“Me die fast enough.” Here the merciless cough for a time completely exhausted her. “I believe to-morrow. You think I jump up white fellow?”
“I can’t say, Wildduck,” answered he. “We shall all be very different from what we are now. You had better cover yourself up and go to sleep.”
“I very tired,” moaned the girl, feebly; “long way we come to-day. You tell new gentleman he be kind to old man Jack. You say good-bye to poor Wildduck.” Here she held out her attenuated hand. It had been always small and slender, as in many cases are those of the women of her race. In the days of her health and vigour, Jack had often noticed the curious delicacy of her hands and feet, and speculated on the causes of such conformation among a people all ignorant of shoe and stocking. But now the small brown fingers and transparent palm were like those of a child. He held them in his own for a second, and then said, “Good-night, Wildduck.”
“Good-bye, Misser Redgrave, good-bye. You tell Miss Maudie, perhaps I see her some day, you too, long big one star.” Here she pointed to the sky. Her eyes filled with tears. Jack turned away. When he looked again, she had covered her face with the rug. But he could hear her sobs, and a low moaning cry.
“Strange, and how hard to understand!” said Jack to himself, as he strode forward in the twilight towards the cottage. “I wonder what the extent of this poor ignorant creature’s moral responsibility may be. What opportunities has she had of comprehending her presence on this mysterious earth? Save a few lessons from Maud, she has never heard the sacred name except as giving power to a careless oath. As to actual wickedness she is a thousand-fold better than half the white sinners of her own sex. Her sufferings have been short. And perhaps she lies a-dying more happily circumstanced than a pauper in the cold walls of a work-house, or a waif in a stifling room in a back slum of any given city. As far as the children of crime, want, and vice are concerned, all cities are much on a par, whether Australian, European, or otherwise.”
The night was boisterous, yet, mingled with the moaning of the blast, Jack fancied that at midnight he heard a cry, long-drawn, wailing, and more shrill than the tones of the wind-harp, or the sighing of the bowed forest.
The pale dawn was still silent, ghostly gray. No herald in roseate tabard had proclaimed the approach of the tyrant sun—lord of that stricken waste—when John Redgrave walked over to the camp. He saw at once, by the attitudes of the group, that they were mourners of the dead. Each sat motionless and mute, gazing with grief-stricken countenances towards the fourth fire—in the equally divided space—by which lay a motionless figure, covered from head to foot with furs. He looked at old man Jack, but he moved not a muscle of his disfigured countenance, while in his eyes, fixed with a strong glare, there was no more speculation than in those of the dead.
The women sat like ebon statues; down their shrivelled breasts and bony arms the dried rivulets of blood made a ghastly blazonry. Jack knew enough of the customs and ceremonies of this fast-fading people to be aware that no speech, or even gesture, was possible during the two first days of mourning. He walked over and raised the covering from the face of the dead girl. Her features, always delicate and regular (for, though rarely, such types unquestionably do exist among most aboriginal Australian tribes), were composed and peaceful. The closed eyes were fringed with lashes of extraordinary length. The heavy waving locks, rudely combed back, were not without artistic effect. The pallor of death bestowed a fairer hue on the clear brown, not coal-black, skin. The lingering shadow of a smile remained upon the scarcely closed lips, which half recalled the arch expression of the merry forest child, dancing in the sunshine like the swaying leaflets. Now, like them in autumn-death, she was lying on the breast of the great earth-mother. One hand pressed her bosom, in the shut fingers of which was a small cross, hung round the neck by a faded ribbon, which he remembered to have been a present from Maud Stangrove. “He whose word infused with life this ill-starred child of clay will He not recall the parted spirit?” thought Jack, as he reverently replaced the fur cloak. “God bless her,” he said, softly.
He turned and looked back as he entered his dwelling. There sat the three figures—rigid, sorrow-denoting, motionless as carvings on a mausoleum. For two days they watched their dead—soundless, sleepless, foodless. Ere the third day broke, the mourners and their charge had disappeared.