When I woke up again it was daylight, and I felt quite stiff in all my joints and so cold that I could scarcely move. Three or four native dogs were circling round me, but retired to a more respectful distance when I sat up. These native dogs are, I believe, peculiar to Australia. Miserable, cowardly curs they are. They will often follow a man for days when he is lost until he drops, but I do not believe it has ever been recorded that they have actually attacked a man before death has made him oblivious to all. Not so, however, with the crow. The crow is found all over Australia in the most out-of-the-way places, and many a brave man has had his eyes picked out before he has had time to die! These birds seem to have a sort of instinct to know when any one is in distress. If a man is lost and the "trackers" are out after him, they know that he is not far off when they see a lot of crows hovering over a particular spot. He may not be dead, but he is certainly dying.
Although I was wet, stiff, and cold, and without any food, yet I was worth twenty dead men yet. I saw that the only thing I could do was to retrace my steps to the station the same way as I had come; so along the road I went, and that in a very bad humour, most of all because I could see no other remedy than to beg assistance where I had been already so badly treated. When I could get on the right track there were thirty miles to the next station. I had only half-a-crown. What could I do if nobody would help me? At last, at two or three o'clock in the afternoon, I came back to the place I had started from the evening before, when I had been shown the wrong track. As soon as I saw the house again I felt neither hungry nor tired. I only felt as if I could walk for ever without rest or food. I would ask for nothing. I would take nothing. I would just go on. But still I had to find out which was the Mackay road. Yes, I would go up to the house to ask that question. As I came up to the place I saw a young woman standing outside the back door washing clothes, and about a dozen blacks were squatted about the ground in all sorts of lazy positions. I noticed especially a very tall young gin, who stood leaning against the wall, with a long spear in her hand. I asked the girl which was the Mackay road, and she, looking round rather surprised at me, said, "There—that one to the left." She did not look at all vicious, and seemed disposed to enter into conversation, but, true to my determination, I turned on my heel to go again. I had scarcely turned, however, before I heard her sing out in an excited voice to the blacks, "Don't! Drop that spear! Look out!" Turning round once more, I saw the tall gin with the spear, holding it high above her head, ready to hurl it at me. I never spoke, because, to tell the truth, I never realized that she intended to kill me. I looked her full in the face, and, as I felt pretty indignant at the time, my look disarmed her. Anyhow she quailed before my eyes and dropped the spear, and I went my way.
The blacks were at that time very bad in that district, spearing cattle, &c., and as I was going along the road I accounted to myself for their presence on the station in this way—that perhaps the squatter thought it cheaper to feed them than to allow them to rob him. That they were not very quiet blacks I felt sure, and the more I thought of the gin and her uplifted spear the more anxious I became. They might, thought I, set out after me yet and finish me off. Moreover, as I had thirty miles to walk before I could hope for any food, I made up my mind to stagger on as long as my feet could carry me. But I did not go so fast as the day before. Slowly and painfully did I drag along. The road was simply a track on which a horse might come along, and a sort of coarse grass eight or nine feet high grew on both sides. How fervently I wished I might meet another traveller—anybody had been welcome—but no one seemed to have been along there for ages. On I went. Every half mile or so I would come to a running brook crossing the road. I became too fatigued to take off my boots and socks every time, and this made my feet sore; but still I staggered on. It was now evening, or, rather, late at night, but just as the moon was going down I came to a creek which seemed larger than the rest, inasmuch that I could not in the darkness look across, and taking a couple of steps into the water I went in nearly to the middle; still it grew deeper. I therefore concluded that as necessity knows no law, I must camp and wait for daylight before I attempted crossing. A large tree was growing close to the water and on the track. Down by the roots of that tree I threw my swag, and laid myself upon it without undressing and without a fire. My matches were all wet, and I was too tired to walk one unnecessary step.
I was lying there looking up at the stars, feeling so unspeakably tired, when, after a while, just as I was going to sleep, I heard a noise not far from me for which I could not account, but it brought me to speculate upon the probability that there were alligators in the water, and that it was scarcely prudent to lie there as I did, with my feet almost in the stream. So I got up and went back some twenty yards or so, on the rising ground, where there had been an old camp years before. There I lay myself down again with a big stick in my hand. I had just gone off to sleep when I started up again in terror. A peculiar indescribable noise was coming from down the creek, where I had been before. What it might be I did not know. Never had I heard the like before; it was a noise sufficient, as they say, to raise the dead.
The water seemed agitated as if an army of blacks were coming across, the bushes and grass were cracking as if a stampede of cattle was taking place, and through all these noises ran a piercing continuous yell such as no human being or animal I knew in nature could utter. The thought ran through me as I started to my feet: either it is the blacks who have come to kill you, or it is an alligator on the same errand. In any case, thought I, my only chance was to show fight. With that I grabbed my stick, and sang out, to gammon the blacks, "Here! hie! Bill! Jack! Jimmy! Here they are. Get the guns; we will have a shot at them!"
While I screamed at the top of my voice like this, I struck the long grass with my stick, and, to frighten the alligator, if any were there, ran right down to where I had been before, yelling all the while. The noise kept on in front of me, but died away with some splashes in the water, just as I came down. When I stopped screaming all was silent. I stared around me, but the darkness was perfectly impenetrable.
Was there an alligator now crouching at my feet ready to swallow me in a couple of mouthfuls? Or was I surrounded by a mob of savages, perhaps, lurking alongside of me, and seeing my helplessness? Or was it evil spirits? I did not know what it was, or where it had gone, and yet the hair seemed to rise on my head. Do not talk to me about bravery or cowardice! I believe most men are capable of screwing their courage up to the necessary point at any time, providing they know what is before and behind them, but if I knew where there was a man who would not have felt fear if placed in the same position as I stood in there, then I would fall down and bow before him. I crept back to where I had been lying when I heard the alarm and lay down again, and so exhausted was I that I fell asleep at once, and did not wake up before the sun was shining in my face. My first thought, of course, was the noise in the night, and I went down to the creek to look for tracks or signs of some sort. There, close by the tree, on the very spot where I first had laid myself down, was the half of a large kangaroo. It seemed bitten off right under the forelegs, all the rest was gone. On the road and in the soft mud by the water were the tracks of an immense alligator, and where it had come out and gone into the creek again a deep furrow as from a sulky plough had been made by its tail. I had never yet been so near death! It seemed plain to me that the first noise I had heard which induced me to get up and go further away from the water must have been the alligator stealing upon me, and that the unfortunate kangaroo afterwards unwittingly saved my life. But as there is scarcely anything that cannot be turned to good account, so I also tried to turn this accident to my advantage, because I took up my knife and cut some steaks out of the kangaroo, which I had to eat raw, as I could make no fire, for I could not find any of the wood with which I had learned by rubbing two sticks together to make it. It was with fear and trembling that I crossed the deep creek. The water went up over my armpits; but it had to be done, and once on the other side I made a speech to the alligator, thanked him for my breakfast, and wished him, "Good-morning."
I walked all day, but so slowly and painfully that I did not go very far. One of my boots was chafing my foot so that I had to take it off, but after having carried it some miles I threw it away. In the evening I came to an empty hut and a stockyard, but as no one was living there I concluded it was put up for the purpose of mustering cattle. It was locked up, so I lay down outside and seemed to find some company in looking at the house. The next day was Sunday. I felt when I got up that I could not walk much further. Fortunately, perhaps, I got some encouragement from thinking myself near the station, as fences and cattle began to appear. Yet it took me from break of day to afternoon before I came out on a large plain, and there at once I saw the house lying in front of me, but yet about a mile distant. It seemed a large and "fashionable" house for the bush. As I came a little nearer I could see people under the verandah, and as I came still nearer I made out three ladies and a gentleman sitting there. They seemed to have a telescope, which they passed from one to the other, and whoever had it pointed it straight at me. Ah! what a disgrace, thought I. I would not mind so much, but I felt revolted at the idea of standing as a beggarman before young ladies. If I could have run away I am sure I should have done so, but I was altogether too weak. Still, I seemed to straighten myself up somehow under their eyes, and I threw the long, ugly stick I carried away, and went on with as sure a step as I could command up to the verandah and saluted the company.
I remember well the following scene. The gentleman, a portly, elderly man, had one of those bluff-looking, high-coloured faces which, even while they try to look cross, cannot hide their evident good nature. He was now smiling in a benevolent sort of way upon me. The elderly lady who sat by his side also looked very kind, while two young ladies, who also were in the verandah, regarded me with a mixture of dignity, curiosity, and pity. When the gentleman began to speak he looked very cross.
"Coming from the Palmer?" inquired he.