“There was no water in this vicinity and he had no food with him, and he could not walk or stand on account of his broken leg. He could crawl slowly, but only a short distance at a time. He knew that he was out of the regular track of riders, and it might be days or weeks before he would be discovered. He suffered great pain in his injured limb, and very soon the tortures of thirst began, to be followed later in the day by those of hunger.
“All the rest of the day and all through the night he lay there in great suffering and wondering if relief would ever come. Along towards morning he heard a rustling in the grass near him, and then other similar sounds, which he soon concluded were caused by snakes. When daylight came he found that his fears and horrors were realized. Moving around him were several serpents, and they manifested a tendency to approach nearer and nearer. Some of them went away as the sun rose and the full light of day shone upon him, but others remained in his immediate neighborhood. He beat the ground with the butt of his whip in the hope of scaring them away; his effort was partially successful but not wholly so. One large snake came close to his side and actually traversed his body. He dared not make a motion, for fear the serpent would turn upon him and inflict a fatal bite. He lay there as still as a block of marble till the snake, having satisfied his curiosity, glided away into the grass.
“All through the afternoon and until we found him, the reptiles remained there. They seemed to understand that the man was disabled, and evidently they were determined to take their own time in enjoying his sufferings. This was the state of affairs when we found him. He said that when he heard our call he almost feared to reply, lest it should rouse his unpleasant neighbors and cause them to take the aggressive.
“We killed two of the snakes not a dozen yards from where the man was lying, and if we had made a vigorous search, it is probable that we could have despatched more of them. We brought the man to the house as quickly as possible, improvising a rude sort of litter, which was carried, with the man upon it, by two of our blacks. Two of us relieved them occasionally, when they were wearied of carrying the burden. In a short time the man was well again, but he said that the horrors of that night were too much for him, and he would seek some other occupation than that of stock-rider. He left us as soon as he recovered, and I don’t know what became of him.”
“That reminds me,” said another of the party, “of the case of a man who met with a similar accident, being thrown from his horse and getting a broken leg. The place where he fell happened to be near a large ant hill, and in a few moments he was covered with the terrible black ants that we have here in Australia. He was horribly bitten by them all over his body, but principally on head and hands, the other parts being somewhat protected by his clothing. After two or three hours of torture he managed to crawl away from his awful position, but for several hours afterwards the ants continued their attacks; and when he was found by one of his fellow-stockmen, his face was so swollen that he could not see, and he was barely able to articulate. Face and hands became a mass of sores, and it was weeks before he recovered. When he got well, his face was pitted like that of the victim of an attack of smallpox, and he suffered for a long time with a partial paralysis of his limbs. I have heard of one or two other instances of the same sort, and can hardly imagine anything more terrible.”
CHAPTER XIV.
LOST IN THE BUSH—AUSTRALIAN HORSES.
“Another of the gentlemen,” wrote Harry in his notebook, “told us a story about a young woman, with a child in her arms and an older child at her side, being lost in the bush.” She had been on a visit to an acquaintance who lived about four miles away, and was to start for home in the afternoon of a certain Friday, having gone there in the forenoon of the same day. She did not reach home in the evening, and it was thought at first that she had concluded to remain until Saturday. Not until Sunday did her husband go to the house where she had been visiting, and there he ascertained that she had left the place on Friday afternoon, as agreed, and carried no provisions except a pound of butter which she was taking home for her husband.