‘It’s grown into a mighty big place,’ said Ben. ‘You fellows have no idea what London is like. Bless me if the people are not thicker on the pavements than sheep in a catching pen!’
‘What’s the mutton like over there?’ asked Jim Lee solemnly.
‘Nearly as juicy as it is here,’ said Ben, with a wink, and a smack of the lips that betokened fond remembrances of sundry succulent London chops.
Yacka made quite a scene when he discovered that Edgar had returned. He summoned all the blacks in the neighbourhood, and a great corroboree took place in his honour.
To Edgar’s inquiries Yacka said he had resolved never to return to the country of the Enooma, or to the cave of the White Spirit, now no longer there.
Yacka was contented to live and die at Yanda, where Ben Brody and the hands were kind to him, and where he could idle away most of his time, and spend a savage life such as the blackfellow loves.
‘Would you not like to become civilized,’ asked Edgar, ‘and cultivate the ways of the white man?’
‘No,’ said Yacka; ‘to be civilized means rum and ruin. Yacka loves his freedom, and wants no civilization.’
It was in vain Edgar endeavoured to induce Yacka to leave Yanda, and go to Sydney with him. The black was firm in his resolve never to quit Yanda again, and many years after Edgar learned that Yacka died at the station, and was much regretted, not only by the blacks, but also by the hands.
Before Edgar left Sydney he was entertained by the cricketers of the city at a banquet, and the speeches made on that memorable occasion were treasured by him. They were not mere after-dinner displays, but real, genuine words spoken from the heart, and Edgar accepted them as such.