The men let the cattle go and rode dejectedly back to camp, and even Mick"s efforts to start a conversation with his two white companions was not a great success. A fire was lit, the quart-pots were boiled and "tea-ed", and the damper and meat served out all round, and soon afterwards the stockmen unrolled their swags and lay down for the night.
Sax could not sleep. He turned over on one side and then on another, but did not seem able to find a comfortable position. During the excitement of his fall from the horse in the morning he had not noticed any injuries, but now, when he wanted to forget everything and go to sleep, he felt a large bruise on his hip and a sore place on each shoulder. The moon shone in his face and kept him awake, and he lay on his swag in a very unhappy frame of mind.
Mick"s behaviour to Eagle worried him. His body was too tired and sore to rest, but his mind was unusually active, and kept on turning over and over the incidents of the day, and especially the short struggle between the white man and the warragul native.
Sax had been on the other side of the mob of cattle when the incident had occurred, but he had seen enough to make him very angry at the injustice. Eagle had proved himself to be Sax"s friend on three occasions, and the lad consequently took the present matter to heart.
He quite forgot that Mick did not know who Eagle was, and merely thought him to be a more than ordinarily useless black-fellow. Sax had found out to his cost what an exceedingly unpleasant task it is to keep brands hot on a blazing north-wind summer"s day in the Australian desert.
The tired lad"s indignant thoughts became confused as sleep gradually claimed him, and at last his aching body was at rest, though his mind still kept active and started to build dreams. Just after midnight, when everything was still, and the last of the cattle had ceased to splash in the water-hole and had gone out on one or another of the long cattle-pads which stretched away into the silent desert, when the half-moon looked down on the motionless and soundless world, a dark face peeped over the top of the sandhill above the sleeping stockmen.
The man"s naked body lay flat as a snake on the sand and wriggled forward with movements like the waving of a shadow on a wall, till the native could gain a clear view of the place where his unconscious enemy lay.
It was Eagle.
He had come to kill.
The T.D.3 brand, which still throbbed on his flank, was to him a mark of shame, and he knew only one way of washing that shame away--with the life-blood of the man who had put it there.
Slowly he raised his head and looked, remaining for a minute or two without any sign of life at all, not even the blinking of an eyelid.
If everybody on the camp had been awake and had chanced to look that way, they would not have been able to distinguish the black-fellow"s head from the scraggy bushes which grew here and there on the sand-hill. But all the men were asleep, and after Eagle had noted carefully where Mick was lying, he ducked down again behind the sand-hill and worked his way round till he was directly above the sleeping white man.
Just to one side of Mick"s swag was a row of pack-saddles and bags, and leaning against one of the saddles was the axe which had been used to chop wood for the branding fire that afternoon. In fact Eagle had been the one who had chiefly used it. He was now going to use that axe again, but for a purpose more dear to his savage heart than cutting dead branches: he was going to cut the live body of a hated white man, and cut it again and again till no semblance of humanity remained.
He crept forward down the slope inch by inch. No snake in the gra.s.s is more silent and no fox is more stealthily alert than a black-fellow creeping on an enemy. The body is held tense for instant action, and the limbs move slowly and are put forward just a little bit at a time with that slinking movement which is known only to beasts of prey and to savage men. He reached the packs at last and lay down flat, not moving for fully five minutes. Gradually a black hand stretched out and a supple arm glided silently over the sand.
He grasped the axe. He did not drag it. Even that slight noise might spoil the night"s work. He lifted and rose gently on his knees and one hand, and held the axe close to his body with the other.
Eagle is six yards from Mick. The critical time has come. No one can see him move, for he changes his position such a little and such a little more that he is in a new place without seeming to have left the old one. His actions are as imperceptible as those of water. Five yards. Four and a half. Four. Nearer and nearer. Three. Two.
Surely he will strike now! He is on hands and knees. He waits for a moment or two and then straightens his body, pulls up one knee, and poises the axe behind him. He is like a spring. In another second the terrible tension will be relaxed and that supple black body will launch itself at the sleeping man. The axe will split the skull in two from forehead to chin, and not a sound will tell that the forces of the desert have claimed another invader as their victim.
The silence of the night is shattered by a shot. The poised axe falls to the ground. The crouching native springs into the air with a yell and puts a broken finger in his mouth. There is a mighty shout, and Mick hurls himself at his would-be murderer. A blow under the chin which would have felled a bull sends the black-fellow spinning to the ground several yards away. The white man follows like an incarnate fury and grapples at his enemy"s throat. A terrible struggle ensues.
Over and over they roll. Now the black is on top, now the white, but Mick never relaxes his hold on the man"s throat. Gradually the native"s struggles weaken. The white stockman digs deeper with his thumbs into the neck of the gasping man and waits the inevitable end.
Finally all resistance ceases. The black body grows limp and the head falls back.
The green-hide ropes are lying near. Mick reaches for them and binds his captive more securely than any clean-skin cattle have ever been bound. Then he looks up and meets the startled gaze of Sax and Vaughan.
CHAPTER XIX
Chivalry in the Desert
Mick had expected to be attacked. He had worked with natives for thirty years and had had many narrow escapes for his life, and had come to antic.i.p.ate danger and thus avoid it. When Eagle"s head had poked up over the opposite sandhill, Mick had been lying in that half-sleep which cattle-men get used to and from which they are instantly awakened by the slightest unusual sight or sound. He had seen the native and had known from experience exactly what the man would do. With nearly closed eyes he had followed the stealthy movements of the man down to the packs, had seen him take the axe, and had waited till the very last moment with pistol-barrel pointing through a fold in the camp-sheet.
Then he had fired at the hand which was grasping the axe.
At the sound of the shot the two white boys had been startled awake, but they had been so heavily asleep before, that it took them a moment or two to realize what was happening. By that time it was all over, and when they arrived on the scene, Mick was giving the last hitch to the bull-hide rope. In answer to their eager questions, the stockman told the lads of his adventure. It seemed terrible to them that Mick had been so near death, and they wondered at his letting the native get so near. But the white man treated the matter lightly, and all three of them stood round the bound native and watched him slowly recover consciousness.
The five black-boys were standing in a group on the other side of the smouldering fire, not knowing whether the white man"s anger would vent itself on them, but they were rea.s.sured when he called out to them, pointing to the bound man: "This one, Eagle. Him try to kill white man. No good at all. Silly fella quite. You all good fella. You go back longa swag. You lie down. You all good fella."
Eagle"s eyelids fluttered and then opened, and he looked up into the face of Sax. The light of the moon was strong enough to show the boy what intense appeal there was in the captive"s eyes. The man evidently thought that he was going to be killed. He looked beseechingly at Sax and then rolled his eyes to the north, towards the Musgraves, and muttered the syllables: "Stoo-bar."
The sound drew Mick"s attention to him. "So yer"ve recovered, have yer?" he asked, stooping down to pick up a quart-pot of water. "P"raps that"ll help yer." He dashed the cold water into the man"s face. It certainly brought him round to complete consciousness, and the dark eyes no longer looked appealingly at Sax, but gazed with hatred at his tormentor.
"Yer don"t like having a decent brand on yer hide, don"t yer?" sneered Mick. "Like me to take it off, would yer? Well, I"ll have a try."
The white boys had no idea what the drover intended to do, and stood back when he asked them to do so, He rolled the helpless man over till his flank was uppermost and showed the recent brand-mark T.D.3. The brand was outlined with thick burns which stood up from the black flesh. Mick went over to his swag for his whip. It was long and supple, made of plaited kangaroo-hide, and ended in a well-rounded lash. He drew it once or twice through his fingers and then cracked it in the air. The sound was like the sudden banging together of two flat wooden boards. Mick stood back from the prostrate native and measured the distance with his eye.
"Don"t like to be branded, don"t yer?" he asked. "Well, I"ll take it off for yer."
He drew back the whip and swung it forward. There was a yell of pain from Eagle. The lash had bitten right in the middle of the brand. The whip fell again and again, each time unerringly.
Sax sprang forward. He acted on the spur of the moment. With clenched fists and blazing eyes he stood between the drover and the bound man.
For a moment there was silence except for the moaning of the tortured man. Mick looked at Sax and said, with a cruel smile: "Well, and who told you to interfere?"
"But, Mick," gasped the lad, surprised at his own audacity, but determined to see the matter through--"but, Mick, you can"t do it.
He"s tied up."
"Can"t do it, indeed!" shouted Mick. "Can"t do it! That n.i.g.g.e.r wanted to kill me, he did. Look out. I"m going to chop that brand out of his side with this whip."
The thong whistled through the air over the drover"s head and came forward. But Sax stood his ground. The falling whip coiled round his legs and jerked him off his feet, sending him backwards over the body of the bound native. Mick laughed and raised the whip again; but before it came down, the lad was on his feet and had cleared Eagle"s body at a bound. The lash caught Sax"s right leg. It slashed through the thin cloth of the trousers and left a bleeding cut from ankle to knee. The boy did not cry out. He grabbed at the whip and missed it, but before it could be raised again, Vaughan rushed forward and caught it. He twisted the plaited hide round his wrist and hung on. Sax joined him immediately, but they tried in vain to wrench the handle out of the infuriated man"s hand. The unequal tussle was soon over. Mick was a big heavy man, and the lads were light and were not used to matching their strength against the endurance of a man. First one and then the other was thrown back. They came on again, however, till, with a sudden jerk, Mick flung the whip away from him, and faced them with his bare hands.
Sax and his friend were breathless. They stood panting beside the native on the ground, and looked at the drover.
"You young whipper-snappers!" he shouted, advancing with threatening gestures. "You young whipper-snappers! I"ll teach you to mind your own business. Get out of my way."
But the exhausted boys stood firm. At all costs they meant to protect the bound man from the drover"s anger. Mick hesitated for a moment.
He looked at the lads who were so new to the back country and who had played the game so well. They seemed so young and small to him just then. Because of his man"s strength he could easily have killed them both, but their very weakness made their obstinate resistance and pluck seem all the greater. His anger began to die slowly, and his clenched fists fell to his sides and opened. "I can thrash that n.i.g.g.e.r in the morning," he said to himself. And then his real manhood, which anger had hidden for a time, a.s.serted itself, and he felt ashamed. "After all," he thought again, "a chap shouldn"t hit a man when he"s down, n.i.g.g.e.r or no n.i.g.g.e.r."
Finally he spoke aloud. "All right, you boys. I won"t touch him to-night. Leave him where he is till morning. I"m going back to bed."
CHAPTER XX
The Bull-roarer
In half an hour the camp was asleep again. Men like Mick, who live in the desert and who are constantly facing death in many forms, dismiss an adventure from their minds as soon as it has happened. The black stockmen were pretty much like animals, scared out of their wits one minute and forgetting all about it the next. Sax and Vaughan were sure that the drover would keep his word, and were so utterly tired out when they lay down again on their swags, that, in spite of what had just happened, they fell asleep at once. In fact, Sax did not bother to wipe the blood off his leg where the whip had cut it.
All the men were soon asleep except one. Eagle, the bound and tortured warragul, was wide awake. For the first time in his life he was helpless. Those supple limbs of his had never been bound before, and he tugged and tugged to be free till he cut his skin against the hard, unyielding bull-hide ropes. It was no good. Mick was too old a cattle-man to leave a rope so that it could be loosened by pulling.
The black tried to twist his body till he could touch the green-hide with his teeth and gnaw it through, but he was bound too tightly to allow him to do this. Finally a he lay still with the fear of a captured animal in his heart, and bitter hatred against the man who had brought him to this condition.
Suddenly he heard a dry stick crackle. He was lying with his face uphill, away from the fire, but at the sound he turned over and looked toward the few smouldering embers of the camp-fire. Instantly hope blazed up in his heart. He was saved! In his previous struggles he had been reckless, not caring how much noise he made, but with the return of hope came cunning and stealth. For a few minutes after hearing that welcome crackle of fire, he lay still and gazed at the thin smoke which coiled lazily up in one or two spirals from a glowing wood-coal here and there. Then he began to move forward. His limbs were bound so tightly that they had no power of separate movement, but he succeeded in twisting his body in such a way that, very slowly and with an expenditure of great energy, he managed to get nearer and nearer the fire. It took the bound man two hours to cover a distance of three yards. Once the mind of a savage is made up to do a thing, time is of no object at all. An eye-blink, the hours between sunrise and sunset, a moon, or a season, it doesn"t matter. He will persist in his intention though he die with the thing unfinished. It is civilization which breeds impatience.
At last Eagle was up against the fire. His hands were bound behind him. For a minute or two he looked intently at the grey ashes in which a few little red-hot embers were glowing, till he decided on one which was larger and hotter than any of the others. Then he deliberately rolled over till his bound wrists were right in the ashes. There is no pain worse than burning. A man will draw his hand away from fire at all costs. Several parts of the man"s body were actually in the fire, but he endured it all and steeled himself to fight back the greater agony which throbbed at his wrists. The fire touched the green-hide and singed the white bull hair, giving off a pungent smell. Eagle sniffed it greedily. It helped him to bear the terrible pain, for it was a proof that the fire was doing its work.
It is impossible to tell how long that wild man endured such fearful torture for freedom"s sake. Agony is not measured by the clock. His eyelids were shut tight, his teeth were clenched, his breath came in deep gasps, and every nerve and sinew in his body seemed to be quivering. He would rather die than call out, yet the effort to keep back the yells of pain was almost worse than death. In spite of what it must have cost him, he kept up a constant strain with his arms. The smell of burning became stronger, but who could say whether it was the burning of the skin of a bull or of the skin of a man?
At last he realized, through the torture which was clouding his mind, that the strain was relaxing. He put forth a mighty effort. His body could stand it no longer, and gathered all its forces for one last bid for freedom. A green-hide strand parted. Another loosened itself. A third uncoiled from his burnt wrist.