was weeding my garden, and I didn’t know he was a King; I thought he was just an ordinary blackfellow. You see he didn’t have a crown, and as he was only wearing a tassel and a belt made from his mother-in-law’s hair, it was no wonder I made the mistake. It takes a good deal of practice to tell a King at a glance—when he’s naked and pulling up weeds.
I didn’t like having even naked Kings about the homestead, so I said—
“Goggle Eye, don’t you think you had better have some more clothes on?”
He grinned and looked very pleased, so I gave him a pair of blue cotton trousers. He put them on at once, without even troubling to go behind a bush, and asked my advice as to which leg he had better put in first. I gave him all the help I could and at last had him safely into them, right side out, and the front where it ought to be.
We gardened for a while, the old nigger and I, but as the sun became hotter I noticed that he kept pulling his trousers up over his knees. At last he sat down and took one leg right out.