There was such reality in the battle-play, the men were so earnest, their cries so passionate, their taunts so bitter; in short, there was such a ring of sincerity, such a presentation of the actual, that the white spectators were carried away as in the drama when the master mummers live their parts.
The boys were in a condition of exultancy. They were inspired by the martial display to a participation of fellow-feeling with the warring company. Neville, too, was fairly captured by this weird yet fierce and savage sham-fight. The thrill of combat held him so strongly that he could not refrain from leaping to his feet and yelling with the rest—urging them, indeed, to greater slaughter.
It was different with the girls. Fear laid hold of them at the unwonted sight. At first they joined in the hurrahs, but when the fighters neared them, and it seemed, as was indeed the case, that the very actors were being carried away by frenzy and battle-lust, their tongues ceased and a cold chill of apprehension seized them.
The warriors are now right up, fronting the fire. In a few minutes the grand finale will have been enacted, and the curtain rung down. Unfortunately, however, one of the young men has a quarrel with a youth belonging to the visiting tribe. In the culminating point of this sham fight he sees his enemy among the crowd of onlookers, and, urged by his excited feelings, he directs insulting remarks full at this man, who, running out into the clear space in front of the fighters, returns these with interest. This so enrages the Bullaroi youth that, darting from the ranks, he slings his spear full at the enemy, and transfixes him in the breast. Loud cries of consternation come from the women, and a moment's awful stillness from the men. Then, as if by magic, the Dingdonglas have risen in their wrath, arms in hand. The play has vanished, and downright fight and bloody battle ensues. Spears hurtle and boomerangs swish through the air; the crash of nulla-nulla on shields supplants the music of the orchestra, the while the gins flee in sheer terror from the bloody scene to their huts in the forest, rending the air with their shrill screams as they speed.
But what of the whites?
They stand a few moments horrorstruck at the raging human cyclone. At first the grim reality seemed unreal, just as previously the sham battle-action appeared real. Joe is the first to size up the situation. Not only are the blacks in blood-red earnest, but there is actual peril to the spectators. The combatants are surging to and fro in the strife of conflict, and circling as though in a vortex. At any moment the spectators might be drawn into the battle zone through the movements of the belligerents.
"Come, Mag, Jess, quickly!" cries that youth, seizing the girls as he speaks and drawing them away. "The brutes are at it in real earnest. Come! we must bolt to the trees. Great Cæsar, look at that!" A spear whistled through the air and impaled itself in a tree near by.
Just then, one of the fighters detached himself from the scrum and came bounding up to the little group, spear extended. As he seemed to be on hostile intent, the youths lined up in front of the girls, ready to defend them and grapple with the foe. On nearing, Sandy knew him to be Willy the station boy. Willy, loyal to the family, came to entreat them to leave the field. There was little fear of any direct attack upon them, though it were hard to say what turn the savage mind might take. The apparent danger was from fugitive spears and boomerangs. So Willy paused but to cry out, "Take 'em girls to horses: safe there; no safe here. Go!" and then skipped back to his band, throwing himself heart and soul into the fray. For the hour the boy was as great a savage as any of the young men of the tribe.
The girls, now really terrified, need no pressure to leave; so they scurry from the field and reach their horses, some distance beyond spear reach. There they watch the tide of battle as it ebbs and flows until it dies, which it is not long in doing, from its very violence.
When the casualties were reckoned it was found that most of the combatants had received bruises or gashes, limbs were broken, but the only fatalities were those of the lads who began the quarrel. Now that the fight is over, both sides settle down to supper in the best of humours. The slate has been cleaned in this primitive fashion, and now friendships are renewed over handfuls of luscious tree-grubs and hunches of roast kangaroo. To-morrow there will be weeping in common over the biers of the departed braves.