In the Musgrave Ranges Part 21

Coiloo handed the luringa to Sax and disappeared. The boy had seen the effect of the peculiar note which the whirling luringa made. He stepped out into the open, swinging the strangely carved fillet of wood round and round his head. The sound grew louder and louder. It seemed impossible that such a small thing should make so far-carrying a sound.

The dancing men stood petrified. The women leaped to their feet and became motionless. Arrkroo stopped with up-lifted club. Stobart stood amazed. Sax walked forward slowly.

The tension increased. He was twenty yards from them--fifteen--ten. A movement of horror ran through the crowd. Before he had gone two paces more a shout went up in a hundred terror-stricken voices:

"The voice of Tumana! It is the voice of Tumana!"[1]

Sax kept on. Suddenly the tension broke. Like dead leaves before a gale, the natives scattered and fled. Stobart, Sax, Arrkroo, and the corpse of Wuntoo were left alone.

Arrkroo feared the bull-roarer, which spoke with the dreaded voice of Tumana, as much as anyone. Yet he stood his ground with uplifted club.

The helpless white man was within easy reach. Arrkroo would not miss his vengeance this third time. He would strike his enemy dead even though it was his last act, for no one can do such a thing when Tumana is speaking without terrible consequences. The sound of the bull-roarer went on. Arrkroo swayed back to gain force for a smas.h.i.+ng blow. Then he uttered a wild shout of triumph and jerked his black painted body forward. The club swung----

A shot rang out. The club dropped from the murdering warragul's nerveless hand. It missed Stobart's head by a fraction of an inch.

Sax picked it up and rushed forward. But death had already come.

Arrkroo's tall figure tottered for a moment, then crumpled up and fell to the ground. Mick immediately dashed across the open s.p.a.ce, followed by Yarloo and the three other boys. Coiloo was nowhere to be seen.

Two slashes of a sharp knife cut the hair rope which bound the captive white man and he was free. There was no time for thanks or congratulations. Sax had stopped swinging the luringa; the voice of Tumana had ceased. Already the natives were rea.s.sembling, and it was only a matter of moments before they would swarm down on the rescue party, outnumbering it by fifteen to one. A flight of spears fell from the rocks above, doing no harm, but warning the white men of their terrible danger.

They dashed down the valley towards the clump of timber where the saddle-horses had been tied. At one place the track narrowed as it pa.s.sed between two great ma.s.ses of rock. Mick was in the rear with the rifle. As he pa.s.sed this spot, a spear came out from behind one of the boulders. He was not expecting an ambush, and the spear struck his shoulder, entering the top of the lungs and breaking off. He dropped the rifle. As it left his hand he must have pulled the trigger, for there was a report. Sax was running just in front of Mick. He heard the report, looked round, and saw the stockman stagger. He dashed back. His act saved Mick's life, for, as the white boy stooped to pick up the rifle, he saw Coiloo standing behind the rock with another spear ready to throw. Sax jumped in front of his friend and the native paused. Mick was badly wounded, but when he too saw the ambushed n.i.g.g.e.r, he pulled himself together and dashed ahead after his companions. Sax was now carrying the rifle and he kept in the rear of the party, and prevented Coiloo from throwing that second spear.

Fierce shouting at the camp urged them to their greatest efforts. The Musgrave blacks had got over their scare. They found Arrkroo's dead body lying beside the corpse of Wuntoo. They thirsted for revenge and started in pursuit, not a hundred yards behind the escaping white men.

Stobart and his friends reached the clump of timber. Sax looked back.

The pursuit had been checked for a few moments. Coiloo was standing in the narrow gap, holding it against a hundred of his fellow tribesmen.

Spears whizzed around him on all sides, but for a time he dexterously escaped death. At last one struck him and he fell, but not before his purpose was accomplished. He had attempted to revenge himself on Mick, and, failing this, he held up the chase long enough to give Stobart, the man who had saved his life, a good chance of escaping.

His gallant death was not in vain. Before the Musgrave blacks reached the trees the rescue party was galloping across the plains. Mick's wound was troublesome for several days, but the man's perfect health stood him in good stead. One night in camp he was bewailing the fact that they had not been able to make a stand against the blacks, but had been forced to beat an ignominious retreat. "I'd like to go back and have a real good sc.r.a.p," he said.

Boss Stobart looked at him with a peculiar smile for a moment or two, and then took an old black pipe from his belt. It was smeared with clay. Mick and the two white boys looked on with great curiosity. The drover made a little hole in the clay and poured out a few grains of golden sand into his palm.

"Look at this," he said, holding out his hand to Mick. "If you'd care to go back to the Musgrave Ranges with me for some more of this stuff, I can promise you as many sc.r.a.ps with the n.i.g.g.e.rs as you want."

The gold was handed round. "I'm with you," said Mick. "I'm with you, Boss Stobart, whether its gold or n.i.g.g.e.rs you're after."

"And so am I if you'll let me," said Vaughan. "I want to buy back my father's sheep station."

Sax said nothing. He was content to be with his father, and knew that he was sure to be included in any expedition which his father undertook; but no thought of the future could rob him of the supreme joy of knowing that he had been instrumental in saving his father from death in the Musgrave Ranges.

[1] Australian blacks believe that the sound made by the _luringa_, or bull-roarer, is the voice of a strong spirit named Tumana.

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