“Done—and done with you, sir,” said the stockman heartily. “You’re one of the right sort; and I’d give a trifle out of my own pocket to have you alongside of us. I’ll go a bit of the way to-morrow, and put you up to the lay of the country—there’s room enough and water enough for half the cattle in Queensland.”
This important stage reached, the rest of the evening was spent in comparatively cheerful and abstract talk. Mr. Heads took a more cheerful view of his situation and surroundings, and stated that when Messrs. Redgrave and Waldron had arrived and fairly put down stakes, he should look upon themselves as residents in a settled district. “They had not had a beast speared for a week. Matters were decidedly improving. If Taylor would only get stronger, he believed he would be on his legs again in no time. Couldn’t say how cheered up they all felt. Don’t you, Taylor?” Here the periodical chills came on the sick man, and he began to shiver as if he would shake his teeth out soon.
It was held, after due consultation, to be only consistent with the exercise of Christian charity to remain for a few days, and to comfort the garrison of this garde douloureuse. The horses profited by the respite; and when the journey was recommenced the explorers had the satisfaction of leaving their hosts in a state of mental and bodily convalescence. Mr. Taylor, having passed over the shaking stage, began to recover strength, while Mr. Heads, still much restricted as to locomotion, was hopeful as to ultimate recovery, and inclined to believe that the heathen would be confounded in due time, and the persecuted cattle be permitted to eat their cotton-bush unharmed, free from spears and stampedes.
Detailed information as to route and water-courses was obtained from Mick Mahoney, the stockman, a New South Welshman of Irish extraction, who was loud in praise of the grand country he was, in his own phrase, “laying them on to.” Altogether, matters wore a more hopeful and encouraging appearance to Jack’s mind than at any time since the “hegira” from Gondaree. The horses were fresh and in good heart; their arms and ammunition were carefully looked to. Some slight addition was made to the commissariat; and Mr. Waldron, as he rode forth, all adieux having been made, declared himself to be “as fit as a fiddle,” and ready to fight all the blacks in the glorious new territory of Raak if it was half as good as Mick Mahoney had made out.
“I feel like one of the Pilgrim Fathers,” he was good enough to remark, “just unloaded from the Mayflower, and all ignorant of Philip of Pokanoket, Tecumseh, and the rest of the Red Indian swells. I suppose we shall not have any of their weight to do battle with. A spear like an arrow is a mild kind of weapon enough unless it hits you. I propose if we get this country, to be kind to these Austral children of Ishmael, against whom is, apparently, the hand of every man.”
“The worst possible policy,” said Jack; “after the place is settled, well and good, but as long as ill-blood lasts you can’t be too careful.”
“I think you are disposed to be hard on them,” answered Guy; “but of course you’re the commanding officer, and I give in. Only, I have a strong feeling in favour of a genuine patriarchal reign. The whole tribe, gradually convinced of the good feeling and firmness of the new ruler, bowing down to the beneficent white stranger, and, while toiling for him with passionate devotion, insensibly creating for themselves a higher ideal.”
“Dreams and phantasies of youth, my dear Waldron, frightfully exaggerating the good qualities of human nature, never by any chance realized. There’s always some scoundrel of a stockman who undoes all your teaching, or some long-headed crafty pagan who convinces his brethren of the very obvious fact that stealing is a cheaper way of procuring luxuries than working for them.”
“It may be so,” said the boy (another name for enthusiast, unless the nature be precociously cold or corrupt); “but all the same, if we get this country, I should like to do something for these pre-Adamite parties, or whatever they are. I think they are very improvable myself.”
“Up to a certain point, but not a peg further; like all savages, they lack the power of continuous self-denial; that’s where the lowest known specimens of the white races immeasurably excel them. Out of any given hundred of the most debased whites you may get an individual infinitely susceptible of development by culture. You may take the continent through, and from the whole aboriginal population you shall be unable to cull such a one.”