These sounds were very appalling in the ghostly wood. The men instinctively drew closer to each other; but they were no chickens; use soon hardened them even to this. They settled it that the forks they were sitting on would not give way, because there were no leaves on them to hold a great burden of snow; and soon they yielded to nature and fell fast asleep in spite of all the dangers that hemmed them.
At his regular hour, just before sunrise, Robinson awoke and peeped from below the blanket. He shook George.
"Getup directly, George. We are wasting time when time is gold."
"What is it?"
""What is it?" There is a pilot in the sky that will take us out of this cursed trap, if the day does not come and spoil all."
George"s eye followed Robinson"s finger, and in the center of the dark vault of heaven this glittered.
[Southern Cross constellation]
CHAPTER LXX.
"I KNOW it, Tom. When I was sailing to this country we came to a part where the north star went down and down to the water"s edge, and this was all we got in exchange for it."
"George," said Tom, rather sternly, "how do you know they don"t hear us, and here we are surrounded by enemies, and would you run down our only friend? That silver star will save our lives if they are to be saved at all. Come on; and, George, if you were to take your revolver and blow out my brains, it is no more than I deserve for sleeping away the precious hours of night, when I ought to have been steering out of this cursed timber-net by that blessed star."
With these words Robinson dived into the wood, steering due east by the Southern Cross. It was like going through a frozen river. The scrub was loaded with snow, which it discharged in ma.s.ses on the travelers at every step.
"Keep your revolver dry in your hat and your lucifers, too," cried Robinson. "We shall have to use them both, ten to one. As to our skins, that is hopeless."
Then the men found how hard it is to take a line and keep it in the Australian bush. When the Southern Cross was lost in a cloud, though but for a minute, they were sure to go all wrong, as they found upon its reappearance; and sometimes the scrub was impenetrable and they were forced to go round it and walk four hundred yards, advancing eastward but twenty or thirty.
Thus they battled on till the sun rose.
"Now we shall be all in the dark again," said poor Robinson, "here comes a fog."
"Stop, Tom," said George; "oughtn"t we to make this good before we go on?"
"What do you mean?"
"We have come right by the star so far, have we not?"
"Yes."
"Then let us bark fifty of these trees for a mark. I have seen that varmint Jacky do that."
"A capital idea, George; out with our knives--here goes."
"No breakfast to-day, Tom."
"No, George, nor dinner, either, till we are out of the wood."
These two poor fellows walked and ran and crept and struggled all day, sometimes hoping, sometimes desponding. At last, at five o"clock in the afternoon, their bellies gnawed with hunger, their clothes torn to rags, their skin bleeding, they came out upon some trees with the bark stripped. They gave one another a look that words can hardly paint. They were the trees they had barked twelve hours ago!
The men stood silent--neither cared to tell the other all he felt--for now there crept over these two stout bosoms a terrible chill, the sense of a danger new to them in experience, but not new in report. They had heard of settlers and others who had been lost in the fatal labyrinth of the Australian bush, and now they saw how easily it might be true.
"We may as well sit down here and rest; we shall do no good till night.
What, are you in pain, George?"
"Yes, Tom, a little."
"Where?"
"Something gnaws my stomach like an adder."
"Oh, that is the soldier"s gripes," said Tom, with a ghastly attempt at a jest. "Poor George!" said he, kindly, "I dare say you never knew what it was to go twenty-four hours without food before."
"Never in my life, Tom."
"Well, I have, and I"ll tell you the only thing to do--when you can"t fill the breadbasket, shut it. Go to sleep till the Southern Cross comes out again."
"What, sleep in our dripping clothes?"
"No, we will make a roaring fire with these strips of bark; they are dry as tinder by now."
A pyre four feet high was raised, the strips being laid from north to south and east to west alternately, and they dried their blankets and warmed their smoking bodies.
"George, I have got two cigars; they must last us two days."
"Oh, I"m no great smoker--keep them for your own comfort."
Robinson wore a sad smile.
"We can"t afford to smoke them; this is to chew; it is not food, George, but it keeps the stomach from eating itself. We must do the best for our lives we can for Susan"s sake."
"Give it me, Tom; I"ll chew it, and thank you kindly. You are a wise companion in adversity, Tom; it is a great grief to me that I have brought you into this trouble, looking for what I know you think is a mare"s nest, as the saying is."
"Don"t talk so, George. True pals like you and me never reproach one another. They stand and fall together like men. The fire is warm, George--that is one comfort."
"The fire is well enough, but there"s nothing down at it. I"d give a hundred pounds for a mutton chop."
The friends sat like sacrifices by the fire, and chewed their cigars in silence, with foreboding hearts. After a while, as the heat laid hold of him, George began to dose. Robinson felt inclined to do the same, but the sense that perhaps a human enemy might be near caused him to fight against sleep in this exposed locality; so, whenever his head bobbed down, he lifted it sharply and forced his eyes open. It was on one of these occasions that, looking up, he saw, set as it were in a frame of leaves, a hideous countenance glaring at him; it was painted in circular lines, red, blue and white.
"Get up, George," roared Robinson; "they are upon us!"
And both men were on their feet, revolvers pointed. The leaves parted, and out came this diabolical face which they had never seen before, but with it a figure they seemed to know, and a harsh cackle they instantly recognized, and it sounded like music to them.
"Oh, my dear Jacky," cried George, "who"d have thought it was you! Well, you are a G.o.dsend! Good afternoon. Oh, Jacky!--how d"ye do?"
"Jacky not Jacky now, cos um a good deal angry, and paint war.
Kalingalunga berywelltanku" (he always took these four words for one).
"Now I go fetch white fellow;" and he disappeared.
"Who is he going to fetch? is it the one that was following us?"