"He called you Baker," he said, looking doubtfully at the little man.
"Baker will do," answered Mandy.
And the idle throng returned to them, and asked questions about their journey and their people, which made Smith despair. He prayed for night and the big man's return.
CHAPTER XI.
A SOLUTION.
They spent the remainder of the day in sleep, when they were at last left alone, except by Bill, who seemed to consider himself their companion or custodian. For Smith was thoroughly done up by the journey and starvation. The excitement had been too much for him, and the speculations his tired brain indulged as to the origin of an English-speaking white race of savages, nearly drove him crazy.
Who could they be? The likeliest solution was certainly the one he had struck on. It occurred to him once that they might be the descendants of some lost explorer, such as poor Leichardt, who had taken up with some tribe of black-fellows. But there were very many in the camp obviously without a taint of black blood in them. Some would have been as fair as himself if they had not been burnt so intensely by their wild life, and nearly all had big blonde beards, and moustaches which reached to their shoulders.
And so far, whether they had legends as to their origin of not, he had not been able to get them to speak plainly. They had come from "over there" a long time ago, Bill said when pressed; but "over there" was not definite, and though he pointed due east, it meant little. He tried once before he fell asleep to find out if Bill understood anything about the sea. Yes, the word was familiar to the man, but it obviously meant nothing more than a lagoon or water-hole much bigger than any piece of water he had seen. And when Smith suggested to him that the sea was like the boundless plain and without limit, the notion became abstract, and as unintelligible as eternity.
That this was so seemed to dispose of the notion that they were castaways, such as the Pitcairn Islanders might have been if they had reached their island without any implements of civilisation, and had been left to a hand-to-hand fight with a barren land and fierce savages. He fell asleep thinking that he had perhaps discovered a new white race who had learnt English from the lost explorer whom he had once believed their ancestor. But why they should give up their native tongue was an insoluble problem, unless indeed they had regarded the new white man as their superior, and had learnt his language as a quasi-court language fitter for them than their own. And from what period did they date? Obviously, he said, they must have been savages for centuries.
When he woke it was quite dark, save for the light of the camp fire, by which he saw the Baker sitting with several of the younger men, some of the boys, and one or two girls. The girl whom they had interrogated was on Mandeville's right hand, and the strange party seemed to be enjoying itself thoroughly. For the Baker was singing "Sweet Belle Mahone" to them, and the simple melancholy of the old air seemed to please them greatly. They tried to join in the chorus, and the Baker's right-hand neighbour caught the air pretty accurately. Smith advanced to the fire, and was greeted with a "Sit down, mate," which, if he had closed his eyes, would have seemed to emanate from any ordinary crowd of miners. But there they were, savage, hirsute, wild, and half-clad in untanned skins.