It happened just then that one of the lulls, common in savage warfare, took place. Hubert Warleigh flitted, noiseless and shadow-like, to another part of the camp, lest a diversion should be effected in a weaker spot.
Before changing position he gave instructions to old Tom, whose practised eye and ear could be depended upon, and whose distrust of the savage he knew to be proof against apparent security.
‘I’ll be back soon,’ he said, ‘for if Donderah did not fall back with the others, we are none of us too safe. I’ve known him drag a man out, with half a tribe close to his heels.’
Old Tom was much of the same opinion, for at the border stations tales of the Myall blacks were told by the aboriginals employed about the place. The exploits of the Titanic Donderah, ‘cobaun big fellow and plenty boomalli white fellow,’ had attained Homeric distinction.
The old man peered keenly through the dim glades, and listened as he bent forward, still sheltered by his tree, and resting one hand upon the neck of the dog Smoker, whose low growling he strove to repress.
‘Bad scran to ye,’ he said, ‘do ye want every murdtherin’ thief of the tribe to know the tree I’m under? Maybe he’s not far off, and ye’re winding him. I never knew yer tongue to be false, or I’d dhrive in the ribs of ye. Ha, ye big divil!’ he screamed, ‘ye’re there afther all; ’twas a bould trick of ye to hide in that stone gunya. Ye nearly skivered that gay boy from the ould country. Holy saints! sure he’s a dead man now! Was there ever such a gommoch!’
This uncomplimentary exclamation was called forth by the apparition of a herculean savage, who leaped out of the lava blocks of the rude, circular miami—a long-abandoned dwelling-place, probably a century old, and but slightly raised above the basaltic rocks of the promontory. Starting up, as if out of the night, he flung two spears at the only white man unsheltered. Like a diving seal he cast himself downwards, and was again invisibly safe.
One of the javelins nearly made an end of Gerald O’More. It was from such weapons, hurled with a sinewy arm, that the half-dozen cattle in the camp had fallen. They found, next morning, that a spear, piercing the flank, had gone clean through an unlucky heifer, and passed out at the other side.
However that may have been, Gerald the Dauntless was not the man to remain to be made a target of. Rushing forward, with a shout that told of West of Ireland associations, he charged the miniature citadel, determined to kill or capture his enemy. Before he reached the apparently deserted gunya, a dark form might have been observed by eyes more keen for signs of woodcraft, to worm itself, serpentlike, along the path which O’More trod heedlessly.
As if raised by magic from the earth, suddenly the huge Donderah stood erect in his path, and with the bound of a famished tiger, sprang within Gerald’s guard. The barrel of his fowling-piece was knocked up, and with one tremendous blow the Caucasian lay prone upon the earth. His foe commenced to drag him within the circle of the (possibly) sacrificial stones.