From behind his entrenchment the old man fired rapidly, from time to time loudly exulting, as a death-cry rang out on the night air or a spear buried itself in the fallen tree.
‘Throw away, ye infernal black divils!’ shouted the old man; and after the cautious stillness it was strange to hear the reckless tones echoing through the forest shades. ‘I’ll back the old single-barrel here against a scrubful of yees—always belavin’ in a little cover.’
‘Tek it cool, full-private Glendinning,’ said Dick Evans, who had advanced in light-infantry skirmishing order from the rear. ‘Not so much talking in the ranks, and mark time when ye’re charging the inimy; it looks more detarmined and collected-like—as old Hughie Gough used to say. Please God, it’ll soon be daylight; perhaps they’d gather thick enough then to let us go at ’em with the bayonet like.’
‘Maybe ye won’t be so full of yer pipeclay if ye gets one of thim reed spears into ye—my heavy curse on them! Mr. Hubert says he catched a sight of that divil’s-joynt of a Donderah; the thribe says he was niver known to lave a fight without a dead man’s hair.’
‘He don’t know white men yet,’ said Dick, ‘’ceptin’ he’s sneaked on to a hut-keeper. He’ll be taken down to-night if he don’t look out! Well done, Master Guy!’
This exclamation was due to the result of a snapshot from Guy, who had drawn trigger upon a savage, who, bounding forward, had thrown two spears with wonderful rapidity, and bolted for his cover, his whole frame quivering with such intensity of muscular action, that the limbs were scarcely visible in the dim light. However, the keen eyes and ready aim of youth were upon him; he reached the scrub but to spring upward and fall heavily back, a dead man.
Although none of the whites had as yet been wounded, while several of their savage enemies had been disabled or killed outright, still the contest was unsatisfactory.
They were uncertain as to the number of their enemies, who, concealed in the scrub, sent forth volleys of spears. Occasionally an outburst of cries and yells arose, so fiendishly replete with hatred, that the listeners in that sombre forest involuntarily felt their blood curdle. For aught they knew, the tribe might be gradually surrounding them. Indeed, an attempt of this kind was made. But it was frustrated by their watchful leader, who charged into the darkness with a few picked men, and drove the wily savages back to the main body.
On this occasion he had caught a glimpse of the giant Donderah, whose cruelty had been a chronicle of the tribe.
‘I can’t make out where the big brute got to,’ he said to old Tom, ‘or I should be easier in my mind. He’s a crafty devil, though he’s so big and strong, and he has some superstition, they told me, about never going out of a fight without a death to his credit. He knows about me, too, though we never met. It wasn’t his fault that I got back alive. A black girl told me that. They named him after the mountain. There’s not a blackfellow from here to the coast that can stand before him, they say. If O’More doesn’t take care, he’ll have him as sure as a gun. I have half a mind to see if he has dropped flat in that stone gunya.’