CHAPTER III.

Observer, Volume 9, Issue 532, 2 March 1889, Page 7

CHAPTER 111.

IN liATTLE ARRAY

' Then gather, gather, Gmalach ! Gather, gather, gather !' — Scott. Pichoa returned to camp, and made a salad of ' warrigal cabbage,' and pigweed in his bowl, having washed the sand out of it at the clear, fresh stream which ran close by. He had vinegar, too, and salt, the latter collected in the natural salt pans on the rocky promontories of the bay. In the wattles and honeysuckles, the ' mockers, 1 ' gill birds,' and blue and yellow honey-eaters were revelling. The chimes of bell-like notes flooded the air with nature's sweetest summer melody. The stream sang and sparkled, and the little Frenchman, in his search for pigweed, which grew about the inshore rocks, had found a box of Virginia twist tobacco, and though sorrowful at heart, had sung a bar of ' Partant 2)onr la Syrie,' 1 and the ' UfarxrilhtiseS Triff returned, reporting that the country was hill and dale, scrub and forest for miles and miles. He said nothing about his fire and the destruction of the pocket-book, naturally enough, and Pichou, being embowered in trees, and far below its level, had noticed nothing. Night came on starlit and serene. The sea sang a lullaby in dreaming monotone. A few kangaroo and wallaby hopped about in the scrub, and here and there the grey ghost-like forms of the same animals might have been discerned on the beach. The ' moreporks ' called all night. The two shipwrecked men were sleeping in the rude hut built of cases, and tarpaulin and bark, and at three o'clock next morning, the fast waning moon rose soft and clear, solemn and still on a strange sight — a skeleton in motion carrying a firestick. This apparition glided from tree to tree with a rapid, noiseless motion, quick as fire and light as down. Half a mile from the abode of the shipwrecked men, he sat down flat on the ground and ate a half -roasted ' bandicoot,' which had been stuffed into his ' possible ' bag of twisted grass fibre, neatly netted. That done, a draught of water from the nearest watercourse followed, and rising to his full height, after clambering a rocky point, which looked down upon the bay, he took three deliberate sniffs through his broad nostrils, facing in the direction of the hut, from which the wind blew. { White fellow P he said to himself, in his own language : _ At daylight, smoke rose from three hills in the vicinity, and by noon forty pairs of eyes were gleaming in every direction through the bush, taking in the wreckage on the beach, the hut of packing eases, and the two shipwrecked men. Not a detail escaped those glittering orbs ! Pichou saw three skeletons, as he was collecting herbs.

He tried a solid argument, in the shape of a shot from his revolver. It hit a skeleton in the leg ! There was a howl of fear and anguish, and the skeletons disappeared. They lurked near by, however, and prepared to take chances. Triff came running up. To do the man justice, he was no coward. He couldn't help being a pirate at heart, or a murderer by disposition. That was his nature, not his fault. It was the Dyak blood which ran in his veins. He would pay a debt of vengeance to the full, with ' kriss ' slash, or stab, but he was perfectly brave. No, it was not his fault. It was the parents fault, and the fault of bis ancestors. From progeny to progeny of his race, the ' Amok ' taint was settled in his veins. He had his ' kriss,' also inherited. He had swam ashore with it in his teeth. In fact, he had settled a 1 Kanaka ' with it in the forecastle, and stunned a Lascar with a blow from the butt of it, in the first awful confusion of the wreck, as the thought came into his head that they might prove troublesome to him; having assisted him by stealth to cut holes in the bulk heads, and broach cargo. Eesolved to have no witnesses, he had afterwards used these holes to scuttle the vessel and set her on fire, thus adding to the general terror, whilst he ransacked the captain's cabin to find the shadow of a suspicion, framed in his mind for weeks, that in the escritoire or drawers might be some testamentary evidence of his savings. But it proved to him, at least, to be I but a shadow after all. He had brushed his mates aside as mere obstacles, by murder ! He would do the same to anyone (the opportunity given) who stood between him and a caprice. The captain and others, notably the first mate, had been drowned. This was just as he wished. Neither of them could swim a stroke. Pichou and Triff could swim like seals. And there the Malay stood, grim and warlike, brandishing his ' kriss ' by the side of Pichou ! ' Good, good,' he said, l Good, good V That night they kept guard, watch and watch. Nothing further transpired till daylight. During the Malay's watch, his thoughts ran as follows : He had shipped at Sumatra, and had liked the captain, but the 'Amok' blood had made him wish to murder him. He smoked guardedly some of the precious tobacco, as his mind ran on. During the voyage he was stealthy, and listened. He heard enough to make him want to hear more. He could understand English, and he had heard numerous disjointed conversations between Clinch and Pichou. How the captain had made money. How he didn't like to trust it to a bank, or to carry it with him. How he had invested it all on something worth its value, and had hidden this treasure to be a stand-by in the day of evil. This much he had pieced together. He had known Pichou and Clinch to be very cautious sometimes, and to whisper together. How Pichou had looked grave, as if entrusted with a weighty secret. Beyond this, however, he could not get. He had tried to purap Pichou at the graves. lie had sa id — touching the captain's grave with his foot : ' Good man. captain, good, good ?' ' C'rxf crai,' responded Che Frenchman, whose gesticulations spoke far more intelligibly to the bystander than his Gascon jxitmx, or broken English. 'He vas a goot man. He vas my goot frent, m 5 very goot frent !' ' Eich man, good, good ?' queried Triff. ' I'rdimmty he make money, careful, save.' ' In ship ?' added Triff. ' jYidi, iwn-C said the Frenchman. 'He lose cargo, but he leave money at home.' 1 Ah !' rejoined Triff, and sauntered off. Knowing what he did, he had seized the captain's pocket book, but got nothing out of it. He had purloined the key and the scraps, and couldn't read them. But he kept them as a talisman, determning to fathom the secret some day. ' I go find captain's house,' said he, ' see wife. Perhaps I get money, too !' And the Dyak blood again ran ' amok,' as he thought of Pichou, who probably knew the whole secret, and his nervous fingers played with the snake skin on the handle of the ' kriss,' as he sat in the doorway of the hut. Three calls of an opossum close by, a flight of spears, which whizz within an inch of their heads, and stick in the hut I Argument number two, promptly used by Pichou, who was on his legs instuntir, and fired at random into the darkness. Immediate, and precipitate retreat of the natives, who were totally unused to firearms, and were scared to death by the vivid flash and loud report. They remembered, too, their wounded comrade of the morning, who was groaning in agony at that very moment, the bullet having made a severe wound. They had intended to surprise and slay the white men, as they thought. To their astonishment, one was dark-skinned, a red man ! This was a new terror ! They were puzzled, too, but what was to come, puzzled and horrified them infinitely more. Pichou, standing at the door of the hut, with the smoking pistol in his hand, c:>uld see nothing of Triff on the instant, but two hundred yards off, in the grey morning ligh t, stripped to his waistcloth (his favourite fighting costume), his figure was flying after a retreating skeleton ! The ' amok ' was raging like fever in his blood, and he was incapable of fear. This exaltation made him a fearful being to the pursued ! They yelled with horror as they fled in all directions. Meantime, Triff neared his victim fast ! The Malay's eyes were a stony horror, and his ' kriss ' was through the native's back and stomach in a few more flying leaps. One awful yell, echoed in similar fashion from eighteen different points, and given again with appalling significance by Triff himself, as he slashes and stabs the palpitating form at his feet, blind with fury 1 ■> The hereditary fiend possesses him, and when he returned to camp, Pichou shuddered, and gripped his revolver the firmer, at the awful expression of his eyes and face. But he has been of the greatest use, for the blacks, panic stricken, take to the ranges, leaving ' Combo,' the curious, stark dead, with ghastly cuts on his prostrate body.

And they howl a good deal over their camp fires far away, and cut themselves with shell-fish, and the wise men of the tribe decree that there shall be no more coastal expeditions until after two moons at the least. And they dance the ' corrobborree ' and howl again, and smear their heads and bodies with grease and, ashes ! When they again set forth in strong force, and reach the sea, they find a cask of rum and one of brandy on the beach. They drink a good deal of it, being incited thereto by an ancient, who has tasted the fire-water of the whites. Then they become mad, and four are speared outright, and six severely wounded in a brawl. Two • lubras ' (women) are clubbed to death, and one old dame sacrificed to the infernal deities. A ' picaninny ' is drowned and one poisoned with the sprits. The chief tabooes all the rest, and the tribe flit off to the mountain glens, having buried their dead in picturesque glades, forming a sand canoe round the bodies, and patting it hard with their hands. In the heart of the ranges they sing wild, halfweird, half- musical dirges for several nights, and finally forget all about it. (To be Continued.)