The Squatter's Dream

It was held, after due consultation, to be only consistent with the exercise of Christian charity to remain for a few days, and to comfort the garrison of this garde douloureuse. The horses profited by the respite; and when the journey was recommenced the explorers had the satisfaction of leaving their hosts in a state of mental and bodily convalescence. Mr. Taylor, having passed over the shaking stage, began to recover strength, while Mr. Heads, still much restricted as to locomotion, was hopeful as to ultimate recovery, and inclined to believe that the heathen would be confounded in due time, and the persecuted cattle be permitted to eat their cotton-bush unharmed, free from spears and stampedes.

Detailed information as to route and water-courses was obtained from Mick Mahoney, the stockman, a New South Welshman of Irish extraction, who was loud in praise of the grand country he was, in his own phrase, “laying them on to.” Altogether, matters wore a more hopeful and encouraging appearance to Jack’s mind than at any time since the “hegira” from Gondaree. The horses were fresh and in good heart; their arms and ammunition were carefully looked to. Some slight addition was made to the commissariat; and Mr. Waldron, as he rode forth, all adieux having been made, declared himself to be “as fit as a fiddle,” and ready to fight all the blacks in the glorious new territory of Raak if it was half as good as Mick Mahoney had made out.

“I feel like one of the Pilgrim Fathers,” he was good enough to remark, “just unloaded from the Mayflower, and all ignorant of Philip of Pokanoket, Tecumseh, and the rest of the Red Indian swells. I suppose we shall not have any of their weight to do battle with. A spear like an arrow is a mild kind of weapon enough unless it hits you. I propose if we get this country, to be kind to these Austral children of Ishmael, against whom is, apparently, the hand of every man.”

“The worst possible policy,” said Jack; “after the place is settled, well and good, but as long as ill-blood lasts you can’t be too careful.”

“I think you are disposed to be hard on them,” answered Guy; “but of course you’re the commanding officer, and I give in. Only, I have a strong feeling in favour of a genuine patriarchal reign. The whole tribe, gradually convinced of the good feeling and firmness of the new ruler, bowing down to the beneficent white stranger, and, while toiling for him with passionate devotion, insensibly creating for themselves a higher ideal.”

“Dreams and phantasies of youth, my dear Waldron, frightfully exaggerating the good qualities of human nature, never by any chance realized. There’s always some scoundrel of a stockman who undoes all your teaching, or some long-headed crafty pagan who convinces his brethren of the very obvious fact that stealing is a cheaper way of procuring luxuries than working for them.”

“It may be so,” said the boy (another name for enthusiast, unless the nature be precociously cold or corrupt); “but all the same, if we get this country, I should like to do something for these pre-Adamite parties, or whatever they are. I think they are very improvable myself.”

“Up to a certain point, but not a peg further; like all savages, they lack the power of continuous self-denial; that’s where the lowest known specimens of the white races immeasurably excel them. Out of any given hundred of the most debased whites you may get an individual infinitely susceptible of development by culture. You may take the continent through, and from the whole aboriginal population you shall be unable to cull such a one.”

“Well, I know that is the general creed about niggers, as we comprehensively call all men a few shades darker than ourselves; but when we annex this kingdom of Raak I will certainly try the experiment. In the meanwhile, when shall we get to it? I feel most impatient to gaze on this land of the Amalekites. They have no walled cities at any rate.”

“If we have luck we may get there to-morrow,” said Jack, “and camp on our own run, or runs, for we shall have plenty to sell as well as to keep.”

Steering precisely by the directions given, and a rough chart manufactured for them, they found themselves quartered for the first night in a barren and unpromising scrub. However, this was the description of country described, being, indeed, the occasion of Mick Mahoney losing his tracks and eventually blundering into the astonishing land of Raak.

Next morning they were all on the alert, and for the greater part of the day toiled through a most hopeless and apparently endless scrub. Evening approached and found them still in the jungle. Guy began to think that they had missed their course; or that Mick Mahoney had lied; or that they were going deeper and deeper into one of the endless waterless thickets which occur “down there.” Doorival, who by no means relished this description of travelling, and who had found his pack-horse most vexatious and hard to manage, suddenly ascended a high tree, and soon as he reached the top began to gesticulate and call out.

“All right, Misser Redgrave,” he cried out, as soon as he had deposited himself, with some breathlessness, on the ground; “me see ’um that one new country, big waterhole, and big hill, like’t Mick tell you. Plenty black fellow sit down; I believe me see ’um smoke all about.”

“They be hanged!” said Guy, throwing up his hat; “let us push on and camp on the edge of it. I don’t want to stop another night in the wilderness.”

Fired with new hope, they redoubled their exertions, and as the sun fell in broad banners – “white and golden, crimson, blue” – he lighted up the welcome panorama of a vast pyramidal mass of granite, throwing its shadows across a silver-mirrored lake, while, far as eye could see, stretched apparently endless plains.

The comrades looked at each other for a moment, and then Guy burst into a wild hurrah, and, taking Jack’s hand, shook it with unacted fervour.

“By Jove, old fellow,” said he, “this is a moment worth living for, worth a whole long life in Oxfordshire, with all the partridge and pheasant shooting, fishing and hunting, dressing for dinner, and all the other shams and routine of recreation. This is life! pure and unadulterated; travel, adventure, anxiety, and now Success! Triumph! Fortune!”

“Don’t make such a row, my dear fellow,” said Jack, more philosophical, but inwardly exultant, “or else we shall have the whole standing army of Raak upon our backs. You may depend upon it the fellows are pretty well fed in this locality; and when that is the case they are apt to become very ugly customers in a skirmish. We may as well take off the packs.”

“What, camp here?” demanded Waldron, in a most aggrieved tone.

“Why not? You would not have us go on to the lake before we know whether the tribe is not in force there. No! here we have the scrub at our backs, and if attacked – and we must keep that possibility uppermost in our minds – we have a capital cover to fight or fly in, whichever may be most expedient.”

So they abode there, warily abstaining from making any but the smallest fire, and deferring possession of the new world till the morrow.

They had been long on their way to the lake – to their lake – concerning the name of which they had already held discussion, before the sun irradiated the virgin waste which lay unclaimed, untrodden, save by the foot of the wandering savage, before and around them. The pyramid of fantastically piled rocks rose clear and sharp in outline on the shore of the lake. The distance, as is usual with such landmarks in a perfectly level country, was greater than they had supposed. It was midday when they loosed their tired horses among the luxuriant herbage at its base, and wandered to the edge of the gleaming waters, doubly gracious from their rarity in that land of fierce heat and infrequent pool and stream. Amid the caves which deeply tunnelled the foundation of this wonder-temple of Nature they found traces of burial and tribal feast, and the strange, gigantic Red Hand, the symbol of forgotten rites, traced rudely but indelibly upon the dim cavern walls. Doorival gazed with wondering and troubled looks upon these tokens of an older day – a more powerful organization of the fast-fading tribes.

“I believe big one black fellow sit down here,” he said, with some appearance of awe and perturbation, a most unusual state of mind with him, a full-blooded wolf cub that he was, and curiously devoid of fear; “one old man Coradjee come every moon and say prayer along a that one murra. By and by wild black fellow run track belonging to us, and sneak up ’long a camp.”

“We must keep a good look out, then, Doorival,” said Redgrave, sanguine and fearless in the presence of the great discovery. “Keep your revolver in good order, and Mr. Waldron and I will pick them off with our rifles like crows. Help will tell us when they are coming, won’t you, old man?”

That intelligent quadruped, conscious that he was being appealed to, but not, let us say, fully understanding the whole of the conversation, looked wistfully at his master for a minute, and then relieved his feelings by a series of loud barks and a rush down to the lake, in the erroneous expectation of catching some of the water-fowl that thronged the shallows.

They concluded to camp at the lake that day, and on the next to try and discover the river which they doubted not divided at some point this magnificent tract of country. The one fact established of a permanent watercourse, and their prize was gained. They had nothing more to do but to put in their tenders for as many five-mile blocks as they pleased of the Raak country. Their fortune was made; they could easily dispose of a third part of it; stock up another third with breeding cattle, and after three or four years of very easy squatter-life —pace the blacks – might consider themselves to be wealthy men.

CHAPTER XXI

“The brown Indian marks with murderous aim.” —Goldsmith.

Late next day they fell upon converging tracks and indications that the wild creatures of the region walked steadily in one direction, mostly discovered and collated by Doorival. Keeping the average direction, they came towards evening upon a noble, full-fed flowing stream, running north-easterly, and abounding in fish and wild-fowl.

“Hurrah!” shouted Guy Waldron, “this is something like a river. What a glorious reach that is! We ought to christen it, for I swear no white man ever saw it before; what shall we call it? I make you a present of the lake, by which to immortalize any of your fair friends; but I should like to name this river; or I’ll toss up, whichever you like.”

“I will accept the lake, which I hereby call Lake Maud – we will provide the champagne on a future occasion. What shall you call the river?”

“I shall call it the Marion, after my dear old mother. Heaven knows whether she will ever see her wild boy again. I should like to have my head in the old lady’s lap again, as I used to do when I was a schoolboy, and she used to talk to me in her gentle way, and charm all the perversity out of me. I wonder what sets me thinking of the blessed saint now.”

“It won’t do you any harm, Guy,” said Jack, kindly. “Mine died when I was a little chap, but I shall never forget her, it seems like yesterday. And now, what about making tracks for civilization – save the mark – the day after to-morrow? We may run the river down to-morrow to see if the country gets worse or better, and then we must head for the nearest place the mail passes and send in our tenders – the sooner the better.”

“All right. I should like a month here; but one can’t be too spry about the tenders; there are always such a lot of rascally landsharks on the look-out for anything like good new country. They might have got a scrap or two of information out of old Blockham, from which basis they are quite capable of tendering for all the available country within a thousand miles of him.”

“Quite true,” said Jack. “I’m glad you see it in that light. I’ve heard of many a pioneer who has had the hard work of years snatched away from him by tenders suspiciously close to, but little in advance of, his own. How the information was supplied Heaven only knows, but it has been done before now. Didn’t old Ruthven get Yap-yap and Marngah, all that country side? and didn’t Westrope, who discovered it, lose heart and migrate to California, disgusted with Australia, and wroth with the whole civil service from the messengers to the minister?”

Their exploration fully confirmed the previous high estimate of the quality of the country. Following the river downward, they came from time to time upon unusually broad, deep reaches, equal to a three years’ drought without serious diminution. The plains retained their character, and were rich in saline herbage, intermingled with the best kinds of fattening grasses. There was room for half-a-dozen stations of the largest size; and as far as they could see there was no appearance of the country “falling off” – that is, changing into the apparently verdant but utterly worthless spinifex, or the endless scrubs which multiply labour and decrease profits. No; the Raak country was as good as good could be, perfect in quality, and more than sufficient in quantity. They rested contented, and decided to make back to the settlements with morning light. With that end in view they shaped their course in such fashion as to strike the Great Scrub, which they had penetrated after leaving Mr. Blockham’s, at a point more in the direct line to the settled country, whence they might send in their tenders for their principality with the smallest possible loss of time.

By cutting off corners, and making use of their previous experience, they managed to reach the border of this jungle tract late on the following evening.

All that day and the previous night the boy Doorival had been uneasy and watchful. Had they not known his exceptional courage, they would have attributed his uneasiness to the causeless fear and general apprehension so often exhibited by aboriginals when in strange territory. More than once he pointed out a thin column of smoke rising at no great distance from them. Sometimes one was observable on one flank, sometimes on the other, or in their rear. And as they rode forward it seemed that these tiny vaporous phenomena were rather less distant than in the earlier part of the day.

“You see that one?” said the boy, in a low, broken voice, indicative of dread. “Black fellow talk along that one smoke. One black fellow ’long a hill see you, he make smoke. ’Nother one black fellow see that one smoke, he make ’um smoke, tell ’nother one black fellow ‘all right.’ By and by, I believe, we see ’um, and no mistake. I think keep watch, all hands, ’long a camp to-night.”

“Very well, Doorival,” said Jack, “we shall all sleep with one eye open. Help will tell us when they are pretty close up, and we have plenty of cartridges all ready for the first round.”

They had approached within a couple of miles of a long cape of scrub which stretched out into the open country, as a promontory into the sea, when it suddenly became apparent that they had entered upon a different description of travelling. They found a wide expanse of deep sand, level as the blown beaches of the sea, embellished in large patches here and there with the pink flowering mesembryanthum, which looked like a great bright flag cast down on the mimic shore, but deep and toilsome for the horses, so that an active footman could have run as fast as the struggling, floundering quadrupeds. Here, in this unexpected trap, suddenly appeared two large bodies of blacks, who converged, as if by preconcerted signal, and followed closely upon their tracks. They did not make any pretence of attack, but followed patiently in the wake of the party, as if more in the hope that the horses might sink exhausted in the sand, and so place the party at their mercy, than with the intention of forcing an engagement.

John Redgrave and his companions had ridden hard that day in order to reach the point now in front of them, and, ignoring the possibility of any change of country, had not perhaps exercised sufficient caution in so doing. Now they saw their error. The horses toiled, stumbled, and staggered in the deep, yielding sand, while nearer and still nearer came the savage horde, following up, with wolf-like obstinacy, their faltering footsteps. At length, when the timber was distant about a mile, the expedition held a council of war.

“I wonder, if we get into the cover, whether there is any chance of the fellows following us further,” said Waldron. “My horse is nearly done, thanks to my unfair weight; but I don’t like to leave him behind.”

“Plain black fellows never go ’long a scrub,” asserted Doorival; “we get ’long a timber they stop and turn round. Too much afraid of debil-debil; but I believe they catch us before that; they close up now.”

“How can we stop them?” demanded Guy. “I can’t go faster to save my life.”

“I’ll show you,” said Jack, dismounting; “you lead my horse on slowly, and be ready to wait for me as I come up. I’ll manage to stop them.”

“But you are going to certain death,” said Waldron. “I can’t stand that.”

“Not at all,” said Jack, coolly; “you take my orders: I’m first officer, you know. Walk on quietly, and leave me here.”

Jack remained where he was, and permitted Waldron and Doorival to go slowly forward. He looked carefully to his rifle, and as the array of natives came rather confusedly along he picked out a conspicuous-looking personage in the lead and fired. The unfortunate savage threw up his arms and dropped dead in his tracks. Another fell, desperately wounded, and yet another to the third shot. The mass of pursuers became confused at this sudden onslaught. They halted, appeared irresolute, and finally made a flank movement, and suffered our travellers to pursue their way in peace.

Jack quickly rejoined his men, who had stopped at the first shot; they then dismounted, and, leading their weary horses, made good their way to the cover, where they found firm ground and a sheltered nook, wherein they rested for the night, thankful to believe that they would remain unmolested by the dismayed contingent of the tribes of Raak.

“It was unfortunate that we should be compelled to draw first blood,” said Jack, as they kept midnight watch, “but it was unavoidable. If one horse had fallen we should have had the whole mob upon us at once, without the faintest chance of escape.”

“What made you think of that particular style of defence?”

“I happened to know two explorers,” answered Jack, “who saved themselves in a similar emergency long ago. Only that they were in very wet, marshy country. Shirley told me he had never known it fail; and he being an unquestioned authority I determined to try it.”

“Well, there’s nothing like experience,” said Guy, reflectively. “I should never have thought of it, though I was just preparing to sell my life dearly, as the writing fellows call it. To-morrow we shall be well across this belt of scrub, and I suppose we may consider the war-path business over.”

“I trust so,” answered his comrade; “we have plenty of obstacles and troubles before us yet without that. I must say I shall be glad to see the first bush inn again, unsatisfactory halting-places as they are, notwithstanding.”

“That tribe give us fits when we go back to Raak again,” observed Doorival, with decision. “How many men you take, Misser Redgrave?”

“Plenty of men, plenty of guns, Doorival,” said Guy Waldron; “don’t you be afraid. You must tell them all about that if they don’t touch the cattle we’ll be the best friends they ever had.”

“I not afraid,” said the boy, proudly. “You nebber see me frighten, Misser Waldron!”

“Well, I never did,” admitted Guy; “you are as plucky a little beggar as I ever saw of your age, white or black.”

For three days they pursued their course through the interminable scrub, occasionally suffering for want of water, and at other times rendered anxious by the idea that they had mistaken their course, and perhaps struck the barren, waterless thicket at a point where it was broader than they had imagined, in which case they might be a week or even a fortnight before they threaded its ofttimes fatal maze. On the fourth day they sent Doorival ahead to see if he could find any indication of a change of landscape, which would fortify them in the idea that they had not been mistaken in their calculations.

To their great joy their messenger returned before sunset with the welcome intelligence that he had seen open country ahead, and they would reach it early next morning.

A small supply of water being discovered, the little party camped, full of sanguine anticipation of the morrow, looking upon the worst of the journey as past, and already fancying themselves restored to civilization and free to enter upon the first stage of their successful discovery.

Their camp-fire was rather larger than usual that night. Some of the minor precautions were dispensed with. No sign of native trails had been seen lately, and after their repulse of the Raak army they felt themselves equal to any ordinary skirmishing party.

The partners talked long as they sat and smoked by the fire. Guy was unusually excited with the confirmation of their reckoning and the expectation of a trip to the metropolis for the presentation of their tenders, in the names of Redgrave and Waldron, for so many blocks upon either bank of the river Marion, with others, including, of course, Lake Maud and Mount Stangrove.

“It’s full of magnificent sensations, this rôle of successful explorer, Redgrave,” he said. “Nothing comes up to it that I ever felt before, especially when you see plainly before you the unmistakable profits and advantages. It comprehends so much beside discovery; it’s the creation, as it were, of a colony of one’s very own.”

“It’s a grand thing in its way,” agreed Jack, with less enthusiasm, recalling one great enterprise which had looked as fair and yet failed so fatally. “But, as I said before, many things have to be done yet; and I’m getting old enough, I fear, to dread the proverbial slip.”

“I know,” interrupted Guy, with eager scorn; “but there can’t be a break-down in our case – it’s morally impossible. They must accept our tenders. We can’t have any difficulty in selling some of our spare blocks for cash enough to put on store cattle. How glorious it will be to see them pitching into that lovely saltbush by the lake! I know my governor would send me out two or three thousand pounds if he knew I had a real partner and a real station – a country-side of my own.”

“It all looks very well, old fellow,” said Jack, “and I feel with you that nothing in the ordinary run of events can prevent our forming a fine property out of our discovery, which is entirely confined to our own knowledge. You had better go straight in with the tenders as soon as we reach the region of her Majesty’s mails, and I will stay at any convenient township till I hear from you.”

“But why not come down with me?” demanded Guy. “I have lots of tin to carry us on for a few months, and a spell in town would do you no harm.”

“I have made no vow,” said Jack, “but I have taken a solemn resolution” – and a strange light came into his eyes as he spoke, and into his heart a thrill as he thought of Juandah and his last words to Maud Stangrove – “a resolution not to resume my position in society until I do so as the man who has achieved a success; I must return a leader, a conqueror, or my old comrades shall see me no more. My barque must sail up the harbour with flags flying and prizes towed astern, or lie a battered hull for wind and wave to hold revel over.”

“Ha!” said Guy, “stands the case thus? So we are too proud to bend to the breeze until the wind changes? Well, I understand the feeling; only you must put me up to all the ways of your Lands Department, or else I shall get sold or nobbled, or ‘had,’ and then where will the prize-money come from?”

“It is all simple enough,” said Redgrave. “You will leave with everything cut and dry, and in writing. You will be able to manage advances and so on down below, and I shall be all the more handy to go and take delivery of the first lot of store cattle.”

“By Jove!” said Waldron, excitedly, “I feel as if I were behind them at this very moment.”

As he spoke the dog Help rose slowly and, looking out into the darkness, growled in a low, fierce tone, while Doorival, converted suddenly into a statue, expressive of the act of listening, with an intensity apparent in every nerve and muscle, raised his hand in silent warning. Each man felt for his arms, and placed himself in full and perfect readiness for the reception of whatever enemy might appear. The night was intensely dark. Within a few feet of the fire the thicket was altogether composed of Egyptian darkness. It might have been solitary as the great desert, it might have contained an army with banners, for all that could be seen: still evil was abroad, they doubted not. The dog, whose tongue never lied, growled yet more menacingly. From Doorival at length came the interpretation of the faint sounds of the desert.