Harry’s marvellous luck still continued. He caught the third spear also, which was aimed at his head.
“It is the son of Kaludie,” for the third time shouted the old gin, running to throw her arms around Harry, and at the same time gashing her cheeks with a stone.
“Kaludie has eyes,” shouted the others, at last convinced. “The white fellow is slow as a koala, but this white boy is quick as a wink.”
After this, although he was strictly watched, a great deal was made of Harry. He was taken hunting and fishing with the tribe, and was helped more plentifully than the other boys to the wallaby, snake, parrot, iguana, yam, figs, honey, grubs, or whatever else happened to be going for food. This made the black lads jealous of him, and one of them asked, “Was not the son of Kaludie a kipper?” and then pointed to Harry’s mouth, out of which, of course, no tooth had been knocked, black-fellow fashion, at the “kipper” age. This discovery brought on another long argument, and it was at last decided that the son of Kaludie must be made a kipper over again next full moon. Accordingly poor Harry was obliged to submit to have a front tooth knocked out. That was rather unpleasant; but if Donald had been with him, he would have enjoyed the hunting and fishing. He learnt to hurl the spear and fling the boomerang almost like a black fellow. But just as he was getting a little reconciled to his captivity in the open air, something occurred which made him long more than ever to get back to his own people. In a fight with another tribe, several of his captors were slain. The corpses were brought back and roasted, peeled like potatoes, and eaten by their own comrades. When the bones had been picked, they were put into baskets of native grass, sent about to be howled over, then brought back to their families’ gunyahs to be kept for a time in memoriam, and at last hung on the branches or dropped into the hollows of trees, on which the emblem of the tribe, a waratah, was carved. A plump arm was thrust into Harry’s hands, as a special treat. When he flung it down, and rushed away from the horrid banquet, even Kaludie became half sceptical as to whether he could indeed be her son. For days afterwards he could not touch flesh food of any kind, and the natives’ suspicions might have been seriously aroused, had not their attention been diverted from him by a mysterious illness which struck down young and old in their camp. In vain were dead men’s skins brought out for the invalids to be laid on. In vain did adventurous warriors waylay the members of other tribes, in order to secure their kidneys to make ointment for the sufferers. In vain did the old gins rinse their mouths and spit beside the sick, invoking curses on the sorcerer who had caused them to writhe in agony. It was manifest, the blacks said, that the sorcerer came and went as he pleased, underground, to the camp, and that he must be slain before its peace could be restored. Handsome Bob was the sorcerer credited with its calamity.
One day a boasting young black bounded into the camp, and, striking an attitude, began to chant (of course in black fellow’s lingo):
“I have slain—whom have I slain? Is it the white wizard that burrowed like the wombat? Is it he whom we caught and fastened to the tree? Is it the white wizard with the face like the flying fox? Yes, it is the white wizard that lies slain under the wattle—slain by the spear of me, the brave Jooragong.”
Then the excited gins took up the song—
“Jooragong is young, but he has slain him who slew the blacks—the white wizard who burrowed like the wombat—the white wizard with the face like the flying fox. Jooragong is young, but he is braver than the old men. We will all be the gins of Jooragong.”
And then there would have been a great corroborree, had not a sceptical old warrior said,
“Jooragong is brave in his own mouth. Why did Jooragong leave the scalp of the white wizard under the wattle? Let us go and look on the face of the flying fox. Let us be sure that the white wizard will no more burrow like the wombat.”