Rolf Boldrewood
Babes in the Bush
CHAPTER XXIII
THE BATTLE OF ROCKY CREEK
‘By Jove!’ said Argyll, ‘this looks serious. I must get away to my fire. We must stick to his directions. I’m in good rifle practice; they’ll remember me in days to come!’
As O’More shrugged his shoulders and moved off, a shower of spears whistled through the air, while a chorus of cries and yells, as though from a liberated Inferno, rang through the woods along the line of the broken, stony country, though no human form could be seen.
The commotion created by this sudden onslaught, in spite of Hubert Warleigh’s precautions, was terrific. The startled, frantic cattle dashed through the watch-fires, scattering the brands and almost trampling their guardians underfoot. Then the heavy-footed droves rolled away, madly crashing through the timber, until the echo of their hoofs died away in the distance. Several head, however, had been mortally wounded, well-nigh transfixed in some cases. They staggered and fell.
At the first surprise of the onset, guns were fired with an instinctive desire of reprisal, but no settled plan of defence seemed to be organised. Then amid the tumult was heard the trumpet-like voice of Hubert Warleigh.
‘Every man to his tree; don’t fire till you are sure; look out for the rocks! Keep cool. We have only to stand them off for an hour. It’s near daylight.’
His words reassured all. And a shot which came from his double-barrelled rifle apparently told, as a smothered yell was heard from the cover.
‘Take that, ye murdtherin’ divils!’ said old Tom, who had crawled behind a fallen log, and now raising himself, poured three shots from a gun and a brace of horse-pistols into the enemy. ‘I seen one of ye go down thin, and it’s not the only one we’ll have this blessed night.’
‘There’s number two,’ said Gerald O’More, as he rolled over a tall man with stripes of white and red pigment, who had dashed out for an instant.
‘Well done, O’More!’ cried Hubert, with a cheery ring in his voice. ‘Make as much noise as you like now, but don’t give away a chance. Look out!’ – as three spears hissed dangerously close – ‘you’ll be hit if you don’t mind, and – ’
‘Hang the brutes!’ shouted O’More. ‘We could charge if we could only see them. What do you think of it, Hamilton?’
‘We shall come out straight,’ said that gentleman, with his customary coolness, ‘if we behave like disciplined troops and not like recruits. Pardon me, O’More, but this impetuosity is out of place. If one of us get hurt it may demoralise the men and give the blacks confidence.’
‘Never fear,’ said the excited young man. ‘It’s not the front rankers that drop the fastest. By George!’ This half-ejaculation was elicited by a spear-point which, passing between the arm and body, grazed his side.
‘I told you so,’ said Hamilton. ‘Why the deuce can’t you behave reasonably! These imps of darkness can see us better than we see them. How they are yelling in the rear!’
‘That’s to draw us off,’ said Gerald. ‘I won’t go behind a tree now, if I was to be here for seven years. But that spear didn’t come far. It’s one they throw with the hand – old Tom taught me that much; I’ll have the scoundrel if I see the night out.’
A sustained volley along the line from the main body of stock-riders at the rear, headed by Ardmillan, Neil Barrington, and Argyll, appeared to have told upon the enemy. More than one dying yell was heard. The spears were less constant, and though several blows and bruises had been inflicted by thrown boomerangs and nullahs, no serious casualty had occurred among the white men.
On the right wing of the advanced guard old Tom had ensconced himself behind a huge fallen tree, which hid both himself and his dogs. These last growled ominously, but took no further part, as yet, in the fray.
From behind his entrenchment the old man fired rapidly, from time to time loudly exulting, as a death-cry rang out on the night air or a spear buried itself in the fallen tree.
‘Throw away, ye infernal black divils!’ shouted the old man; and after the cautious stillness it was strange to hear the reckless tones echoing through the forest shades. ‘I’ll back the old single-barrel here against a scrubful of yees – always belavin’ in a little cover.’
‘Tek it cool, full-private Glendinning,’ said Dick Evans, who had advanced in light-infantry skirmishing order from the rear. ‘Not so much talking in the ranks, and mark time when ye’re charging the inimy; it looks more detarmined and collected-like – as old Hughie Gough used to say. Please God, it’ll soon be daylight; perhaps they’d gather thick enough then to let us go at ’em with the bayonet like.’
‘Maybe ye won’t be so full of yer pipeclay if ye gets one of thim reed spears into ye – my heavy curse on them! Mr. Hubert says he catched a sight of that divil’s-joynt of a Donderah; the thribe says he was niver known to lave a fight without a dead man’s hair.’
‘He don’t know white men yet,’ said Dick, ‘’ceptin’ he’s sneaked on to a hut-keeper. He’ll be taken down to-night if he don’t look out! Well done, Master Guy!’
This exclamation was due to the result of a snapshot from Guy, who had drawn trigger upon a savage, who, bounding forward, had thrown two spears with wonderful rapidity, and bolted for his cover, his whole frame quivering with such intensity of muscular action, that the limbs were scarcely visible in the dim light. However, the keen eyes and ready aim of youth were upon him; he reached the scrub but to spring upward and fall heavily back, a dead man.
Although none of the whites had as yet been wounded, while several of their savage enemies had been disabled or killed outright, still the contest was unsatisfactory.
They were uncertain as to the number of their enemies, who, concealed in the scrub, sent forth volleys of spears. Occasionally an outburst of cries and yells arose, so fiendishly replete with hatred, that the listeners in that sombre forest involuntarily felt their blood curdle. For aught they knew, the tribe might be gradually surrounding them. Indeed, an attempt of this kind was made. But it was frustrated by their watchful leader, who charged into the darkness with a few picked men, and drove the wily savages back to the main body.
On this occasion he had caught a glimpse of the giant Donderah, whose cruelty had been a chronicle of the tribe.
‘I can’t make out where the big brute got to,’ he said to old Tom, ‘or I should be easier in my mind. He’s a crafty devil, though he’s so big and strong, and he has some superstition, they told me, about never going out of a fight without a death to his credit. He knows about me, too, though we never met. It wasn’t his fault that I got back alive. A black girl told me that. They named him after the mountain. There’s not a blackfellow from here to the coast that can stand before him, they say. If O’More doesn’t take care, he’ll have him as sure as a gun. I have half a mind to see if he has dropped flat in that stone gunya.’
It happened just then that one of the lulls, common in savage warfare, took place. Hubert Warleigh flitted, noiseless and shadow-like, to another part of the camp, lest a diversion should be effected in a weaker spot.
Before changing position he gave instructions to old Tom, whose practised eye and ear could be depended upon, and whose distrust of the savage he knew to be proof against apparent security.
‘I’ll be back soon,’ he said, ‘for if Donderah did not fall back with the others, we are none of us too safe. I’ve known him drag a man out, with half a tribe close to his heels.’
Old Tom was much of the same opinion, for at the border stations tales of the Myall blacks were told by the aboriginals employed about the place. The exploits of the Titanic Donderah, ‘cobaun big fellow and plenty boomalli white fellow,’ had attained Homeric distinction.
The old man peered keenly through the dim glades, and listened as he bent forward, still sheltered by his tree, and resting one hand upon the neck of the dog Smoker, whose low growling he strove to repress.
‘Bad scran to ye,’ he said, ‘do ye want every murdtherin’ thief of the tribe to know the tree I’m under? Maybe he’s not far off, and ye’re winding him. I never knew yer tongue to be false, or I’d dhrive in the ribs of ye. Ha, ye big divil!’ he screamed, ‘ye’re there afther all; ’twas a bould trick of ye to hide in that stone gunya. Ye nearly skivered that gay boy from the ould country. Holy saints! sure he’s a dead man now! Was there ever such a gommoch!’
This uncomplimentary exclamation was called forth by the apparition of a herculean savage, who leaped out of the lava blocks of the rude, circular miami – a long-abandoned dwelling-place, probably a century old, and but slightly raised above the basaltic rocks of the promontory. Starting up, as if out of the night, he flung two spears at the only white man unsheltered. Like a diving seal he cast himself downwards, and was again invisibly safe.
One of the javelins nearly made an end of Gerald O’More. It was from such weapons, hurled with a sinewy arm, that the half-dozen cattle in the camp had fallen. They found, next morning, that a spear, piercing the flank, had gone clean through an unlucky heifer, and passed out at the other side.
However that may have been, Gerald the Dauntless was not the man to remain to be made a target of. Rushing forward, with a shout that told of West of Ireland associations, he charged the miniature citadel, determined to kill or capture his enemy. Before he reached the apparently deserted gunya, a dark form might have been observed by eyes more keen for signs of woodcraft, to worm itself, serpentlike, along the path which O’More trod heedlessly.
As if raised by magic from the earth, suddenly the huge Donderah stood erect in his path, and with the bound of a famished tiger, sprang within Gerald’s guard. The barrel of his fowling-piece was knocked up, and with one tremendous blow the Caucasian lay prone upon the earth. His foe commenced to drag him within the circle of the (possibly) sacrificial stones.
But before he could effect his purpose, a hoarse cry caused the savage to pause and falter. Hubert Warleigh, with his gun clubbed, was bounding frantically towards the triumphant champion.
But the distance was against the white man, though his panther-like bounds reduced the race to a question of seconds.
‘Hould on, Mr. Hubert!’ yelled old Tom, who had quitted his coign of vantage, followed by the excited dogs, no longer to be restrained. ‘Sure, we’ll have him, the murdtherin’ thafe. The others is fell back, since thim two dropped to Mr. Hamilton’s pay-rifle – more power to him. Here, boys! hould him! hould him! Smoker! Spanker! soole him!’
The old man yelled like a fiend; and as the startled savage saw the grim hounds stretching to the earth in full pursuit of him, he dropped his prey in terror of the unaccustomed foe.
‘At him, Spanker! hould him, Smoker!’ screamed the old man, ‘tear the throat of him. Marciful Saver! did any one ever see the like of that! But I’ll have the heart’s blood of ye, if ye were the Diaoul out of h – l, this – night.’
This mixture of religious adjuration and profanity from the lips of the excited old stock-rider was elicited by another cast of the fatal dice.
As the brawny savage glanced at the dogs, which were rapidly nearing him, and upon the powerful form of Hubert Warleigh, who bade fair to challenge him before he could reach his covert, loaded as he was, he unwillingly relinquished his victim. With a couple of bounds he reached the gunya, where, crouching behind the largest boulder, he awaited the attack. But it was not like Hubert Warleigh to leave the wounded man. Stooping for a moment, he raised O’More in his arms, with a violent effort threw him across his shoulder, and marched towards the encampment.
As he half turned in the effort, the savage raised himself to his full height, and, poising a spear, stood for a moment as if uncertain whether he should expend its force upon the old stock-rider and his dogs or against his white antagonist.
At that moment a yell from the main body of blacks showed that they had been forced to retreat. He was therefore separated from his companions, towards whom the wary stock-rider was advancing with a view of cutting him off.
‘Look out!’ shouted the old man to Hubert, as he marked the savage take sudden aim. ‘By – ! he’ll nail you!’
At the warning cry Hubert swung half round, turning his broad breast to the foe and shielding his unconscious burden as best he might. The wild warrior drew himself back for an instant, and then – like a cloth-yard shaft from a strong yew bow – the thin, dark, wavering missile sped only too truly. Deeply, venomously it pierced the mighty chest, beneath which throbbed the true and fearless heart of Hubert Warleigh. Freeing one hand, he broke the spear-shaft across like a reed-stalk, and without stay or stagger strode forward with his burden.
As the last battle scene was enacted, the dawn light struggled through a misty cloud-rack, and permitted clearer view of the tragedy to the rank and file of the expedition.
When the deadly missile struck their leader, a wild shout broke from the whites, and a charge in line was made towards the stone gunya, immediately in the rear of which the main body of the natives had collected for a desperate stand.
As if in answer, a strange, unnatural cry, half human only, burst upon their ears. They turned to behold a singular spectacle. Carried away by his exultation at the triumph of his aim and his revenge upon the foeman who had baulked him of his prey, the champion of a primeval race lingered ere he turned to flight in the direction of his companions.
He was too late. The bandogs of destiny were upon him, grim, merciless, with red glaring eyes and gleaming fangs. In his attention to his spear he had forgotten to pick up his nullah-nullah (or club), with which he would have been a match for any canine foe. A few frantic bounds were made by the doomed quarry as the eager dogs looked wolfishly up into his terror-stricken countenance. Another step, and the red dog, springing suddenly, seized his throat with unrelaxing grip, while Spanker’s sharp tusks sank into his flank, tearing at the quivering flesh as he fell heavily upon the earth.
‘Whoo-whoop, boys! Whoop!’ screamed old Tom, breathless and excited to the blood-madness of the Berserker. ‘That’s the talk. Worry, worry, worry! good dogs, good dogs! At him Spanker, boy, ye’re blood up to the eyes. Stick to him, Smoker, throttle him like a dingo. How the eyes of him rolls. Mercy be hanged!’ he replied in answer to the protest of one of the men. ‘What mercy did he show to Mr. Hubert, and him helpless, with that gossoon in his arms? Maybe ye didn’t think of the harm ye were doing, ye black snake that ye are,’ he continued, apostrophising the writhing form, which the ruthless hounds dragged to and fro with the ferocity of their kind; the brindle dog revelling in the dreadful banquet, wherein his head was ever and anon plunged to the glaring eyes, while the red hound held his fell grip upon the lacerated throat.
‘Maybe it’s kind father to ye to dhrive yer spear through any mortial craychur that belongs to a strange thribe, white or black. There’s more like ye, that’s had betther tachin’, so I’ll give ye a riddance out of yer misery. And it’s more than ye’d do for me av ye had me lyin’ there under the fut of ye.’
With this closing sentiment, nearer to recognition of a sable brother than he had ever been known to exhibit, the old stock-rider raised his gun. ‘Come off, ye divils! d’ye hear me, now?’ he said, striking the brindle dog heavily with his gun, who then only drew off, licking his gory lips and looking greedily at the bleeding form; while the red dog, more obedient or less fell of nature, relinquished his hold at the first summons.
‘Ye’ve had yer punishment, I’ll go bail, in this world, whatever happens in the next,’ said the old man grimly, as he pulled the trigger of his piece in a matter-of-fact manner. The charge passed through the skull of the mangled wretch, who, leaping from the earth and throwing out his arms in the death agony, fell on his face with a crash.
‘There’s an ind of ye,’ said the ruthless elder. ‘The blood of a betther man will be cowld enough before the day’s out. Come away, dogs, ye’ve had divarshion enough for one huntin’. Sure, they’re far away – the black imps of Satan,’ he said, as he listened intently to a distant chorus of wailing cries. ‘It’s time to get the camp in order. I wonder when we’ll git thim bullocks agin?’
It was indeed time to comply with the old man’s suggestion. Leaving the quivering corpse, the men turned away with a sense of relief, to commence their less tragic duties. At the camp much was to be arranged; all disorder was rife since the attack.
Huddled together were heaps of flour-bags, camp-kettles, and pannikins. The tents were overthrown, torn, and bedraggled. The frantic cattle had stampeded over the spot chosen with circumspection by the cook, as the strewn débris of beef and damper witnessed.
The horses were nearly all absent – some hobbled, some loose. Not a hoof of the horned herd was to be seen. Everything in the well-ordered camp, so lately presenting a disciplined appearance, seemed to have been the sport of evil genii.
Worse a hundredfold than all, beneath a hastily pitched tent, tended with anxious faces by his comrades, was stretched a wounded man, whose labouring breath came ever thickly and more blood-laden as the sun rose upon the battlefield, which secured for the white man one of the richest provinces of Australia. Yes! the stark limbs were feeble, the keen eye was dim, the stout heart was throbbing wildly, or feebly pulsating with life’s waning flame. Hubert Warleigh lay a-dying! His hour was come. The hunter of the hills, the fearless wood-ranger, was helpless as a sick child. The weapon of his heathen foe had sped home.
Argyll, Hamilton, Ardmillan, and the others stood around his rude pallet with saddened hearts. Each voice was hushed as they watched the spirit painfully quitting the stalwart form of him whom they had all learned to know and to trust.
‘We have bought our country dearly,’ said Wilfred, as a spasm distorted the features of the dying man and caused his strong limbs to quiver and writhe. Over his chest was thrown a rug, redly splashed, which told of the death-wound, from which the life-blood welled in spite of every attempt to staunch it. Beside him sat Gerald O’More, buried in deepest grief.
‘Better take the lie of the country from me,’ said the wounded man feebly. ‘One of you might write it down, with the bearings of the rivers, while my head keeps right. How hard it seems! Just made a start for a new country and a new life. And now to be finished off like this! The Warleigh luck all over. I might have known nothing could come of it, but – ’ Here his voice grew choked and indistinct, while from the saturated wrappings the blood dripped slowly and with a dreadful distinctness upon the earthen floor. A long pause. Again he held up his hand. ‘It will take every man that can be spared to get the cattle and horses together again. A week ought to do it; it’s easy tracking with no others about. You can knock up a “break” to count through. Make sure you’ve got the lot before you start away. Leave Effingham and Argyll with me. I’ll tell them about the course; you’re near the open country. I little thought when I saw it next I should be – should be – like this.’
They obeyed the dying leader to the last. All left the tent except Wilfred and Argyll. The success of the expedition depended on the cattle being recovered without loss of time. Though a monarch dies, the work of this world must go on. Few indeed are they for whom the wheels of the mighty machine can be stopped. Hubert Warleigh was the last man to desire it.
‘It’s no good stopping to “corroboree” over me,’ he said, with a touch of humour lighting up the glazing eye. ‘It’s lucky you haven’t O’More to wake as well as me. You won’t laugh at blacks’ weapons any more, eh, Gerald?’
‘Small laughing will do me for many a day, my dear boy. You have forgiven the rash fool that nearly lost his own life and wasted that of a better man? I deserve all I’ve got. But for you – cut off in the prime of your days, how shall I ever forget it? Forgive me, Hubert Warleigh, as you hope to be forgiven.’
Here the warm-hearted passionate Milesian cast himself on his knees beside the dying man, and burying his face in his hands, sobbed aloud in an agony of grief and humiliation. ‘Don’t fret over it, O’More,’ said the measured tones of the dying man. ‘It’s all in the day’s work. People always said I’d be hanged, you know; but I’m going off the hooks honourably, anyhow. You couldn’t help it; and, indeed, I was away when you charged that poor devil Donderah. I’m afraid old Tom’s dogs mauled him badly. But look here,’ – turning to Wilfred, – ‘you get a pencil and I’ll show you how the rivers run. There’s the Bogong Range – and the three rivers with the best country in Australia between them. When you come to the lower lakes, you can follow them to the sea. There’s an outlet, but it’s choked up with sand-bars. Somewhere near the mouth there’s a decent harbour and a good spot for a township. It will be a big one some day. Now you’re all right and can shift for yourselves. Effingham, I want to say a word to you before I go.’
Wilfred bent over him and O’More and Argyll left the tent. ‘Come near me,’ he whispered, in tones which, losing strength with the decay of life’s force, sounded hollow and dull. ‘I feel it so hard and bitter to die. I should have had a chance – my only chance – here, and as head explorer I might have risen to a decent position. Such a simple way to go under too. If that rash beggar hadn’t mulled it with Donderah I should have been right. Some men would have left him there. But I couldn’t do it – I couldn’t do it.’
‘Old Tom and his dogs avenged you,’ said Wilfred. ‘They ate Donderah alive almost, before the old man shot him.’
‘Poor devil!’ said the dying man; ‘so he came off worse than I did. Old Tom wouldn’t show him much mercy. I shan’t be long after him. Hang it! what a puff of smoke a fellow’s life is when he dies young. It seems the other day I was learning to ride at Warbrok, and Clem and Randal coming home from the King’s School for the holidays. Well, the three Warleighs are done for now. The wild Warleighs! wild enough, and not a paying game either. But I’m running on too fast about all these things, and my heart’s going, I feel. Are you sure you’ve got the chart all right, with the rivers and the lakes all correct – and the harbour – ’
‘I think so. We can make our way to the coast now. But why trouble yourself about such matters? Surely they are trifles compared with the thoughts which should occupy your last moments?’
‘I don’t know much about that,’ said the stricken bushman, raising himself for an instant and looking wistfully in his companion’s face. ‘If a man dies doing his duty he may as well back it right out. What gave me the only real help I ever had? Your father’s kind words and your family’s kind acts. They made a man of me. It’s on that road that I’m dying now, respected as a friend by all of you, instead of like a dog in a ditch or a “dead-house.” Now I have two things to say before I go. I want you to have the best run. It’s all good, but the best’s the best, and you may as well have it. I was to have my pick.’
Wilfred made a gesture of deprecation, but the other continued, with slow persistence:
‘You see where the second river runs into the third one? The lake’s marked near it on the south. There’s an angle of flat country there, the grandest cattle-run you ever set eyes on. Dry, sheltered rises for winter; rich flats and marshes for summer. Naturally fenced too. I christened it “The Heart” in my own mind. It’s that shape. So you sit down there, and leave Guy on it when you go home. He’ll do something yet, that boy. He’s a youngster after my own heart. And there’s one more thing – the last – the very last.’
‘Rest yourself, my dear fellow,’ said Wilfred, raising his head and wiping the death-damp from his forehead, as his eyes closed in a death-like faint. But the dying man raised himself unsteadily to a sitting position. An unearthly lustre gleamed in the dim eyes, the white lips moved mechanically, as the words, like the murmur of the breeze-touched shell, issued from them.
‘I told you I loved your sister Annabel. When I looked at her I thought I had never seen a woman before. Tell her she was never out of my head for one moment since the day I first saw her. Every step I made since was towards a life that should have been worthy of her. I would have been rich for her, proud for her, even book-taught for her sake. I was learning in spare moments what I should have known as a boy. She might never have taken to me – most likely not; but she would have known that she had helped to save a man’s life – a man’s soul. Tell her that this man went to his death, grieving most for one thing, that he should see her face no more. And now, give me your hand, Wilfred, for Gyp Warleigh’s time is up.’
He grasped the hand held out to him with a firm and nervous clasp; then relinquishing it gradually, an expression of peace and repose overspread his face, the laboured breathing ceased. His respiration became more natural and easy, but the ashen hue of his face showed yet more colourless and grey. The tired eyes closed; the massive head fell back on the pillow of rugs; the lower portion of the features relaxed; a slight shiver passed over the frame. Wilfred bent closely, tenderly, over the still face. The faithful spirit of the last male heir of the house of Warleigh had passed away.
When the stock-riders returned that evening after the long day’s tracking and heard of their leader’s death, many a wild heart was deeply stirred. At day-dawn they dug him a deep grave beneath a mighty spreading mountain ash, and piled such a cairn above him that no careless hand could disturb the dead. As they removed his clothes for the last sad robing process, two small volumes fell from an inner pocket.
‘Ha!’ said Neil Barrington, ‘one of them is the book I saw him poring over that day. I wonder whether it’s a novel? By Jove, though, who’d have thought that? Why, it’s an old History of England. The poor old chap was getting up his education by degrees. It makes the tears come into one’s eyes.’
Here the good-hearted fellow drew his handkerchief across his face.
