The Plague, Pestilence & Apocalypse MEGAPACK™

by Robert Reed

  They kept a great feast every year . It seemed to have some con-

  nection with the Pleiades and Aldebaran, for it was always celebrated

  when these stars were in conjunction with the sun . Several kindred

  tribes kept it, each in his own place westward, and every three years

  all the tribes who kept the feast celebrated it all together in a place

  farther west still . The triennial celebration was approaching, and

  Gioro intended to be there . He knew the way by which Bomero and

  his people would be travelling; he would cross their course, meet

  them, and go with them to the trysting-place .

  Jack suggested that he and I and Gioro should all go together and

  visit his tribe .

  Gioro hesitated for a little while, but after some apparently care-

  ful thought he said yes, he thought we could go .

  After that we often talked it over with him, learning front him what

  we could about the disposition of his tribesmen towards white men,

  and about the distance of the triennial meeting-place of the tribes . It

  was quite impossible to say how far or how near this meeting-place

  might be; and on this depended in my judgment the practicability of

  the scheme . But at least, I thought, if the black fellows were friendly

  we might, under Gioro’s guidance and protection, see a good deal

  of strange life and return home in a few days by the way we came .

  As far as I could gather, Gioro was the only one of his tribe that had

  ever seen a white man, although they had often heard of them, and

  curiosity rather than fear seemed to have been for some time the

  dominant feeling about them . But quite lately, for some reason or

  other, their fear began to exceed their curiosity .

  The cause of this change was evidently something that had hap-

  pened in the far west; some encounter with white men as Jack and

  I thought at first. But we had reason afterwards, as you will hear, to

  think that we were mistaken .

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  One evening I said to Gioro, “When did you see your people

  last?” He looked at the stars, and I knew he was going to be exact .

  Then he said, “One year .”

  “Did you tell Bomero then about the white men?”

  “Yes, tell Bomero . Bomero never see white man .”

  “What did Bomero say?”

  “Bomero say, white man all same dibble dibble .”

  “But Bomero never saw dibble dibble?”

  “Yes, Bomero saw dibble dibble one, two, three, two two, two

  three, great many .”

  “Where?”

  “Far away west .”

  “Where black fellows meet every three years?”

  “More far .”

  “Bomero saw white men, not dibble dibble .”

  “No fear, Bomero saw dibble dibble and run away . Bomero run

  away from no man, black man, pigtail man, white man; but Bomero

  run from dibble dibble .”

  “Did any black fellow but Bomero see dibble dibble?”

  “Yes, two three black fellow, more, all run away .”

  “And what like was dibble dibble?”

  “White man all same dibble dibble .”

  That was all I could ever get out of him on the subject .

  I spoke to Mr . Fetherston about our purpose of going westward

  with Gioro . He shook his head very gravely . “Well, Easterley,” said

  he, “if you will be guided by me you will do nothing of the sort .

  You see we know next to nothing of those north-west blacks, and if

  you go it is even betting that you never come back . If you get, say,

  a hundred miles west of here you will be entirely dependent on the

  blacks . You will have to live among them, and to live as they live, if

  they let you live at all .”

  “But we have our compasses and the telegraph line .”

  “That would be all very well if it were a country through which

  you could make a ‘bee line .’ But you will want water and food, and

  you cannot get either without the help of the blacks .”

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  “But,” said I, “Gioro will come back with us .”

  “Gioro is a very good fellow, but if I were you I would not put

  myself altogether in his hands like that . He won’t understand your

  anxiety to get away; he will think you are very well as you are . His

  interest in his own people will make him careless about you .”

  “But I know Gioro well, and I should trust him anywhere .” So

  said I, and Jack eagerly agreed with me .

  “But,” said Mr . Fetherston, “Gioro may die or may be killed; they

  fight a great deal, and those who have been among white men are

  often subject to special enmity .”

  “I expect we shall have to chance that,” said Jack . “Any of us

  may die or be killed .”

  “Well, gentlemen, wilful men you know—— I don’t pretend to

  any right to constrain you, only let it be fully understood that if you

  go, you go against my wish and in defiance of my advice.”

  We agreed that everyone should know that, and so the matter

  dropped .

  The road was now growing very difficult, the water scarcer, and

  the timber very much denser . But we pushed on little by little from

  day to day . We were ascending slowly the watershed between the

  north and south, and we had left behind us the last point to which the

  wire had yet been carried, when one morning Mr . Fetherston, after a

  specially careful observation, announced that within three days we

  might expect to meet the superintendent’s party from the north, if all

  had gone well with them . The same afternoon Gioro took me aside,

  and told me that he meant to start the day after the next in search of

  Bomero and his people . We had come, he said, to certain landmarks

  that he recognised . The tribe would be already on the march, and

  he was confident that he could pick them up by following the water

  until it crossed their track . Next day was not Sunday, but we made a

  Sunday of it . We camped early, the Union Jack was hoisted, and Mr .

  Fetherston, the officers and volunteers, with one guest selected from

  the men in charge of the teams, sat down to dinner together . The

  man selected was a bushman of great and well-known experience,

  and, like Mr . Fetherston, he had been with Stuart on one or more

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  of his exploring expeditions . I guessed from his presence that Mr .

  Fetherston intended that I should before the evening was over state

  my intention of going westward . Accordingly, when dinner was

  over and as we were about to light our pipes, I said before them all,

  “Well, Mr . Fetherston, my friend Wilbraham and I are going to

  leave you for a few days at least . We propose to go westward with

  Sir Gioro, in order to see something of the aborigines . We may be

  back within a week, but we may push on with the blacks into the in-

  terior, and perhaps we may make for the north-west or west coast .”

  Mr . Fetherston turned to the man of whom I spoke just now and

  said:

  “Well, Tim, what do you say to that?”

  The man turned to me and said: “I didn’t quite catch all you said,<
br />
  governor . Would you mind saying it again?”

  I repeated what I had said . “Well,” he replied, “it has been a main

  wet season out north, that I can see, and if you don’t go more than

  forty or fifty miles from the track you may get back within a week

  safe enough .” He paused for a moment, and looked me steadily in

  the face, and went on—

  “But, governor, if you go for the second part of the programme

  you’ll never see a white man again .”

  “Why so?” said I .

  “Well,” said he, “you are depending on Gioro . Now Gioro is a

  good fellow, far the best black fellow I ever knew by a very long

  way . And my best hope for you is that Gioro will take you back

  once he has had a look at his people . He will, if he knows what will

  happen as well as I know it .”

  “And what will happen?” said I .

  “Well, they’ll kill Gioro before he has been very long among

  them . Sooner or later they always kill the blacks that have been

  among white men .”

  “And then,” struck in Jack, “I suppose they will kill us .”

  “They may and they may not . You have ten times a better chance

  that Gioro . But if they don’t you will be as good as their slaves for

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  life . You won’t be able to get back unless they take you back, and

  they will never take you back .”

  “Suppose we start to return on our own account?”

  “Well,” said the man, “if you are not more than forty or fifty miles

  to the west of the wire when you make the start eastward, and if you

  are able to make straight for the wire you may get back . But if you

  are much further away, or if you have to go a long way round you’ll

  die of thirst or hunger in the bush.” I noticed that he put thirst first.

  “And, mind,” he went on, “the chances are that you will be three

  times fifty miles to the west before you think of turning back.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s easy enough to travel with the blacks, easy enough

  for men of your sort, men that are hardy and are up to larks . The

  blacks know how to get food and water and fire, and you can live

  while in their company . It’s only when you leave them that you will

  be done for .”

  Here Jack chimed in again . “Never mind,” said he, “Mr . Easterly

  and I are going to try it, win or lose . Besides, after what you have

  told us, I wouldn’t let poor ‘Jo’ go alone . We’ll save him and he’ll

  help us .”

  The answer came slowly . “Jo is your trump card, certainly…and

  your only one .”

  Then Fetherston spoke . “Gentlemen, if I were your master I

  should absolutely forbid you to go, but I have not the right to inter-

  fere with your liberty. But I am glad that you have had the benefit of

  Mr . Blundell’s experience .” (Mr . Blundell was Tim .) “His opinion

  and mine coincide exactly .”

  “Well,” said I, “Mr . Fetherston, we will be careful and we will

  bear in mind your advice, and I think it is on the whole most prob-

  able that you will see us back within the week .”

  “Possible,” said Jack .

  They all looked very sober then, and nothing more was said on

  the subject, and indeed little on any subject until the company broke

  up .

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  CHAPTER V

  AMONG THE BLACKS

  Our preparation for this madcap expedition was very soon made .

  We took our horses, for on foot we could not keep up with Gioro,

  and it was better to have the full benefit of his fleetness. We strapped

  our blankets to the pommels of our saddles . Jack carried a small

  fowling-piece, and I carried a pistol . We both had serviceable knives .

  A few small packages of tea and tobacco and what we thought a fair

  supply of ammunition completed impedimenta .

  We left our spare horse in charge of our man, and entrusted Mr .

  Fetherston with a cheque sufficient to pay the man’s wages and to

  give him a small gratuity on his return to Adelaide . Meantime he was

  to be in Mr . Fetherston’s service until we should rejoin the expedi-

  tion, and if we did not rejoin it before its return to Adelaide then Tim

  Blundell was to have the horse . Early in the forenoon Gioro showed

  me a hill which seemed to be about ten miles away (it proved to be

  much further). He told us that at the foot of that hill we should find

  a creek which we had crossed at an earlier part of its course the af-

  ternoon before, and that creek we must follow down . Mr . Fetherston

  had the same hill marked on his chart, and his instructions were that

  when he was abreast of it he was to turn to the right nearly at right

  angles . So that when he should make this turn that must be our sig-

  nal for parting with him . As we did not get abreast of the hill until it

  was rather late in the afternoon, we camped a little earlier than usual,

  and Gioro, Jack, and I deferred our departure until the next day .

  Shortly after sunrise we bade adieu to our friends with those noisy

  demonstrations on both sides which often serve the Englishman

  as a decent veil for those deeper feelings which he nearly always

  hesitates to show . The landscape here consisted of grassy slopes and

  plains, alternating with belts of well-forested country . We were in

  the middle of a plain when we parted from our fellow-travellers, and

  our courses were not in quite opposite directions; ours was about

  north-west, and theirs east-north-east . So while we remained in the

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  plain we could see our fellow-travellers by simply looking to the

  right, and they us by looking to the left . So for a while there was

  much waving of hats on both sides. But the first belt of timber that

  we entered hid them from our sight. And then I think for the first

  time I became fully aware of the meaning of what we were doing .

  “Jack, my boy!” said I, giving my horse a slight cut, so that he

  bounded forward, “we’re in for it now .”

  “You don’t seem sorry for if, Bob,” said he, urging his horse to

  join me .

  Truly neither of us was sorry for it . A new spirit of independence

  and love of adventure sprang up within us . We were young and well

  and strong . The morning air was fresh; the unaccustomed aspect of

  the forest, the screams of a flock of savage birds of the cockatoo sort

  that seemed as if they were making for the same hill as ourselves,

  the aspect of our native guide, who trotted on with his body slightly

  bent forward, and with the confident air of one who had “been there

  before,” all stirred us to a sense of strangeness and expectance

  which was quite a joy . Even the warnings of Mr . Fetherston and Tim

  Blundell seemed only to intensify the joy .

  “For if a path be dangerous known,

  The danger’s self is lure alone.”

  All the way from Port Augusta, Gioro had been dressed like the

  rest of us; he had worn a pair of moleskin trousers, a flannel shirt,

  and a cabbage-tree hat . But now he
had discarded all these, and he

  wore nothing but a kilt of matting and a head-dress which consisted

  of a string bound round his brows adorned with the tails of the small

  wild animals of the bush and one large opossum tail hanging down

  behind . He ran on steadily towards the hill, which we reached in

  three or four hours from the start . It was rather a remarkable hill,

  as we saw when we reached it . Sloping gradually from the side on

  which we approached, it was on the opposite side steep and even

  precipitous . The creek ran on the far side, and the shadow of the hill

  lay still across it . It was about half-past ten when we reached it, and

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  we rested until about an hour after noon . We made a can of tea and

  drank it . We had neither milk nor sugar, but we had a few biscuits

  and some slices of meat . Jack and I wondered where our next meal

  was to come from, but Gioro did not seem at all anxious . We could

  not, however, get a word out of him about the matter except “plenty

  duck .”

  We made a start in the direction of west by north, or thereabouts,

  Gioro leading the way and we following blindly . He ran more care-

  fully and rather more slowly, but there was still the same air of confi-

  dence about him . It was now very hot, but as we were well within the

  tropics, and the sun at noon was now as nearly as we could reckon

  vertical, the only wonder was that it was not much hotter . We must

  have been still high up on the watershed, although descending it

  on the northern slope . There was plenty of grass everywhere, and

  a good deal of timber, not so much, however, as to obstruct our

  passage or impede our view . The country was undulating, but there

  were no steep hills to be traversed . We passed a considerable herd

  of kangaroo and two or three dingoes, and there were many birds,

  chiefly crows, parrots, and cockatoos.

  It was getting near sundown when we reached the summit of one

  of those low hills, and Gioro clapped his hands and shouted . We saw

  nothing but another hill, but R was clear that he recognised it, for

  he clapped his hands again and again, pointed towards it and said,

  “Plenty duck .” He did not shape his course so as to cross the hill,

  but made for the point where it merged into the plain . And when

  we reached that point a sudden turn revealed a beautiful sheet of

  water, not very wide, but several hundred yards long, and consisting