Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

She was one of the old-fashioned frigate-built ships—somewhat slow, but comfortable. Carrying, as per owner’s advertisement, ‘a first-class milch cow and surgeon,’ she was rather a favourite with that description of passengers who, obeying a doctor’s prescription, were obliged to take ‘a long sea voyage.’ The passage money was very high. There were no ‘intermediates,’ no subdivisions. A very good table was kept, and the ‘dog-basket’ and ‘menavelings’ from it alone would have supplied the fo’c’stle twice over. But for these leavings a host of ill-fed, brass-bound apprentices, boys, and petty officers were ever on the watch—the former knowing as crows, sharp as kites. Foremast Jack had not the ghost of a chance with them.

Ever since she slipped along the ways the _Sardanapalus_ had borne the reputation of being a ‘hungry ship.’ More than half-a-dozen times had she hauled into dock with a collar of clean picked beef bones around her figure-head. It was currently understood that the skipper ‘found’ the ship. He was an Orkney man, owned a part of her; and probably did so. She was a regular trader at that time. She is now a custom-house hulk in an East Indian harbour.

The chief officer was a native of Vermont, U.S., and, with regard to the crew, a bit of a bully. As he was wont to often inform them, with the national snuffle intensified,—

‘I’m a big lump of a horse—a high-bred stepper—an’ when I kick bones fly.’

He came out a loser by this gift, as will be presently seen.

Long before the opening of this yarn the crew had remonstrated with their superiors about their food. The captain had laughed at them, and the mate inquired whether they imagined the _Sardanapalus_ had been specially fitted out as a cook-shop for their pleasure.

Perhaps it was this that now made them linger joyfully over their stolen meals; and, occasionally, explore with naked lights the ‘general’ when they ought to have been sleeping on empty stomachs in their watch below.

It being an article of faith with the crew that the chief mate was responsible for the cargo, they felt a thorough pleasure in its total destruction. Nestor, old sea-lawyer that he was, had told them that, although a parcel might be opened and the contents abstracted, yet, could the smallest portion of the case, cask, or whatever it chanced to be, be produced, the mate would be held blameless. But, on the other hand, if not a vestige of anything were to be found to correspond with the item in the manifest, then would the chief assuredly be mulcted in the full value of the missing article. With this devoutly-wished-for end in view, any light package was dragged for’ard, handed up, and given a free passage. This was criminal and indefensible. But they hated the Yankee with a very hearty hatred. Had they not been able to discharge some of it in this manner there would have surely been a mutiny, and possibly bloodshed, before the termination of the passage.

In his character of ‘horse’ the mate had one day broken a poor submissive German sailor’s ribs by repeated kicks from his heavy sea-boots. Such things create antipathies, even on board ship. Consignors and consignees alike would have danced with wrath and anguish could they have witnessed that night’s jettison.

The forecastle was what is known as a ‘lower’ one. A bulkhead separated the two watches. This partition was composed of very heavy hardwood planking, on the after side of which was the fore-hatchway, filled up to within six feet of the deck by a collection of sails, rope, water-tanks, bundles of hay for the cow, etc. Aft of these, at about the same height, stretched the cargo. It will thus be noticed that the _Sardanapalus_ was not a ‘full ship.’

The starboard watch had removed two of the broad massive bulk-head planks. The port watch two also. At such times as a fresh supply of provisions was needed, four men from each watch in turn exploited the cargo. The others kept a look-out aft, and stood by the scuttle to receive and give things ‘a passage.’ As time passed, the crew, under the new regimen, began to grow fat and jolly-looking. They worked with a will, and as a pleasure to themselves. Also, to the utter astonishment of their superiors, they sang and skylarked in the second dog watch.

‘And these,’ exclaimed the captain, ‘are the scoundrels who growled about their food!’

He visited the galley, and sniffed and peered into the fo’c’sle coppers, and also cross-examined the cook and the steward.

‘Give the beggars more rice,’ said he to the latter official—a sleek, oily quadroon. ‘Let ’em have “banyan day” three times a week. We’ll have enough meat left then for the trip home without buying any in port.’

The crew grinned, but said nothing. The skipper was bothered.

‘Had the fore-hatch off yesterday, didn’t you?’ he asked the mate.

‘Yaas, sir,’ snuffled he.

‘Everythin’ seem all right? No cargo shifted or broached?’

‘Naw,’ replied the mate; ‘seems ’bout the saame as when we left dock; an’ I oughter know, for I hed a sight o’ trouble fixin’ that deadweight so’s to trim her forrard. I wonder, naow,’ he continued with a chuckle as at some joke, ‘how _It’s_ a-gettin’ on down below thar?’

‘Damn _It_!’ answered the captain shortly, as he turned away. He was in a bad temper that night. He hated to hear the men jolly; and instead of lying moodily about, silent and depressed, as of yore, in the six till eight watch, here were both watches on the t’gallant fo’c’stle putting all the strength of their united lungs into ‘Marching through Georgia.’

Such a thing had never happened to Captain Flett before, and he took it as a personal insult. The mate, snubbed, went down on the main-deck and put a stopper on the singing with a yell of ‘Lee fore-braces there, and chuck yourselves about a bit!’ The yards didn’t want trimming in the least. So the men, who knew this, pulled slowly and silent, each with his mouth full of choice sweetmeats discovered the night previous.

As yet they had found no strong liquors. But they had found nearly everything else. ‘Dry goods’ of every description, jewellery, clocks, firearms, stationery, patent medicines, etc. They had commenced operations, in the first place, under the main hatch, leaving all the fore part of the hold untouched. Without a purposeful search, no one would imagine cargo to have been broached. The throwing things, except _débris_—empty cases, bottles, baskets, etc.—overboard had been discontinued. It took up too much time, and the labour was too heavy. Besides, reckoning by Nestor’s calculation, the mate’s pay-day was worth already some hundreds of pounds less than nothing.

But one night, coming across a case of toilet soaps, pomades, scented oils, etc., the temptation proved irresistible, and a stock was laid in. The love of personal adornment runs strong at all times in Jack’s heart. On the following Sunday morning the t’gallant fo’c’sle resembled a barber’s shop in a big way of business. Jack clipped and shaved and anointed himself until he fairly shone and reeked with the produce of Rimmel. Never had fore part of ship smelled so sweetly. The passengers staggered about with their heads well up, sniffing delightedly.

‘Oh, captain,’ said one—a gushing widow whose age was uncertain, but mourning fresh—‘we really must be approaching some tropical climes. These are the lovely “spicy breezes,” you know, “blowing soft o’er Ceylon’s isle.”’

The skipper didn’t know, but, sniffing also, answered,—

‘Very likely, ma’am. But there’s no islands nearer ’n Tristan da Cunha, an’ I don’t think that there’s much spice about that one. I expect,’ he continued, glancing for’ard, ‘that it’s some of the hands titivatin’ themselves up. You see, ma’am, these scamps get all sorts of rubbishy oils and essences on an eastern voyage. One of ’em’s evidently found a bottle or two in the locker of his chest; and, now, he and his mates are swabbing themselves down with it.’

‘Dear me, how very interesting,’ replied the widow blandly, with a languishing glance at the skipper. ‘But’ (as a burst of hoarse laughter came on the scented wind) ‘they’re a terribly rough set, are they not, captain? I’m sure, but for yourself and your brave officers, I shouldn’t feel safe for a minute. I think I heard someone say, too, that they actually complained about their food at the beginning of the journey.’

This was touching the skipper on a tender spot.

‘At first, ma’am, at first,’ assented he severely, after a sharp suspicious look at the somewhat faded features. ‘But they’ve found me out, now, ma’am. They know John Flett’s up to ’em and their little games. The less food you give a sailor, ma’am, the better he works. Full an’ plenty’s a mistake. Give ’em a belly full an’ they’ll growl from mornin’ till night, an’ all night through. They’ll growl, ma’am, I do assure you, at the very best of beef and pork, the whitest of biscuits, an’ the plumpest of rice. Growl! They’d growl if you gave ’em toasted angels!’

‘What horrible wretches!’ exclaimed the widow sympathetically. ‘And what a lot of worry you must have with them, captain!’

‘No one but myself can imagine it, ma’am,’ replied the skipper, as he moved off, meditating on the possibility of stopping the usual dole of treacle for the Sunday duff. That laughter from for’ard annoyed him beyond endurance.

Presently the cuddy went to luncheon; and the starboard watch to its dinner.

The lump of dark unleavened dough and hook-pot full of molasses were there, but untouched, and awaiting the ocean sepulchre which had been their fate for many past Sundays.

‘I ralely don’t know what this is,’ said Bill, as he helped himself to a _paté de foie gras_ out of a dozen which lay on the deck. ‘But whatever it is, it ain’t to be sneezed at. Some sorter swell pie, I reckons. Talk ’bout jelly, lor! What you got there, Ned?’

‘Looks like soup an’ bully ’ithout the bully,’ answered the man addressed, who was pouring a steaming mixture out of a tin which he had just taken from over the big slush lamp—‘But it says on the paper “Ju-li-enne.” Sounds as if some woman had a hand in it. It don’t go very high,’ he resumed, after a few mouthfuls, ‘seems thinnish-like—no body—give us some o’ your meat to mix with it, Nestor.’

‘’Taint meat,’ said the old man. ‘It’s what they calls jugged ’are, and there’s no bones in it.’

‘Pity we couldn’t manage to hot this duff up,’ sighed one, cutting a huge slice off a big plum pudding; ‘but they’d smell it all over the ship.’

‘The cake for me!’ exclaimed another, attacking one of Gunter’s masterpieces. ‘I ain’t seen a three-decker like this since I was a kid, an’ used to hang about smellin’ at the tip-top cook-shops in the Mile-End Road!’

‘Wade in, my bullies, an’ line yer ribs,’ croaked old Nestor. ‘It’s the spiciest Sunday’s feed I’ve ’ad in forty year o’ the sea. I kin do three months chokey at the end o’ this trip, flyin’; an’ kin live on the smell of an oil rag all the time! If we on’y ’ad a few nips a-piece, now, it would be parfect!’

* * * * *

Midnight in the hold of the _Sardanapalus_. Four red spots moving slowly about in the thick gloom. From the irregular, tightly-packed mass proceeds all sorts of eerie creakings and groanings. The ship is pitching into a head sea and, at times, a wave catching her a thunderous slap, makes her seem to fairly stand still and shudder all over. The atmosphere is thick, and stuffy with an indescribable stuffiness. Presently the four points of light clustered together.

‘What is it, I wonder?’ said Billy, sticking his candle into a crevice, and pointing to a long, square, narrow case embedded in a pile of others.

‘Don’t know,’ replied another, stooping. ‘Got no marks, only “_Ex Sardinapples_—With great care.” Had any luck, you two?’

‘Try this,’ answered one, holding out a bottle which old Nestor immediately clutched.

‘Wine o’ some sort,’ was his verdict. ‘Poor stuff—got no grip o’ the throat—sourish. Let’s see what it sez on the bottle. “Chat-oo Mar-goox,” read he, straddling, with legs wide apart, and bottle and candle close to his nose.

‘Ay, ay,’ he continued, ‘I thought’s much. Dutch, I reckon. Much the same kind o’ tipple as ye gets at the dance-houses in Hamburg. We wants a warmer drink for these ’ere latichudes—not but what it’s a cut above that sarseperiller, an’ ’op bitters, an’ such like slush as we bin livin’ on lately.’

‘Well,’ asked Billy, tapping the case, as he spoke, with a short iron bar, ‘shall we see what’s in this?’

‘Not worth while,’ replied Nestor, who had finished the claret, not without many grimaces—

‘It’s only china crockery, or somethin’ o’ that. They always put “With great care,” an’ “This side hup” on sich. Blast the old hooker, how she do shove her snout into it!’

This last, as a tremendous forward send of the ship nearly carried him off his legs.

Billy, however, appeared determined on seeing the contents of the case, whose peculiar shape had aroused his curiosity, and started to break it out by himself. Finally the others came to his assistance, and a quarter-of-an-hour’s work hove it up from its nest. To their surprise it was locked and hinged. Curiosity took hold upon them. They prised and hammered, and strove, until, with a crash, the top flew back.

‘Kind o’ cork chips!’ exclaimed Nestor, taking up a handful and putting it to his nose. ‘Poof! smells like a chemist’s shop, full o’ camphor an’ drugs.’

‘’Ere’s another box inside this un,’ said Bill, who had been groping amongst the odoriferous mass. And so it proved; another long, narrow case, also locked and hinged, made of some polished wood whose surface reflected dimly the faces bending over it.

Subjected to similar treatment with its outer shell, it, too, soon yielded.

As the lid, which was thickly padded, flew off under the pressure of the iron levers, the four men shrank away as if they had stumbled on a den of venomous serpents.

On a strip of soft black velvet lay the shrouded corpse of a man. The grizzled head rested on a pillow, and the hands were crossed on the breast. Thin slats fitting athwartships kept the body in position. Although the eyes were closed, the features looked unnaturally natural. There even seemed to be a tinge of colour in the dead cheeks. But the artist had failed with the lips. The upper one had shrivelled and curled up over the white teeth, imparting a sardonic, grinning semblance to the whole face, unutterably ghastly to look upon, especially just then.

This it was, and the life-like seeming of _It_, that frightened the cargo broachers so badly. And they _were_ terribly frightened. They were too frightened to run, even had running been practicable. But the man who attempts such tricks in a ship’s hold at night, and with a heavy head sea on, comes to rapid grief at the second step. So they just stood still, gripping each other’s arms, and swearing under their breath, as is the wont of the British seaman when badly scared.

The old man, Nestor, was the first to speak. In quavering tones he said,—

‘It’s only a wax himmidge.’

‘Nothin’ o’ the kind,’ replied Bill, the boldest of the group, letting go his hold and coming a little closer. ‘It’s a ’barmed corpus, that’s wot _It_ is. I was shipmates with one on ’em afore. A soger officer he were. He were lashed under the mizzen-top, an’ labelled “Combustibles; do not touch!” in big black letters. One fine mornin’ he come down by the run an’ busted the case. He was just the same’s this un, only they hadn’t put that howdacious grin on to him. It were in the old _Euryalus_, man-o’-war, so we had to suffer him; an’ a most hunlucky trip it were. Run her ashore twice. Took the sticks out on her twice. Lost four men overboard. No wonder _we’ve_ had three weeks o’ head winds. But this joker ’ll get a free passage without much delay, if I’ve got to give it him single-handed.’ So saying, he advanced, picked up the lid, and began to fasten it down.

* * * * *

The next morning dawned bright and clear; but the head wind still stood, and there was a nasty lump of a sea on. For the comparatively high latitude the air was warm and comfortable.

Most of the passengers came up on the poop after breakfast. Presently, with the assistance of the skipper’s arm, the widow began a promenade.

‘What an exhibition she’s making of herself! Her husband, if she ever had one, can’t be six months dead yet, by her mourning. She ought to be ashamed of herself—the sly thing!’

If the widow did not exactly hear all this, she felt it, and cast looks of triumphant defiance at her female friends, clustered in groups, most of them holding on to something unassisted. Elderly unmarried convalescents, and very spiteful, the majority.

‘Something—on—the—lee-quarter, sir!’ came down from aloft.

The skipper called for his glass, without quitting his companion.

‘Keep her away a couple of points,’ he commanded, as he brought the instrument to bear.

‘Can’t make it out at all,’ he went on, after a minute’s focussing. ‘Something white, jumping up and down. Bit of wreckage, spar, or the like, I expect. Keep her away another point. Take a peep, ma’am. Your bright eyes ’ll perhaps distinguish it.’

The widow bridled coquettishly and, supported by the skipper, put herself in what she fancied an appropriate and elegant position.

‘Oh!’ she squealed presently, ‘I see it, captain; it’s coming this way. How very interesting! “A message from the sea,” “Strange tale of the ocean,” and all that sort of thing, you know, that one reads about in the papers. What an exciting adventure!’ The widow had taken the glass from her eye whilst speaking.

Suddenly a passenger cried,—

‘I see it! Look! On top of that wave!’ But even as he spoke it disappeared.

The starboard watch had been called aft by the second mate to try and jam the main-yards still further into the slack of the lee-rigging. The men now remained together with the eager knot of passengers staring over the quarter.

All at once, and with startling unexpectedness, there bobbed up on a sea almost level with the taffrail, a nude figure, nearly upright. One arm, by some eccentric working of the water, was jerked backwards and forwards from the face with an awfully grotesque motion of throwing kisses to the horrified watchers.

The notion was intensified by the grin on the lifelike features, startlingly distinct in the sunlight, as the embalmed figure, kept erect by the greater weight of its extremities, rose up and down, now in a hollow, now on a crest, not ten yards away.

‘It’s IT, by G—d!’ shouted Nestor, who happened to be at the wheel.

But no one took any notice of him in the general confusion.

The male passengers stood stock still, fascinated by the spectacle. The female ones shrieked, and a couple fainted. But louder and higher than any of them shrieked the widow, who had got both arms around the skipper’s neck, to which she hung, half choking him, whilst her feet rattled frantically on the deck.

‘Let go, ma’am!’ he gurgled. ‘Damn it, let go, can’t you?’

‘It’s his ghost!’ she screamed, taking another horrified glance at the bobbing, grimacing thing as it travelled slowly across the broad wake. ‘What have I done, James, that you should appear like this?’ she moaned. ‘I’m sure I thought you’d be comfortable down there!’ And here she began to laugh hysterically; and, held forcibly on the deck by the sorely-tried skipper, went off into a succession of violent fits.

‘Main topsail braces there, some of you!’ roared the mate, who, aroused by the cry of ‘Man overboard!’ uttered by one of the boys, had rushed on deck. ‘Come here, four hands, and clear away the life-boat.’

‘Don’t be a fool, Mr Sparkes!’ shouted the skipper, still struggling with the widow, who had got one hand in his long beard and was pulling it out by the roots.

‘Never mind the boat!’ he panted, for the real state of the case had broken upon him. ‘But come and take this she-devil away! Let _It_ go to blazes as fast as it likes! It’s got a fair wind, seemingly, and that’s more’n we have!’

* * * * *

Anchor watch off Geelong, Victoria.

Apparently the whole thing had quietly blown over. When the mate, with a terribly long face, had reported to the captain, as nearly as he could, the amount of cargo missing, and proposed as a set-off, to put one-half of each watch in irons until arrival, the skipper had only laughed.

He obviously enjoyed the responsible man’s dismay.

‘Nothing of the sort,’ he replied. ‘We can’t do without ’em. We’re bound to get a good blow or two ’tween here and Port Phillip Heads, and where would we be with half the men in irons, and the rest sulking? You’re a fool, Sparkes. I’m goin’ to smooth ’em down. They’ll have cabin biscuits and plum-duff three times a week from this out. And you knock off hazing ’em about so much’—chuckling heartily at the other’s stare of amazement—‘till we get abreast of Sandridge Pier. Then up goes the police flag. I’ll surprise the varmin, or my name ain’t John Flett! Meanwhile, let a couple of the hard-bargains[6] sling their hammocks in the after-hold. That’ll stop any more larks with the cargo. Has she been up in your watch since?’

[Footnote 6: Apprentices.]

‘Never seen a rag of her,’ answered the mate, who knew well to whom the skipper referred. ‘Kept her cabin ever since, I do believe.’

‘Damned good job too!’ said his superior, as he tenderly felt his face. ‘Who’d have thought that _It_ was hers anyhow!’

But ‘hard-bargains’ have long ears. One of them overheard the above conversation, and, reporting it to the crew, they got ready.

Also, on making the land, everything went wrong. Twelve hours vain signalling for a pilot made a big hole in the skipper’s temper. So when, at last, one came off, and, to his astonishment, got soundly rated, with a promise of report, he, in revenge, box-hauled the _Sardanapalus_ about until dark, and then brought-up with every link of hawse out, in a particularly muddy spot opposite Geelong.

Anchor watch had been set; and as old Nestor struck four bells in the chill morning and croaked hoarsely out his ‘All’s well!’ the stars saw a crowd of men in stockinged feet, and bearing bundles, slipping silently aft.

The gig was hanging at the stern-davits. Noiselessly as greased falls could slide over greased sheaves she was lowered without a creak or a splash.

The man who had been standing over the cuddy companion with a handspike joined his fellows. Fortunately—for themselves—no one had shown up. The boat pushed off, Bill sculling. The _Sardanapalus_ was crewless.

Half-an-hour afterwards, the great Australian Bush took to itself sixteen hairy-breasted able seamen and this story.

‘MO-POKE!’

‘Yes, I’m from out back,’ said a dark, wiry little man, as he dismounted from his horse at a Queensland frontier-township hotel, in answer to a question from one of a knot of bushmen and drovers assembled in the verandah. ‘Out back beyond the Warburton, an’ a nice warm time I’ve had of it, too!’

‘My eye!’ exclaimed the first speaker. ‘Been right away in that new country we been hearin’ of, eh? What like a shop is it, mate?’

‘Oh, the country’s right enough; lots o’ grass an water,’ replied the newcomer, as, giving his horse to the groom, he strode into the bar, ‘only the mopokes is so cussed bad an’ thick in them parts that there’s no livin’ for a quiet man. Roll up, lads, an’ give it a name! It’s a long time since I felt so dry!’

‘What did yer mean by “mopokes,” just now, mate?’ queried an elderly, grizzled overlander, as, lighting their pipes, the party sat down on the wide wooden bench. ‘Was it snakes?’

‘No, friend, it weren’t snakes. Wusser—a heap. Howsomever—I reckon it’s a hour or more till supper, so I’ll just tell you how it all happened. Gosh!’ he exclaimed emphatically, ‘what a comfort it is to git into a Chrischin place agin!’

‘Well, boys,’ commenced the stranger, ‘last April, I ’greed with ole Davies—him as owns “Tylunga,” not far from this—to go out an’ herd cattle for him on his new Adelaide country. Wages was good, three notes a week—I reckoned it were worth thirty afore I left—but as for the tucker, well, a feller never knows what he can live on till he tries it.

‘Howsomever, out we goes—him an’ me an three others; an’ in time we gets there all right, an’ musters the cattle, which was bein’ tailed at the head station—as they calls ’arf-a-dozen bark humpies on a waterhole. Then we drafts ’em into four mobs, an’ each on us takes one away out to blazes into the bush, where the old chap shows us our runs, which was about six or seven mile apart.

‘Us herders had each a little hut to himself; so you see, mates, a feller warn’t likely to quarrel with his neighbours.

‘“Now, Wilson,” sez old Davies, as he gits ready to start, arter puttin’ the things out o’ the waggonette at my hut—sez he, “Now, Wilson, take good care of them cattle in your charge, an’ mind none o’ them black rascals come sneakin’ about ’em. If you sees any, pepper ’em well. You’ve got a gun, an’ lots of ammunition.”

‘You’ll obsarve, mates, that, like a good many more of his sort, he never thinks o’ the man. It’s only the dashed stock as troubles ’em.

‘Howsomever, off he drives, an’ presently I catches a horse, as it was gettin’ close to sundown, an’ roun’s up the mob an’ puts ’em on camp, ties the dog up, lights a fire, an’ tries to make myself at home ’s well ’s I could.

‘So a week or two slips away quiet enough, an’ I was gettin’ awful tired of the game. The cattle didn’t hardly want any lookin’ after, an’ all I could find to do was cuttin’ up green-hide an’ plaiting whips. I thought that the month ’d never go by till rations—such as they was—was due from the head station on Wild Horse Lagoon, nigh on thirty miles away.

‘Up to this I’d never heard a bird singin’ out after dark. But one night, as I was just a-fallin’ off to sleep, mopokes begins cryin’ like anything in the scrub close to the clear patch where the hut was. Suddently the dog starts barkin’ like mad, an’ I gets up an’ gives him a cut with the whip. Back I goes to the bunk, an’ lies down a-listenin’ to them birds, an’ thinkin’ to myself as all the mopokes in Australy had got roun’ the hut that night. Well, I cussed an’ swore at ’em no end for kickin’ up such a shine; an’ Towzer a-growlin’, an’ a-snappin’, an’ pullin’ at his chain all the time. In a bit, up I gets agen, and catches hold of the ole gun, opens the door, an’ lets her off, both barrels. It was a moonlight night, an’ I could see the backs of a few of the cattle from where I stood, as, scared by the row, they gets off their camp, an’ I hears the horse-bell just over in the scrub. No more mopokes that night. But the next, at it they goes agen. Now one’d call, it seemed like close to the chimbly, then another, right at the head o’ my stretcher—outside, o’ course—“mopoke!” “more-pork!” “mo-po!” till I’m blessed if I didn’t get properly on my tail, an’ takin’ the gun, I lets Towzer off o’ the chain, and runs out an’ bangs away, as fast as I could load her, at the scrub, where I reckoned them blasted fowls was a-roostin’. An’ Towzer, he tears away into the bushes, barkin’ most furious. No more mopokin’ that night, but Towzer he never comes back agen. Thinkin’ he’d took arter a kangaroo-rat, I goes inside, makes up the fire, boils a quart o’ tea, an’ waits for daylight, which I know’d couldn’t be long.

‘“I never did hear yet,” I says to myself, “of a feller bein’ harnted by a pack o’ birds; but I’m blessed if this game don’t ’pear somethin’ like it.”

‘You see, mates, I never dropped to the meanin’ o’ the racket; for though I’ve been stock-keepin’ an’ drovin’ pretty near five-an’-twenty year now, I never had no experience afore o’ the kind o’ gutter-snipes as was disturbin’ me these last two nights.

‘At bird-twitter, out I goes, ’spectin’ to see Towzer under his sheet o’ bark. I seen no Towzer; an’, what’s more, I seen no cattle neither. They never moved off camp afore sunrise; an’, fearin’ les’ they’d made a clean break of it, I runs into the hut, collars my bridle, an’ off after the mokes.

‘When I gets into the scrub, I hears the bell just ahead, an’ I hears, too, a few o’ them cussed birds a-strainin’ their throats, callin’ about, as if they hadn’t done enough through the night.

‘Well, I follers the bell back’ards an’ for’ards, without seemin’ to get any nearer to the horses, till I was nigh sick o’ stumblin’ over logs; an’ o’ swearin’ what I wouldn’t do to ’em when I gets ’em, an’ o’ singin’ out for Towzer.

‘All of a suddent, the bell sounds not ten yards away in a patch o’ thick dogwood scrub, an’ as I makes off full trot, I nearly falls over somethin’ soft. Lookin’ down, I sees poor ole Towzer lyin’ there with his head caved in, and a bit o’ broken spear stickin’ in him.

‘My Colonial, mates! I tumbles fast enough then, when it were too late. Jumpin’ through the scrub to where I last heard the bell, I runs slap up agen six ugly black beasts o’ niggers, an’ one on ’em was just a-startin’ to shake the dashed bell, which was hangin’ roun’ his neck. Close to ’em lies my best horse, ole “Cossack,” dead’s a herrin’.

‘I takes it all in in a flash; an’ afore you could say “knife” I’d slung the bridle in their faces, and was makin’ tracks for the hut at the rate o’ sixty miles a hour—leastways it seemed so to me.

‘Whizz, whizz! come the spears; but the scrub was too thick, and ne’er a one touches me. Yellin’ like ole Nick, after me they tears, full split, but I show’s ’em good foot for it till I comes in sight o’ the hut, a-standin’ there so quiet-like, with the chimbly smokin’ away, an’ the door wide open.

‘Now, mates, what should make me, insted o’ rushin’ in an’ gettin’ the gun, an’ lettin’ the darkies know what o’clock it was, rip right past the hut an’ shin up a big gum tree about twenty yards away? I can’t make out what come over me to do sich a thing. But so it were. An’ up I swarms to nearly the top limb as the murderin’ willians comes out on to the open. In another minute eight or nine others tumbles out o’ the hut, where they’d been waitin’ on chance I might git away from the fust gang, an’ they all gathers roun’ the ole gum, a-lookin’ up, for all the world like a lot o’ hungry dogs at a ’possum.

‘“Mo-poke, mo-poke!” sings out one, an’ another lot comes runnin’ up from the back scrub, just about where I should ha’ hit if the Lord hadn’t put it into my mind to take the tree for it.

‘But this pitchin’s terrible dry work, lads,’ suddenly broke off the narrator. ‘Come inside, an’ let’s have another long-sleever apiece, an’ then I’ll finish the yarn. Spite o’ them “mopokes” I’ve got a bit o’ stuff left yet.

‘Well, mates,’ went on Wilson, as the party resumed their seats, ‘the darkies throwed their spears, an’ slings their bommerangs, but it weren’t no use, I was too high up for ’em, and the nighest spear as come out of a couple o’ dozen, sticks in a good six foot below my limb. Seein’ this, one beggar gets the axe from the wood-heap. But she were old an’ blunt like her owner, ole Davies, an’ I soon see by the way they shapes as it’d take ’em a couple o’ years to fall me. For a while they niggles away at the big butt, turn an’ turn about, then jacks the contract, gruntin’ like a lot o’ pigs.

‘Next move were, one gets the gun out o’ the hut, an’ I scwoushes down into a six-inch heap, till I remembers she weren’t loaded; an’ I didn’t give ’em credit for knowin’ how to do that.

‘The mopoke as got her points her most careful, with the stock agen his belly, an’ with a grin at his mates, as much as to reckon, “You watch me pot him,” he shouts “Bung!” an’ as true’s I’m sittin’ here, I bursts out larfin’ to see them black fools a-starin’ up so hard, and wonderin’ why I didn’t fall down dead man.

‘Presen’ly, ’bout half way up my tree, they spots a good-sized pipe, an’ bringin’ a fire-stick from the hut, up one comes like a lamplighter. I knowed the ole gum was sound an’ green enough at the butt, but I sees by the pipe that some of the top limbs must be holler, an’ I didn’ fancy this last move a little bit. So, as he’s busy straddled-out, a-blowin’ and a-puffin’ to raise the flame, I nips down, pulls out the spear, an’ lets drive at him ’s hard ’s I could. You never see such a thing in your lives! It hit him just acrost the loins, an’ goes more’n half way through him. He just gives a wriggle or two and twists over into a fork and lies there, a proper stiff ’un.

‘You bet, lads, I was proud’s a dog with a tin tail; an’ sez I, “One for poor Towzer, you pot-bellied willian!” By gosh! didn’t they yell, an’ dance, an’ carry on when they sees this, an’ me safe agen back in the ole perch.

‘Runnin’ to the hut, they tears out the slabs in a wink, piles ’em up at the butt of the ole gum, and sets fire to ’em.

‘In a minute or two, I couldn’t see a stem for smoke; but, as they was green belar, not a blaze could they get out of ’em.

‘Well, I was squattin’ up there, a-peepin’ down through the smoke for the next feller as wanted to show off his climbin’ abilities, when I hears a noise of horses gallopin’, an’ men shoutin’, an’ shots a-poppin’ off like Billy-ho.

‘Down I comes through the smoke, an’ just clear o’ the tree was five darkies a-lyin’ stretched out as would never cry “mo-poke!” no more. Not another soul, dead or alive, could I see. But presen’ly back canters ole Davies, an’ says he, cool as you like, “Hello, Wilson,” says he, “is that you? Where’s the rest o’ the cattle? There’s eight head short yet!” Darn his ole skin, an’ all bosses like him, as thinks more of a few head o’ stock than a man’s life!

‘You see, lads, when the cattle, disturbed by poor Towzer a-barkin’, and me a-firin’, moves quietly off afore daybreak, one lot of nigs follers ’em up, an’ one lot stops to ’tend on me.

‘Them with the cattle, after they’d gone a little way, starts a-spearin’ ’em, an’ the mob breaks, an’ never stops till they gets to the fust seven-mile hut, where the other lot was; and the chap there, seein’ some with spears stickin’ in ’em, gallops off to the head station, and out comes ole Davies an’ all hands.

‘No; no more new country for me—not if I knows it! I’m a-gettin’ too old now for such a little game as they played on me out there. Is that the supper-bell a-ringin’? Well, it’s the finest sound I’ve heard for five ’underd miles an’ more.’

KEEPING SCHOOL AT ‘DEAD FINISH.’

A Reminiscence of ‘The Rivers.’

The people at Dead Finish had never applied for such a thing, nor dreamt of, nor wished for it, neither they nor their children. These latter were mostly of an age now to be of use about the house or in the field. They had imagined themselves, these half-a-dozen or so of scattered families hidden in the gloomy recesses of coastal scrubs, quite secure from any officious interference with their offspring by the Government. And, without exception, they took it as a most uncalled-for act of tyranny, this proposed establishment of a school and a teacher in their midst, and well within the two-mile radius from all.

Here was the corn just ready to be pulled and husked, and got ready for Tuberville, and who was to do it with Tom, Jack and Bill wasting their time at a school?

‘If Mr Gov’ment was here,’ growled ‘Brombee’ O’Brien, the largest selector of the lot, ‘I’d give ’im a bit o’ my mind. Wot bizness he got, comin’ an’ takin’ the kids just as they’re a-gittin’ handy? Why didn’t he come afore, when they was bits o’ crawlers, an’ no use to no one? Anyhow, me an’ the missis niver ’ad no schoolin’; an’ why should they? Will learnin’ cut through a two-foot log? Will ’rethmetic split palin’s or shingles? Will readin’ an’ writin’ run brombees, or drive a team o’ bullocks, or ’elp to plough or ’arrer? No; it ain’t likely. Then wot’s the good of it? Garn? Wot they givin’ us?’

Thus Mr O’Brien, at a meeting of neighbours specially convened to confront the unlooked-for emergency, and whose own ideas he voices to the letter.

And when, later, the Inspector (taken at first for the ‘Gov’ment’) puts in an appearance, the case is set before him precisely as above. But, instead of listening to reason, he only rated them, told them they ought to be ashamed of themselves, and dilated largely on the beauty and advantage of a State education at only threepence per week each child, and one shilling for seven or over. A paternal Government, he said, had long mourned over their degraded and benighted condition; and, at last, having, after much trouble, and at great expense, secured a most accomplished gentleman as a teacher, resolved that one of his first tasks should be that of making Dead Finish an ornament, in place of a reproach, to the district.

This was, so the Inspector thought, putting the thing neatly indeed. But it was all of no avail. They not only unanimously refused to have anything to do with the erection of the school, but also to receive the teacher when he arrived. They swore, too, that their children should not leave work for education, and in the end, used language unrecordable here, and such as the Inspector had never in all his life heard before. But he persevered; and, bringing a couple of men from the township fifty miles away, set them to work.

Dead Finish was situated at the extreme head of one of those short Australian coastal rivers whose existence begins in boggy swamps and ends in a big sand-bar.

The country was mountainous and scrubby, abounding in ‘falls,’ springs, morasses, giant timber, dingoes, ticks, leeches, and creeks. The wonder was, not that anybody should ever have settled on it, but that, once there, they should ever manage to get out of it, as they did once in six months.

But for these few families on Dead Finish Creek, the district was totally uninhabited. It was hard to say where they came from originally. They were not a communicative people; but they were a hard-working, hard-living one, whose only wish was to be left at peace on the little patches they had hewn for themselves out of the mighty primeval forest that, dark and solemn, walled them in on every side. The spot chosen by the Inspector as the site of the new school was on the extreme edge of one of the lesser falls that ran sloping swiftly down three hundred feet or more into a small valley, generally full of mist and the noise of running waters.

A mile away lived a settler named Brown, who, after an infinity of coaxing and persuasion, and to the utter disgust of his neighbours, had consented to receive and board the teacher on trial. As with the rest of the Dead Finishers, ready money was so rare that the thoughts of that proffered twelve shillings a week tempted him, and he fell, and became a Judas to his fellows, and a mark for the finger of scorn—he and his wife and their ten children.

But the Inspector was jubilant; and after a last look around the little hut, smelling of fresh-cut wood, with its three forms, one stool, and bright, new blackboard, he departed, congratulating himself on the satisfactory finish of the campaign. Also he indited a minute and two memorandums to his Department with the intimation that ‘Provisional School No. 28,890, Parish of Dead Finish, County of Salamanca,’ was completed and ready for occupation. Whereupon, an animated correspondence took place, which, after lasting six months, was at last closed by the announcement that a teacher had been appointed. Then both sides rested from their labours, and the Inspector, feeling that his annual holiday had been well earned, took it.

Meanwhile, the little building perched on the brink of the gulf grew bleached and weather-beaten with wind and rain and fog, and the Dead Finishers derided ‘ole Gov’ment,’ and the Brown family emerged from Coventry, and all was once more peace along the creek.

The winter passed, and a young man with thin legs and body, red hair, and freckled face, appeared in Tuberville and remarked to the residents generally that he would like to get to Dead Finish. He also added that he was the ‘new teacher’ for that place. He at once became an object of interest. People stared at him in much the same way as did those others, of whom we read, at Martin Chuzzlewit and the faithful Mark Tapley on their departure for Eden.

The Tuberville people—the majority of them at least—knew of the Dead Finishers only by repute. These latter came in but twice a year to exchange corn and hardwood for stores, potatoes, and a little cash. At these times the programme was invariably the same. Their business done, the long-haired, touzly-bearded men drove their teams outside the town, and, leaving the bullocks in charge of the wild, bare-footed, half-clad boys, returned, and, clubbing their money, drank solidly as long as it lasted—generally two days.

They kept well together, and no one molested or interfered with them. It was not worth while. Their especial house was a short distance out, and when, borne up on the wind, came the roar of bush revelry, strange and uncouth, the townspeople merely remarked one to the other that ‘Them Dead Finishers must be in again down at Duffy’s.’

Hence the interest taken in Mr Cruppy.

The Dead Finishers all drank ‘rum straight,’ and about two gallons was their respective allowance. That safely stowed away, they took their long whips out of the corner of the bar, called their rough cattle-dogs, lying beside them, and made off to the wilderness again for another fight with fire and axe against the stubborn forest, and to raise corn enough for the next trip to market.

That half-yearly or so excursion was their one treat, such as it was; and the toiling, hard-featured women at home, who never got away, acquiesced tacitly in the liquid wind-up of it. They never looked for any money on their men’s return. What was the good of money at Dead Finish? No wonder the people laughed when the Inspector talked to them of ‘school fees.’

At last Mr Cruppy drifted into the ‘Bushman’s Home’ in search of information. Could Mr Duffy tell him how to get to a place called Dead Finish? No; Mr Duffy was sorry, but he really couldn’t. All he knew about it was that it was up in the mountains, and a rough, long road to travel. The new teacher, was he? Well, he was pleased to hear it, but opined that he’d find some pretty hard cases amongst the kids up there. Did he know Mr Brown at Dead Finish? Yes, he thought he did, and a very strong cup of tea he was. Going to stay there, was he? Well, he hoped that Mr Brown would make him comfortable. But, somehow, he was doubtful. As to getting there, he would have to trust to Providence. After a little more talk, however, Mr Cruppy discovered that Providence, in this case, meant the sum of £4 sterling, for which the publican expressed his willingness to do his best to find the Dead Finish.

They were four days on the road, got bogged twice, capsized twice, and broke the pole of the buggy before they found Brown, who received them with more surprise than cordiality. Foreseeing ostracism again, he wished to go back from his agreement, and was surly to a degree.

He said he should get his head caved in. If no one else did it, ‘Brombee’ O’Brien would. A week’s payment in advance mollified him somewhat. But, if Mr Cruppy had not been an orphan, friendless, and on his first appointment, he would have returned with Mr Duffy, who, very much to his surprise, had by the time he reached home, fairly earned his money.

The teacher’s bedroom was a bark lean-to; his bed sacks stuffed with corn husks—and cobs. The food was hominy and pork, washed down with coffee made from corn roasted and ground. He ventured to remark that the accommodation was rough.

‘It are,’ replied Mr Brown. ‘We’s rough. Take it or leave it. We niver arst fer no schoolin’. I’ll get stoushed over this job yet. Brombee’s got it in for me. So’s the Simmses, an’ all the rest ov ’em.’

With much difficulty the teacher got one of the boys to show him the way to the school. They had to cross Dead Finish Creek fourteen times to get there. Regarding the youngster as his first scholar, Mr Cruppy endeavoured to detain him, but with a yell he fled down the mountain; and, figuratively, the fiery cross was sent round.

Each day the teacher went up and waited in vain. No one came near the school. Then he essayed a journey of remonstrance from farm to farm, got bushed, was out for two nights, and would have been left out altogether only that Mandy Brown, who pitied him, went away and brought him in after running his tracks for a whole day. Then he simply sat down and waited despairingly. Then the Inspector came back from his holiday and visited Dead Finish, expecting to find everything in full swing. In his wrath he took out summonses against the whole settlement. No notice was taken of these until four troopers paid it a visit. Then it went into Tuberville in a body, and was promptly fined and admonished. Returning, it sent its children to school—a horde of young barbarians, unkempt, unwashed, almost unclad, but stout and sturdy. And it was the time of the pulling of the corn! Therefore the elders had to work double tides to make up for the lost labour of their offspring, stolidly glaring at poor Cruppy as he tried to beat into their shock heads the mystery of A B C.

Amanda Brown was eighteen, buxom, bare-footed, curly-haired, red-cheeked, could ride as she put it ‘anythin’ with hair on,’ use an axe like a Canadian, and was reckoned the best hand at breaking in a young bullock to the team of anyone about. And she, since her finding of Cruppy in the ranges, leech-infested and draggled, had taken him under her protection. But even she was powerless to influence the feeling of public indignation, daily growing stronger, against the Inspector, the teacher, and the ‘Gov’ment,’ and which ended in Cruppy being requested to clear out from Brown’s. As the latter put it, ‘Mister,’ said he, ‘it ain’t no good shenaneckin’! I dussent keep you no longer. It’s as much ’s our lives is wuth. Brombee an’ them’s gittin’ madder an’ madder. Ef you won’t slither complete, you’ll ’ave to go an’ camp in the schoolhouse up yonder. We’ll sell you a pot an’ a bit o’ ration, an’ ye’ll have to do the best ye can.’ So Cruppy went, seeing nothing else for it, and Mr Brown once more held up his head amongst his fellows.

Despite his lack of physique, Cruppy had a certain amount of stubborn resistance and endurance within him, often observable in red-headed people. He was, in short, plucky, and unwilling to give in. And Mandy, out of the largeness of her heart, helped him all she knew how.

For instance, when Tom O’Brien (eldest son of ‘Brombee’) made his intention known of scaring the teacher out of Dead Finish, from Mandy came the few words of warning and the present of the old gun and some ammunition. Thus it happened that one night, when awakened by eerie yells from his lonely slumber, the teacher looked out and saw a wild figure clad in skins, and with a pair of bullock’s horns spreading from its head, he felt no whit dismayed. Capering and shouting round the hut under the dim moonlight went the weird thing, enough in that desolate spot to make even a brave man shudder with the uncanny grotesqueness of it.

But presently there was a report—a cloud of smoke, and a flash out of the little window, and with a scream the thing dropped, then got up again, and ran swiftly out of sight.

‘Caught him fair smack, ye did,’ said Mandy, afterwards. ‘Them pellets o’ coarse salt touched ’im up properly. He don’t set down now without lookin’ fer pillers. Tom won’t try no more gammonin’ to be a yahoo. He’s full ’s a tick ov sich sport, he is.’

Other attempts were from time to time made to frighten Cruppy out of the district, but they were of no avail. The holidays were approaching, and he had made up his mind to hold out at least until then in hopes of getting a shift from Dead Finish.

But one night, in melancholy mood, watching a piece of salt beef boil, and leaning over every now and again to take the scum off the pot, he heard the tramp of horses outside. Opening the door cautiously, he saw Mandy riding her own pony _en cavalier_, and leading another one ready saddled.

‘Come along,’ she said, without dismounting. ‘They’re on their tails proper now. Wanter git the corn shelled for Tuberville. No more schoolin’ fer the kids. They’re a-goin’ to put the set on ye to-night, hut an’ all. Pap, and Brombee, an’ the Simmses, an’ Pringles, an’ the whole push is out. They got four teams o’ bullocks an’ all the ropes an’ chains in the country, an’ they’re a-goin’ to hyste school an’ you over the sidin’. It’ll be just one! two! three! an’ wallop ye all goes! Roll up yer swag slippy an’ come along.’

Cruppy, seeing at once that a crisis, not altogether unexpected, had arrived, did as he was told.

‘Now,’ said Mandy, leading the way into a dense clump of peppermint suckers, ‘le’s wait an’ see the fun. They reckoned as how, sleepin’ so sound, you wouldn’t know nothin’ till you struck bottom in the crik. But they’re euchred agin.’

As the night wore on noises broke its stillness, and dark forms moved athwart the little open space, whilst from far below in the gully came the faint clank of chains and the muffled tramp of cattle.

‘Look,’ whispered Mandy admiringly, ‘ain’t they cunnin’? There’s Pap, an’ ole Brombee, an’ young Tom, a-sneakin’ the big rope roun’ the hut. You’d niver ha’ woke, sleepin’ sound as ye does.’

Even as she spoke a shrill whistle was heard. Then from below came a tremendous volleying of whips, accompanied by hoarse yells of ‘Gee, Brusher! Darling up! Wah Rowdy! Spanker! Redman!’ As the noose tightened, the school first cracked, then toppled. The din below redoubled, and with a crash the building disappeared bodily over the brow of the hill.

‘That’s domino!’ remarked Mandy calmly. ‘There won’t be no more schoolin’ at Dead Finish. Come along; I’ll set ye on the track. Ye kin leave the horse an’ saddle at Duffy’s when you gits to the township. I shook ’em from ole Brombee. Won’t he bite when he finds it out. But you,’ she went on, ‘needn’t be scared. You seen him to-night doin’ his best to break your neck. Well, so long! Give us a cheeker afore ye goes; an’ don’t forget Mandy Brown o’ Dead Finish.’

‘NUMBER ONE NORTH RAINBOW.’

‘Another duffer!’