All that long sultry day Alec fluctuated between hope and despair. At one moment he thought George better, and the next that he was worse.
Murri, who in his wild, untaught way was as tender and gentle as possible, found some leaves of a herb which he said would heal the wound. He moistened them with water and pounded them between two stones and applied them to George's head. They seemed cool and refreshing. Alec and Murri had formed a rough sort of couch of tall grasses and leaves, over which they spread one of their blue blankets, and on this they had laid George down. Over him Alec, who was as natty and deft-handed as a sailor, rigged up another blanket as a sort of awning to protect him from the sun. Sitting by the side of him all that anxious day, with a heart full of fears for his brother and eyes that were constantly on the alert for the return of the enemy, Alec swept away, with a green branch, the noxious black flies that constantly tried to settle on George's semi-conscious body.
Murri assured him that, after such a terrible loss as they had sustained that morning, the myalls would not think of returning to the attack, but Alec could not rest certain of it. He heard at a distance their wild lament over their dead, the shrieks of the gins, and the weird moans and cries of the men, but it seemed to him that they were gradually growing fainter and further away.
Murri, like the faithful henchman that he was, undertook all the management of affairs, whilst Alec devoted his time to his brother. He it was who hobbled and unloaded all the horses, and saw that they did not wander far afield, though they were not anxious to go far, even in search of food, in the great heat of the afternoon. He it was who found water, and filled the "billies," and led the horses to drink. He it was who killed the little bandicoot, of which Alec made a sort of barbarous but nutritious soup for George; he it was in short who did everything that day, and proved himself to be a true help to them. All day long Como, who knew that something was amiss, kept wandering aimlessly about, occasionally going as far as the native well that Murri had found, to drink a little, but always coming back to lick the inert hand of his master, which lay weakly and limply by the side of him.
Towards evening, when at sunset a breeze sprang up, and the air grew cooler, George revived a great deal. He was able to eat some of the food that Alec had prepared for him, and soon managed to sit up a little, with Alec as a support to his back, and talk.
"I feel quite well now, Alec, and I mean to talk, so don't try to stop me. Tell me, first of all, if you were hurt in the fight."
"Nothing to speak of; I got one or two nasty thumps from a waddy, and one rather awkward chop on the shoulder from my man's nullah-nullah, but beyond feeling a little stiff I'm all right, I think."
"Think! Do you mean to say you haven't looked at your shoulder yet?"
"Not yet, I haven't had time; I've been too busy with you. Now don't you excite yourself, or you will be ill again."
"Excite myself! I should think I will. If you don't instantly take your shirt off and let me see if you are badly hurt, I'll get up, and jump about and shout. What a selfish beast I have been to lie here comfortably insensible whilst you were in such pain. Now then, off with that shirt."
Alec did as he was bidden, for although George's voice was weak, there was the old resolute tone about it, and Alec knew that he would do what he threatened. He was glad, now that he came to think of himself, to get the shirt off, for his shoulder felt very stiff and sore. Murri had to help him, for he could not lift his left arm above his head. The myall's nullah-nullah had made a terrible bruise, which had already turned black and blue, and in one place, where the flesh had been cut, the shirt adhered to the wound. But it was nothing of any great importance, and the hardy fellow scarcely felt anything of it beyond the stiffness, and a certain amount of pain. Cold water and a little bandage soon put it all right.
The next day George said that he felt well, and was quite fit to go on, but Alec utterly refused to do so. He said that a day's rest would do none of them any harm, and that he thought they might stay there with comparative safety, as the natives, after securing their dead, seemed to have gone away. There was plenty of feed for the horses too, which they might not get again in such abundance on the dry and parched-up plains between that place and the mountains. George consented to his brother's plan, though he chafed a little at the delay, for he felt really well enough to go on. It was wonderful to see the difference that a night's rest and coolness had made in him. Except that he was a trifle pale, and that his head was bound up, he looked the same strong cheery fellow as ever. He had a most wonderful vitality, and his health being perfect and his constitution sound and strong, he was able to throw off an illness that would have prostrated another man.
He was up before daylight, and, regardless of Alec's injunctions to "sit still" and "be quiet," he would insist on doing his share of the work.
"Fiddlesticks, Alec," was his polite remark to his brother when he asked him not to get up. "I'm all right and jolly as possible, and if you think I'm going to let you and Murri do all the work you are mistaken."
"You want your breakfast," said Alec, with a laugh. "You are hungry, and think us slow. Don't do the virtuous and pretend it is anything else—I know better. Well, here you are then, youngster; take this wood and make the fire up. I'll go and fill the 'billy.'"
After their breakfast, at which George certainly did not behave much like an invalid, they saw that all the horses were close to, and then they walked off with Murri to the entrance of the glen, near to which they were encamped. Across an enormous plain of sand and spinifex and tangled mulga scrub, that was marked here and there with long dark lines of bush where the creaks and watercourses ran, lay the great blue mountains, towering high into the lambent sky, amongst which was hidden the golden treasure that they sought. It was a glorious sight, for not a cloud obscured the sky, and in that marvellous atmosphere every ridge and azure peak stood out as clearly and sharply defined as though no sixty miles of air lay between the mountain range and the place where the boys stood.
Whilst the lads were looking at this noble view, which lay spread before them like a grand panorama, Murri, who did not care to waste his time in any such unpractical proceedings, was carefully examining the great trees, under whose shade they stood, to see if he could find traces of opossum in them. Signs that any one but a native would completely ignore were all that he had to guide him, and his quickness of vision in detecting these traces was wonderful. Murri would saunter to a tree that he thought looked promising, and if an opossum had climbed it he would instantly detect the little scratches the animal had made in ascending. He quickly found a massive tree which bore on its bark the toe-holes of an opossum; he then sought for one of these that had a little earth still sticking to it. When he had found it he softly blew on the earth to see if it held together. It did not; it was dry, and crumbled away at once, telling him by its so doing that the marks were not very recent ones. If the opossum had climbed the tree that morning the earth would have been damp, and would have held together when he blew on it.
"Bail potchum" (no 'possum) "on um tree. Must go catch kangaroo, you mil-mil" (see); "clever fellow, Murri."
The native was away for about two hours, and when he returned he brought the body of a good large kangaroo with him, which he had stalked and killed.
This addition to their stores was very useful, and indeed, necessary, for although they had managed to get Dandy back again, all the provisions that Prince Tom had stolen from them and packed on him had utterly and hopelessly vanished. Murri himself cooked the animal, as is the right and prerogative always of the man who slays the game, and ate an enormous quantity of it also; but eat as he could there was enough for all of them that night, and for their first meal next day. They kept a keen watch that night again, but they neither heard nor saw anything of the myalls.
The boys were up next morning, whilst still the stars shone undimmed in the sky, and succeeded in catching their horses without very much trouble. The fire had smouldered all night through, so that they had a cheerful blaze very quickly, and boiled their tea in a few minutes. They were anxious to make as early a start as possible, as they had lost time the day before, and as soon as they could tear Murri away from the still plenteous remains of their yesterday's roast they sprang into the saddle. But the native was wiser than they, for, when they were mounted, and Como was leaping round them and barking in a manner that was highly indecorous in a dog of his years and sober aspect, he stopped them, and said in his funny English—
"White fellow bail pitnee" (never thinks). "Mine must fill um bockles plenty much water. Bail water bong along o' this stage. Hot, hot this day. All um creek gone away."
Saying this he filled all the canvas water bottles at the spring, and then took a long drink himself, as though laying in a good store of the precious commodity.
Murri was right; the day was an intensely hot one, and every moment of all that long forenoon the scorching sun gained greater power. The country through which they were riding was quite shadeless for the great rolling plains were only covered with a dense tall growth of perfectly dry and withered grass and scrub. The twigs of the mulga and the stunted iron-bark bushes were so dry and brittle that they rattled like bones when shaken by the horses as they passed through them, and broke off short if they were touched. The earth was either dried to a powder or baked so firm and hard that the horses' hoofs rang on it as though on a pavement. The very trees that grew on the banks of the gullies were shrivelled and brown. The one or two creeks that they had to cross—taking the horses up and down the steep crumbling banks with the greatest difficulty—were mere tracks of white and dazzling sand, with here and there, in the shadow of the bank, a tiny pool, that was fast drying up, remaining to prove that it ever had been a rapid watercourse. This sand, as, indeed, did the whole earth, reflected the burning rays of the sun till to move out of the shade was almost intolerable.
It was evident, from the parched and dried-up appearance of all vegetation, and from the lowness of the water in the little pools of the creek, that there had been no rain for very many months. There had been no heavy rainfall at Wandaroo for a very long period, and it seemed that this part of the country had suffered a much longer drought. Flocks of birds were flying about the little stagnant pools in the creeks, dashing themselves head first into the water in their eagerness to quench their thirst. Crowds of animals, kangaroos and wallabies principally, were congregated at the muddy margins to drink at the fast-failing supply. No rain had fallen thereabouts for a year or more.
To make matters worse, infinitely worse, a stifling hot wind rose with the sun, blowing from the west, all across the gigantic sand plains of the interior where the air was dried and heated as though in some vast furnace. Every breath that they drew was painful, and the heated blasts of air dried up the moisture of their body and shrivelled their skin in a manner that must be experienced to be believed. The animals, as is always the case, seemed to feel the heat even more than the men; to such an extent did the horses suffer that it seemed barbarous to ride them, and had Murri not continually urged the lads to try to get to Nooergup, where he said was an unfailing spring, they would have halted for the sake of their cattle. They did make one good halt at mid-day to rest the horses, which were far too jaded to eat, although they had been so spirited in the early morning before the hot wind had sprung up.
It was towards the middle of the afternoon, some little time after they had renewed their march, that the sky began to grow lurid at the horizon and the day to grow faintly dimmer. The sun still poured down its scorching rays upon them; the wind seemed to grow hotter and hotter till men and animals fairly gasped for breath, and the air, tremulous with the heat of the burning earth, was quivering to a height of twenty feet above their heads. Every moment the sky grew duller, and in the west a copper-coloured cloud rose slowly in the sky; gradually the light of day grew red, and thin films of cloud rapidly sweeping across the face of the sun changed his brightness to a dull blood hue.
All the members of the little party well knew what this meant. Some tribe of myalls had carelessly left their camp fire not quite extinguished, and the hot wind that was blowing had re-animated the dying embers in the early morning and set fire to the bush. Every blade of grass, every bit of scrub, and every leaf, were as dry as tinder, and leaped into flame the instant that the rapidly-spreading fire came to it. In a short time the whole district was blazing, and fanned by the strong hot wind, the fire spread in all directions with inconceivable rapidity.
Directly that Murri, who was the first to detect the ruddy tint in the western sky, had called Alec's attention to the fact of the bush fire, they came to a halt to consult as to what had better be done.
"With this strong wind the fire will travel much quicker than we can," said Alec, with a tone of anxiety in his voice that was very natural in their present danger; "or we could turn and ride back to our last camp, for there is water there, and no fire could reach us on that open sandy space."
"The horses couldn't travel that far under eight hours; they are almost done up as it is," said George. "Heavens, how hot it is! It is like breathing in an oven."
"No, I don't think they could; it has been a trying day for them, and they are pretty well pumped. We are unlucky beggars; everything seems against us; you nearly killed by the myalls, Prince Tom robbing us of our stores, and now all of us to be burnt up alive. There isn't a creek or a pool that we can get into, and the fire is quickly marching up to us. There! Didn't you smell the burning fern just then?"
"Yes; by Jove! it is coming near; but don't be so despondent, Alec. It isn't on us yet. Don't you think that by pushing on to the north or south, as fast as ever we can make the horses go, we might reach the end of the line of fire and head round it? Let us ask Murri."
But the native, who had been scanning, with the keenest anxiety in every line of his face, the advancing line of smoke, said that the fire was already too extended for them to think of doing that, and that in his opinion the only plan that offered them any chance of safety was to push ahead with the greatest speed and try to reach the rocks at Nooergup before the flames could meet them. He spoke with most unusual excitement, his quick, restless eyes expressing better than his words his sense of their imminent danger.
"Burrima, burrima" (quickly, quickly), said he with rapid utterance. "Nebbe mind um yarroman. Ride, ride, ride. Kill um yarroman, then you not dead. Plenty much slow go, all fellow dead along o' this place."
Seeing from his manner that he thought their peril great, and knowing full well the horrors of a great bush fire, the boys put their horses to their best speed and galloped on. It almost seemed like courting death to ride straight in the teeth of the advancing fire, but they knew that they might rely upon Murri's word, so they acted as he advised. The horses themselves soon became aware of their danger, for when they had crossed the next low ridge, after an hour's rapid riding along a fairly level stretch of scrub-covered country, the line of leaping flame could be seen, stretching as far as the eye could see to the north and south. The quivering limbs of the beasts, their dilated nostrils and wildly starting eyes, showed how greatly they feared the dreaded element.
Now it was that they began to pass numbers of animals all hurrying and rushing along in abject terror in the opposite direction to the horsemen. Kangaroos and wallabies progressing by great leaps; emus flapping their inefficient wings to help them in their flight; bush rats and smaller creatures scuttling along by the side of wriggling snakes and currish dingoes. Overhead were flocks of parrots, pigeons, cockatoos, and other bush birds, all flying away from the great cloud of rolling smoke and flame that seemed to stride with enormous steps after the flying creatures. For the time all enmities between them seemed forgotten; kangaroos and dingoes, snakes and rats and opossums, rushed along side by side in the friendliness of a great common danger.
Every moment as the three hurried on the heat became greater; the speed of the horses now grew less just when there was the greatest need for their swiftness. They could only be kept at the gallop by incessant application of the spur, and the boys hated to punish in this way the faithful creatures that had borne them so nobly, but they knew that the horses' lives as well as their own depended upon their being able to keep up their present pace for a mile or two more.
They could now plainly hear the wild roar and crackling of the awful fire as it consumed everything before it in its devastating march, and the burning air that came in puffs and beat upon them, scorched and withered them. Their very eyeballs seemed to dry within their sockets, and the smarting lids, when they closed them, hardly kept out the awful glare. The natural light of day was gone, for the whole sky was covered with one vast cloud of lurid smoke, and everything looked red and burning from the ruddy light of the sweeping flame.
Still Nooergup, their haven of refuge, lay a mile ahead of them. Murri pointed it out to them, and seemingly close behind it rose the moving wall of flame. Could they but reach those barren rocks before the line of fire encircled it and sped again on its way they were safe; but with failing worn-out horses, and exhausted as the riders were with the heat and want of air, it seemed impossible.
The lips of all three were cracked and bleeding from the heat of this awful sirocco, and their tongues were dry and rattling in their parched mouths. They had drunk and lost by the rapid evaporation from their canvas water bottles every drop of water that they had brought from their last camp, and their unmoistened lips could hardly articulate. When they did speak their voices were so harsh and hoarse and changed as scarcely to be intelligible. Their speed was greatly lessened from each of them having to lead one of the spare horses, for, although these three horses were much less exhausted than those which were ridden, they were in a much greater state of alarm, and much more restive.
Alec's noble and high-spirited horse, Amber, was much less jaded than the horses that George and Murri rode, though it was more terrified and alarmed than any of the others at the roaring and flaring of the now nearing fire. Seeing that his own horse was rapidly failing, and that Amber still had reserve stores of strength, George goaded on his over-strained steed and caught up Alec, who was some few paces ahead. His face, although scorched by the heat, looked very wan and drawn, and no one could have recognised his clear, sweet voice in the sobbing, croaking tones in which he spoke. At first he could hardly utter a sound, but he forced his voice, and made himself heard above the roaring of the advancing flames.
"Arrick, old boy, push on. There is something in Amber yet, though Firebrace is about done up. You can get through and on to the rocks. Make Como come with you."
"Geordie!" cried Alec, in a tone of reproach, and looking round at him with his stiff and bloodshot eyes. "Leave you? We both get through or we die together on this side."
He said no more, but checked his horse, and brought him down to Firebrace's pace, and Geordie knew that further remonstrance was in vain. Would he not have acted just the same himself had he been the better mounted?
They were now within a hundred yards of Nooergup, which was just a little mass of barren tumbled rocks, on a slight elevation, rising, like an island, from the sea of stunted trees, scrub, and tall grasses, that surrounded it on all sides. The rushing line of fire had already reached it, and the huge flames, ten feet in height in their lowest part, were already licking the rocks at the sides with flickering blazing tongues, as though they would consume even the rocks that impeded their progress. But the fire had not passed all along it yet, and just where the rocks stood there was a break in the livid, roaring line.
Towards this the riders were madly goading on their panting horses. One minute longer, and it will be too late! The very air seems fire; they can only get their breath with the utmost difficulty. Murri has wrapped his poor naked body in the blue blanket that was fastened to his saddle, to protect himself from the flying sparks and the deadly heat. There is a roaring in their ears as of a mighty sea, and a flame and glare before their eyes as though heaven and earth are fire. It almost seems that the flames are bending forward, and hurrying and rushing to envelop them.
There is still a narrow opening in the vivid line of fire. Only a few seconds more, and they will be safe. Fifty yards! forty yards!! thirty yards to go!!! And then——! George's horse staggers, and with a sob like a human being in distress its legs almost give way.
"Heaven help us now!" cried Alec, in despair.
But even then he does not give up. He looses the horse he has been leading, and leaning across, half out of his saddle, he gives poor trembling Firebrace a blow across the quarters with his whip. George, weakened by his wound, is almost insensible, but he sticks in his saddle; and his horse, making one last awful effort, bears him between the narrow gates of flame, and, placing his master in safety, falls dead of a broken heart.
The shock of the fall revives George, and, disentangling himself from the stirrups, he springs to his feet.
He is alone!
The line of fire has passed on, the narrow opening is closed, and he is behind the wall of flame, which is rushing on to consume in its fiery embrace the brother who had saved him a moment before.
"HE SEIZED THE NATIVE ROUND HIS SLIM, NAKED BODY." (p. 79.)
When Alec stooped to strike Firebrace, to urge him on to one final effort, Amber, terrified beyond all control at the nearness of the flames, swerved to one side, and by the time Alec had again turned his head towards the rocks the disconnected line of fire had rejoined itself, and presented an unbroken front to him. At this moment, when every hope seemed extinguished, his mad courage came to his aid, and suggested one last chance. A chance in a thousand, but still a chance.
He saw that Murri had been as unsuccessful as himself, and that he was still in front of the leaping line of fire; he shouted to him to dismount, and, for all his huskiness, his voice rang out like a clarion, and the man heard him, and blindly obeyed, like a child, in his fear and confusion, doing exactly as he was bidden.
"And now stand still," roared Alec.
Backing his horse for some little distance to gain the necessary speed, Alec, goading Amber with voice and spur alike, rushed like lightning towards the soaring flames. Straining every muscle, he seized the native round his slim, naked body, and by an almost superhuman effort he lifted him from the ground. At the same moment he again dashed his spurs into Amber's throbbing sides, and, giving the noble creature his head, he boldly rode at the wall of fire.
Like a greyhound the superb horse cleared the glowing heart of the fire, and darting with inconceivable speed through the flickering flame, which for one second surged and beat about him, he landed with his double burden in safety on the glowing ashes of the ground the fire had just passed over. A few strides more, and they were side by side with George.
At first they were all too exhausted to speak. Alec loosed his grip of Murri, and slipping from his horse, which was trembling in every limb from the terrible strain it had gone through, staggered to where his brother was standing. Geordie was half dazed with the agony he had undergone, for when he found himself alone and shut off from the others by the white, hot wave of fire that surged between them, he gave up all hopes, even the faintest, of ever seeing his brother again. He had stood quite still for a moment or two by the side of his dead horse, gazing vacantly at the fire as it swept majestically forward, and the revulsion of feeling was almost too great for him to bear when he saw the leaping horse and its burden flying through the sheet of flame. For an instant horse and rider, looming gigantic through the haze of smoke, seemed to hang above him, and then the noble charger struck the smouldering earth, and he knew that both horse and rider were saved.
Both Alec and Murri were almost unrecognisable, so blackened and charred were they with the fiery ordeal they had undergone: their hair was singed, and Murri was painfully scorched in one or two places. The native was the first to recover his composure; his nature was much less sensitive and highly-strung than that of the English lads. He had been terribly frightened, but that was over now, and, feeling the pangs of thirst very keenly, the new sensation quickly removed remembrance of the old. It was no use being overcome with an emotion that was past, and it was of great use to supply a want that was actual and very present; so in this very practical state of mind he walked off with a tin from Amber's saddle to the place where he knew was the unfailing little spring he had spoken of in the morning.
The water was low in the little rock basin, but it promised them, at any rate, a sufficiency. Murri hastily drank a tinful, and then carried some to where Alec and George were sitting, exhausted and panting for breath. Never had either of them drank with such rapture; the physical bliss of that draught of pure cool water was the keenest they had ever felt. It put new life into them, and, although the air was still like the breath of a furnace, they sprang to their feet refreshed. Alec's first thought, after he found that Geordie was unhurt, was for Amber; he led him to the little pool, and before he quenched his own thirst, which as yet was not half satisfied, he gave drink to the noble animal that had saved him.
Murri, who had quite regained his usual practical calm in the few moments since they had been safely landed on the rocks, was standing by them as Alec watered his horse. His head was moving from side to side, and his quick eye glanced rapidly over everything.
"Plenty hunglee by-'m-by. Mine go catch um wallaby; him can't run 'way 'cause along o' fire," he said, and, pointing to a scorched-up looking creature at some little distance from them, he started in pursuit, armed with the waddy from his sinew belt.
"What a fellow he is—he thinks of nothing but eating," said George, with a half laugh, for now that the awful tension of his nerves was relaxed he could not help seeing the comic side of things, notwithstanding their precarious position. "The instant that he escapes death by burning he thinks he can make the very fire that nearly killed him useful in catching his prey."
"Well, it is a good thing for us that he is so business-like, for everything we brought with us is on the other side of the fire."
"Oh, and Como, too, and the horses!" said George, with a shudder. "In my relief at having you safe I had forgotten everything else; and look, Alec, poor Firebrace dropped dead the minute he had crossed the line of fire."
"It has been a narrow escape for all. I never expected that any of us could be saved. When I saw the fire had cut me off from the rocks I thought I was done for, and then I determined to make a rush for it, and with the blood beating in my ears like the ringing of a bell I turned Amber towards the fire."
"Look!" suddenly and excitedly called out George, who was leaning against the horse, which did not move a yard from them; "I believe the flames are sinking just over yonder. We might get through and try to save Como and the horses."
Alec, following the direction of his eager, outstretched hand, saw that in one part of the line, where there was a sandy little patch nearly bare of vegetation, the flames had almost become extinguished.
"Yes, yes," he cried; "come along. Quickly, quickly; we may save them yet."
The two lads, made strong by the thought that they might save the lives of the poor creatures, rushed across the hot and still smoking earth towards the little barren place. There was hardly any fire there, and, darting across it, they stood once more in front of the blazing line. Three of the horses—for Dandy had disappeared, never to be seen again—maddened with terror, yet trembling with fatigue and exhaustion, were rushing backwards and forwards in front of the advancing flames, as though fascinated and enthralled by the very thing they dreaded. The two boys, shouting at the same time, that they might be heard above the roar of the fire, called aloud to them; and the poor distraught creatures, hearing the voices of their lords and masters, who were as gods to them, turned at once, and, throwing their heads in the air, came rushing to them with loud neighs, just as one sees a dog which has been lost in the streets come tearing to his master when he sees him again in the crowd. They followed the boys closely, glad to touch them with their hot, soft muzzles to make sure that they had found them, with a mute appeal for water in their sunken eyes that was inexpressibly touching.
George let Alec lead them to the rocks and to the spring, and turned back once more to look for Como, which he had not seen with the horses. He could see nothing of his dear old friend at first, but after a short time he thought he could distinguish some strange object lying quite still and motionless just in front of the quickly-marching blaze at some little distance from him. Towards this he quickly ran, and found that it was Como lying singed and senseless, only a yard or two from the flames. Drawing a deep breath, and holding his hat before his face, he darted in and, scorched and blinded by the heat, dragged the heavy body out of reach of the fire. He thought that there was still a look of life about it, so passing both arms round the great chest of the animal, which hung limply in his grasp, he started off at a run towards the almost surrounded sand patch with the weighty burden in his arms.
Well for him that he was fleet of foot as well as strong of limb, for he only just reached the little barren spot before the broad arms of the fire met again in a silent embrace that would have cut him off for ever. The great flames soared up higher and stronger with a sweeping flare, as they came together again, but boy and dog had passed between them.
"Geordie, Geordie!" said Alec, "what a frightful risk to run; you had no right to do it."
"But I couldn't leave Como to burn."
"I fear he is dead after all."
But he was not; there was life in the old dog yet, and after they had poured water over him and down his throat he showed signs of life, and feebly licked the face of his master, who was stooping over him.
"Well," said Geordie at supper time, when coolness had come with the night, and they were eating the wallaby that Murri had succeeded in killing. "Well, we ought to be a united party after this. Everybody seems to have been saving and helping everybody else."
"It has been a day of terrible dangers," answered Alec, "but—let me whisper it, Geordie—I have enjoyed it. It is an awful thing to say, perhaps, but anything so grand as that one leap into the great sheet of flame I never felt. It was worth years of ordinary living."
That night it was long before the lads could get to rest; they had been excited too intensely by the adventurous day they had passed through for sleep to visit them quickly. Murri, who seemed to have no more nerve than a jelly-fish, after a few philosophical remarks upon the advisability of going to sleep at once, had wrapped himself in his blanket and fallen asleep at the same moment. The night had grown cooler, for the hot wind ceased to blow at about sunset, and the heavy pall of smoke having rolled away, the quiet stars shone down upon them from a sky that was clear and deep once more. The fire, which seemed to have received a check at one of the great deep gullies they had crossed in the morning, looked as though it were dying down, although now and again the eastern sky throbbed with a ruddy glow as some little patch of scrub or bush caught fire and flared up brightly in the blue still night.
How solemn was the great silence of that wide expanse which, for a time, was deprived of all life! Every breathing thing had fled before the fire, and a silence as of death reigned over all the land. The lads, for all their bold spirit and boyish lack of sentiment, felt the impressiveness of it at last, and, ceasing their chattering, sank into a stillness which soon flowed into sleep.
Night crept on; the moon sank behind the grave white peaks of the mountains that from their heights watched for the dawn of the day; the steady-pacing hours swept over the burnt black earth; and then in the fulness of its time the east glowed again, but with a rose that was not the rose of ruin and fire but the warmth and glory of a new day's birth.
All three of them slept soundly through the night, and their slumbers might have encroached on the morning had not a heavy shower of rain fallen just before sunrise and awakened them. It almost seemed that the fire which had devastated the land had brought the remedial rain in its train, for, whereas there had previously been a drought of a year or more in all that district, rain now fell in heavy refreshing showers directly after the conflagration occurred.
The fact of this rain falling then was of the greatest importance to the little band of adventurers, for not only was there an immediate alteration for the better in the temperature, but these heavy showers would replenish the springs and refill the dried-up creeks, and make the young grass grow that was so imperative a necessity for their horses.
There were some few bushes and little clumps of withered grass left unconsumed among the rocks of Nooergup, and, as these offered a scanty keep for the horses for one day, the boys agreed that they would not leave their present camp till the next morning. The reason for this decision was the worn-out condition of the horses, all of which stood sadly in need of a day's rest, and the fact that until the burnt grass sprouted again they would be unable to get feed for them. They knew that after these showers, which fell both in the morning and the evening of the day after the fire, the young grass would grow incredibly quickly, and that the feeding of their horses would no longer be a cause of anxiety to them.
"Don't you wish that those pretty little black moustaches of yours, Alec, would grow again after their singeing as quickly as the grass?" said George, mockingly, to his brother, and looking at him with a laughing face.
"Don't you wish you had some to be singed, young Impudence?" said Alec, throwing a little piece of damper at him which the resuscitated Como instantly caught and swallowed, thinking it was meant for him.
Murri, by whose valuable opinion they were always greatly guided, thought the little rest was advisable, so they did not leave Nooergup until the second day after the fire.
It was a damp and misty morning when they started. George had taken his saddle from poor Firebrace and transferred it to Vaulty, a strong serviceable roan, which he rode henceforth. The sun soon dispelled the light silvery cloud which hung above the steaming earth. When this soft veil had been withdrawn they could see, across the charred and blackened plain, the blue mountains of their hopes rising high into the dazzling sky, apparently close to them. But in reality, as Murri assured them, they lay three days' journey away.
All that day they journeyed across the burnt monotonous plain, but towards evening they reached the further edge of it, where the fire had originated, and once more were in a region of thick scrub and dense bush, which already looked fresher and almost green again after the copious rains, so quickly does Nature restore herself. Here again, after a day of silence and stillness on the wasted plains, they heard the voices of birds and saw living creatures moving. Two large emus that they came upon, near a little park-like patch of tall casuarina trees, almost led them to a small, recently-filled pool of water, for the birds, only fearing their enemy man, and thinking that these strange unknown creatures that were approaching them were quadrupeds only, had no fear of them, and walked to their pool without any sign of alarm. The boys stopped Murri from throwing his boomerang at them, for they could not find it in their hearts to reward such confidence as the emus showed in them by letting them be killed. Quite inexplicable behaviour Murri thought it. But then he wanted his supper, and was totally without sentiment. Happy savage!
For two days longer they travelled on before they got amongst the low bush-covered hills that formed the spurs of the great mountain range. The time had not appeared long or dull to them, for they had been too fully occupied in surmounting the difficulties of the journey for the hours to hang heavily on their hands. Sometimes a series of intricate and winding creeks and gullies would intercept their path, and in leading their horses up and down the steep sides, and in making a crossing for them over otherwise impassable places, hours would be spent. At other times a long line of mulga scrub would stop them, through which, with the greatest damage to their skin and clothes, they had to force a way. In passing these difficult pieces of scrub they always made Murri come last in the line, that he might have the benefit of the opening made by the other riders, and so save his naked body from many scratches and painful little wounds.
It certainly was not easy travelling, but they all were accustomed to the bush, and none of them were afraid of a little hard work, though they may have liked it no better than other people. One or other of the lads would perhaps indulge in a boyish growl at the heat, or the thorns, or the weight of the rocks they had sometimes to move aside for their horses to pass along these narrow gullies, but the other would cheer him on by reminding him of the object for which he was working, and the grumble would end in a laugh.
They rested one night at the edge of the great dim forest that clothed the lower hills, and next morning began the labour of climbing among these giant mountains. The work would be continuous until they reached the Whanga valley, which Murri said was in the very heart of the range, over the first great spur that lay, a gigantic barrier, before them.
In the early light of the coming day, when the shades of night still seemed struggling with the dream of dawn that crept so palely along the valleys and among the rocks, the mountains looked doubly grand and majestic. So black, so unconquerable and vast they loomed against the scarcely lighter sky, that to Geordie's impressionable nature they almost seemed an effectual bar to their progress. Although it was still too dark to see to catch their horses, the boys and Murri were astir, for they had a long climb and a hard day's work before them.
"If I did not well know, Alec, that you and I will let nothing stop us, I should almost have said that those dim awful mountains might have been too much for us."
The boy spoke in a hushed, low voice, for in that great stillness before daybreak, when as yet all birds and living things are mute, and when the very air, before the breath of morning stirs it, appears to sleep, it seems a sacrilege to break the solemn silence that, like a mantle, lies about the earth.
"Nothing that man can conquer shall stop us, mountain or river," said Alec, resolutely; who sometimes, as now, failed to read his brother's finer meaning.
"Oh, no, I know that. I don't think you quite understand. Of course we shall get over. I'd dig the mountains down with my own hands before I let them beat me. It isn't that; it was only a feeling. And now it is gone," said he, suddenly, as a warm flush of rosy light flooded the eastern sky, and was reflected on the white crags of the higher summits. A flute-voiced organ magpie burst into glorious song the moment that the daylight came, and its cheerful music banished the last trace of mystery and awe from George's mind.
A few minutes before they started, just at sunrise, Murri said that they had better take some food with them besides their own dried provisions, as they might be unable to catch anything on the higher parts of the mountains they would have to cross.
"Bail kangaroo, bail wallaby, up along o' there," said Murri, pointing to the mountains. "Mine go catch um bird, bail chewt um, Missa Law; boomerang plenty much kill."
Leaving their horses hobbled for a moment or two, the boys followed Murri to the edge of the little pool to which the emus had led them the night before.
The little pond, which the rain had filled with clear brown water, was in the centre of an open space, which, after heavy rains, would be a good-sized pool. It was, except for the little sunken place in the middle, quite dry. Round the edges of this brown space of dry mud trees grew thickly. Murri was only armed with his curiously curved black wood boomerang. All three of them hid themselves among the bushes and waited patiently a few minutes for a flock of birds to visit the pool for their morning drink and bath.
They had not to wait very long, for presently a great flock of loudly chattering and squealing white cockatoos came flying in a fluttering crowd to the pool.
Many perched on the little trees that grew around the open space. When a great number of birds had arrived there Murri darted, with a loud cry, from his hiding-place. The startled birds rising in a flock flew wildly over the pool. Gaining an impetus by the run, and raising his arm high above his head, Murri threw his boomerang with all his force. It travelled some distance almost on a level with the ground, and then, with extraordinary swiftness, it darted upwards amongst the flock of birds. As the boomerang does not fly in a straight line, but whirls about in the most eccentric and sudden manner, the cockatoos could not escape it, and before it fell, not very far from Murri's feet, three birds had been brought fluttering to the ground.
By the time that Murri had picked up his spoils and the party was mounted it was broad day, and they could see in all their grandeur and beauty the mountains they had to cross. The lower spurs were of the colour of dull gold, from the withered grass that covered them, whilst others that were dark with the everlasting bush looked blue in contrast with them. The more distant mountains, which lay fold upon fold behind one another, were of a pure deep azure, whilst the nearer summits, which were bathed in the morning sunshine, and which seemed to pierce the very sky, were of bare rock as white as driven snow.
The colours of the near landscape were bright and varied, the tints of some of the wild grasses were reddish and rich warm browns, and the pure green of the graceful mimosas glowed in the early sunlight against a background of dark mysterious bush. The air, after the rain, was fresh and exhilarating, and with happy hearts, forgetful of dangers past, and bravely facing difficulties to come, and singing from pure good spirits as they rode, the boys passed through the cool, grey morning shadows, as gay at heart and happy minded as young knights-errant in the youth time of the world.
Although they would not have to ascend to the greatest heights of the mountains to reach the pass by which Murri was to lead them to the Whanga valley, they had still a most difficult climb to accomplish. Their horses vastly increased the difficulty of their labours, though it must be owned that at times they scrambled like dogs up places that no horse but a colonial bred one would think of attempting. Had the boys been without them they could have reached the pass in half the time, and with less than half the labour that it took them with the horses. Of course they did not ride them—that would have been impossible—and to choose a suitable route for horses over a mountain that is covered with rocks and crags and full of ravines and great gullies is a work of not only great anxiety but of great labour.
"I wonder how Yesslett would have liked this," sang out George to his brother, who was in front, at one place, about half-way up to the pass, where they had to clear a road for the horses.
"Much better than you think, Master George. Just because we have seen him a bit nervous at times we are apt to underrate him. I have studied him, and there is much more in him than you give him credit for. There's real pluck in him at bottom, I know. It has never had a chance of coming out yet, but it will be there when the time for it comes."
"Oh, I wasn't doubting dear old Yess's courage. He is three times the man he was when he came. I was only thinking that bringing horses up such a place as this would rather surprise that young Englisher."
"And you, you stuck-up young monkey, are taking all the glory of it to yourself instead of praising the strength and spring of our Australian horses."
"If you are going to argue with me over every word I say," said George, with a laugh, "I shall go on ahead and ride with Murri; he, at least, won't be able to differ from me. That is the advantage of talking with him: one has it all one's own way, and he doesn't understand half one says."
"And that, I can well understand, leads to unanimity of opinion."
As they climbed higher and higher towards the pass which lay between two gigantic glittering peaks that towered above them, like vast sentinels to guard the entrance to the unknown land beyond them, the scenery became still wilder. The rich vegetation of the lower slopes ceased, and a wilderness of crags and rocks took its place. Still there was room for the horses to pass between them, and in places the very roughness of the ground was the means of their getting along at all; had it been smooth the horses could not have kept their feet.