Читать книгу Fugitive Anne, A Romance of the Unexplored Bush - Rosa Praed - Страница 11

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KOMBO stood at the door of the hut. He had been crouching at the back of it, even as she went forth to the lagoon, not knowing how he should tell his gruesome tale. He leaned against the lintel, his limbs shaking as though he too had not recovered from the shock of some terrible discovery.

His face seemed ghastly under the outer pigment of black, and his lips were bloodless; but in his eyes there lurked an unholy light, and Anne realised, with a fresh shudder, that the savage beast in him, contending with acquired prejudices of civilisation, was for a moment unleashed, and might have to be fought and conquered.

The girl's indomitable spirit gazed out from her own eyes, and quelled the savage. He gibbered helplessly, uttering unintelligible sounds and laughing with the Black's peculiar note in his guttural merriment. Then he quailed before her gaze, making a gesture of pleading and dismay.

"Kombo!" Anne said, aware that now she held the hereditary tendencies in check, and that he was once more her slave. "Kombo, do you know what has happened? Do you know that he's dead--the man out there? Do you know that the Blacks have killed him?"

Kombo laughed again--a hopeless, helpless laugh, in which, nevertheless, there was a faint triumphant cadence, telling of the race hatred between black and white, subdued in him, but not wholly eradicated.

"Yo-ai!" (yes) he said. "Mine think-it all white man bong long-a station. Plenty dead white fellow--ole Missus; two fellow daughter belonging that one. Young Massa--one fellow Chinaman cook--all lie long-a floor where black fellow been, kill altogether white man. I been tell Missa Anne no smoke--no fire; all white fellow bong--altogether bong, altogether dead."

"Kombo, do you mean that they are all dead--all?" The girl spoke in a whisper, her eyes distended, her teeth chattering. "Kombo, you say all white fellow bong long-a station? You no tell lie?"

"Mine no tell lie, Missa Anne. I believe black fellow come last night kill everybody, take-im store, find-im grog, mumkull altogether with spear and nulla-nulla--ole Missus, young fellow white Mary belonging to her; young Massa Jim--Chinaman long-a kitchen--altogether bong. I creep up close--up humpey. I see long-a verandah ole Missus--I believe black fellow kill that one first with waddy. Inside, I see two young Missee--I believe black fellow take-im that fellow--no kill altogether quick like it ole Missus. Then I go outside long-a store. Young Massa he have-im spear like it back, and Chinaman he lie dead little way off. Mine no see young Massa Tom. Mine think-it that fellow run away and look out--find Captain Cunningham and black police."

Kombo's keen wit had worked out the situation in all its chances and probabilities. He knew that of the Duncan boys there should be two at home, and one was missing. He knew, too, that the black troopers under Captain Cunningham, from whom he had heard their destination, should be encamped a short distance eastward.

At this moment, in confirmation of his intuitive reasoning, the distant thud of hoofs which Anne had heard, deepened into nearer thunder, and suddenly ceased. Kombo darted to the fence, Anne following, and both looked along it, to where now they saw a band of troopers halt for a few seconds, to let the rails down, then pass through in single file and gallop up the slope towards the head station. Each one had his rifle ready, and it was evident the little army was bent on no peaceful errand. No other white man was with the band. Clearly, if it were Tom Duncan who had roused the police, he had been too exhausted to return with them. Maybe he was wounded, and had only dragged himself to Cunningham's camp to die.

Anne and Kombo faced each other--black man and white woman, realising to the full, and without need of words, the danger of the position. On one side were the Blacks, glutted with gore and spoil, their fury satiated, and no doubt prepared for flight into the fastnesses where men on horseback might not seek them. On the other, were the Whites, and in their company the certainty of recognition. Were Anne and Kombo to ride up now to the homestead, it would be almost impossible to deceive Captain Cunningham. Publicity must be given to all details of the tragedy, and the report of the native police would surely mean that Elias Bedo would obtain positive information of his wife's existence and whereabouts.

Better to fall into the hands of the Blacks, Anne thought, than into those of Elias Bedo.

But there was a middle course. It might be possible to hide until pursuit of the plunderers was fairly started, and the southern route clear. Then she and Kombo might either return the way they had come, or wait in the Bush and go northward by the coast to Somerset where there would be a chance of catching some vessel bound for Java. That had been the plan in Anne's mind, when she had decided upon seeking temporary refuge with her aunt. The middle course had also occurred to Kombo as the safest. There was no need between them for preliminary discussion. He seemed to read her mind as she read his. Kombo scratched his head, and thought silently for a minute or two. Then he went back to the horses, unfastened their bridles from the gum-bough to which he had strapped them, re-adjusted Anne's saddle and the pack that had slipped down, then delivered himself of his opinion.

"Missa Anne, mine think-it no good to go long-a station until black police go away. By-'m-by that fellow hunt after wild black in the scrub, but mine think-it very soon, white man from other station come long-a Kooloola. You know! That fellow wear-im shirt outside of trouser and, my word! cobbon woolla--plenty talk and say prayer." Thus Kombo graphically sketched the surpliced Bush parson of his experience. "I believe that white man go look-out Massa Bedo... Tshck! Tshck!" with the indescribable ejaculation of the native. "White man tell Massa Bedo. `You run--murra, make haste--wife belonging to you sit down long-a Kooloola. Massa Bedo--he think Missa Anne dead.' When white man tell him Missa Anne no dead, he very glad. He ride quick, and pialla (appeal to) Captain Cunningham to bring black trooper. Altogether come--catch Missa Anne and by-'m-by put Kombo in goal. Naia-yo! Naia-yo! That very bad for Missa Anne. That very bad for Kombo."

"Yes: that very bad," said poor Anne. "You must help me, Kombo, to keep out of Captain Cunningham's way. What can we do?"

Kombo ruminated for a minute or two. "Mine cobbon stupid fellow, Kombo. Massa Bedo, he plenty saucy. He got-im money; he make black trooper servant belonging to him. Mine think-it no good to go back long-a Cooktown. Best way to hide close-up Kooloola and look out till black trooper go away."

"But where can we hide?" asked Anne. "Captain Cunningham very good bushman, Kombo. No can hide from black trooper."

"Ole Massa Duncan no like black trooper," said Kombo. "I believe ba'al that fellow know bush long-a Kooloola. Missa Anne, you see!" The boy pointed to a knoll, two or three miles distant, which rose sharply above the scrub. "Big fellow cave sit down over there. Brother belonging to me show me place long time ago, when I bring cattle for Massa Duncan. That cobbon big cave; that very dark cave, very good place to hide. By-'m-by black police take pho-pho, and go shoot wild black. Kombo look out; find saddle, catch horse--bujeri horse, Kooloola brand. Missa Anne and Kombo make quick track. White man no see; police no can find."

Kombo's comprehensive plan was the best in the circumstances, but Anne hesitated.

"Suppose wild black sit down long-a cave?" she suggested, weakly.

Kombo shook his head.

"Mine no think-it Maianbar black stop close-up station," said he. "That fellow frightened, and run away long-a mountain. You come long-a me, Missa Anne; lie down inside cave; make fire and cook supper. Niai kandu...Mine plenty hungry."

Kombo was a philosopher. No matter what the tragedy around him, the danger and the difficulty, he never failed, at the close of the day, to make this announcement. Anne did not feel hungry. Nevertheless, she listened compassionately when Kombo said "Niai kandu."

"Mine show you short cut long-a cave. Mine take-im swag. Mine let go yarraman (horses) and mine plantim saddle. By-'m-by, when black trooper and white fellow altogether yan, mine run up yarraman in paddock--much better yarraman. You see? You think-it that bujeri?"

Anne nodded acquiescence. She could not speak; something seemed to have come up suddenly in her throat and choked her. Her eyes stared vacantly into the bush. She saw before her the dead bodies of her aunt and cousins, and the tragedy re-clothed itself with new horrors. Silently she helped Kombo to unsaddle the horses. When free, the beasts started off with a whinny, and went to drink at the lagoon. She took the two swags in her right arm, while with her other hand she held up the skirt of her riding--habit, regretting bitterly that she had not kept on her black boy's costume. Then she staggered after Kombo, who was laden with the saddles and bridles and his own gun, and was making straight for the scrub. The two skulked behind trees and shrubs till they had reached the shelter of the thicket, afraid that the native police might espy them, but soon they were hidden in the dimness of dense vegetation, and pressed inward as fast as their burdens would allow. After walking for a quarter of an hour, Kombo laid the saddles and bridles in a hollow at the foot of a tree where the earth had slipped, leaving the roots bare, and collected mould and twigs, scraping them backward with his foot, after the manner of a scrub turkey building its mound. Then he gathered other twigs, and before long, the saddles and bridles he had planted were covered safe from the chance of a marauder. The boy then made a discreet blaze on the tree with his tomahawk, so that they should neither of them, on returning for their property, miss its hiding-place. While he worked, Anne gathered her habit round her waist, binding it by a strap that she took from the pack, so that with kilted skirt, progress through the jungle might become a little less difficult. It was still sufficiently arduous, though Kombo went first to move, here a spiked log, or to cut away there, the withes of a hanging creeper. He steered straight for the rocky knoll he had pointed out, in which the caves were situated, though it was no longer visible, and even the stars by which he might have guided himself were hidden by the roof of interlacing branches. But a black boy's instinct of locality is a compass which rarely fails him. Moreover, Kombo was near the hunting-ground of his own tribe, the Moongarrs; and though it was years since, as a naked piccaninny, he had wandered through this region, he had returned to it with Duncan the squatter, and remembered the features of the land.

Night fell. It was much darker in the scrub than it would have been in the open, and the eeriness of it all thrilled Anne's nerves, which vibrated like strings stretched to breaking point. She walked close on Kombo's heels, sometimes stepping deep in mire, sometimes stumbling over stones, sometimes slipping down the side of a gully; her ankles bleeding, her hands torn among the prickly shrubs and tangle of vines.

As they got further into the heart of the scrub, the gullies became steeper, and the great boulders that encumbered them more numerous. Hugh volcanic stones were lying pell-mell, monoliths standing on end, and rocking-stones poised, and trembling at a touch. It was as though, in the beginning of things, fire demons had played here at pitch and toss. After a time, through a rift in the trees, they could see the evening star. The vegetation had become scantier, rocks taking the place of trees, and now they found themselves on a space, clear, but for the stones which strewed it, and with a basalt cliff rising close over it. The base of the cliff was curtained by creepers, and low scrub trees grew out of fissures in its face. Here, a part of the sky was visible--cloudless, of an intense blue, gemmed with stars; the Southern Cross apparently touching the summit of the crag. Anne--ragged, scratched, and sore from the stings of insects and of scrub nettles--sank exhausted upon a stone, a most pitiful figure; while Kombo, marking the position of the stars, took his bearings, and gave guttural clicks of satisfaction at finding how little deviation he had made.

"Close-up cave, Missa Anne," he called, encouragingly. "Very quick, plenty supper, plenty sleep. Come on."

Anne rose; and they moved northward round the knoll, pushing through the scrub where it encroached on the rock, and at last halting before a dark blot on the cliff's surface--a half-circle, in the centre of which was a great bare boulder. Creepers hung round the opening, which, to a casual eye, would not easily be discoverable. Kombo peered about on every side, anxiously searching for any signs of Blacks' fires, but he saw none. Now he bade Anne follow him, and stepped warily inside the cave.

"All right," he called out; and the vaulted roof of the cave caught his voice and sent it back in a reverberating echo, so uncanny that Anne started at the sound. She pressed in close upon him, and, after a little groping on Kombo's part, both stood in a deep embrasure near the mouth of the cave, which was here dimly illuminated by the starlight outside. The light was just sufficient for Anne to trace the outline of a long, wriggling thing, which, at the sound of footsteps and voices, stirred from its lair. Kombo darted forward. "Make light quick, Missa Anne," he whispered hoarsely. "Mine think-it that snake"; and as Anne struck a match which she had in readiness, she saw by its feeble flare that Kombo had brought the butt end of his old gun down upon the neck of a great brown serpent, which, pinioned and powerless to use its poison fang, struck out wildly with its tail, its body half coiled round the body of Kombo's gun. She drew back shuddering.

"Give me waddy, Missa Anne," cried Kombo, stretching back his hand, as with the whole weight of him he leaned on the gun. She handed him a stout stick which he had cut for her as they went through the scrub, and a few well-directed blows made the snake's coils droop flaccidly, its back broken, while Kombo battered in its head. Anne struck match after match, exploring the hollow in which she stood lest other reptile or beast should there have made its nest. But all was safe; the floor was smooth and clean, the walls bare stone, and she leaned against a projection, too frightened to move. The cave seemed to stretch into unfathomable blackness, but was now silent as the grave. How thankful she was that Kombo had bought these boxes of lucifers at the township store, and that they had managed to keep them dry when crossing flooded creeks, by tying them up in the bladder of an animal they had shot. She knew that she ought not to be reckless with her matches, but to remain alone in the darkness of the cave was more than her nerves would bear. Kombo had dragged the snake outside, but presently returned, gloating over the supper he would make from it. He brought in a bundle of sticks and dry leaves, and before many minutes a fire was kindled. Then he took a fire-stick and searched the cave, making another fire in a further recess. Here he took Anne's swag and spread her blanket, keeping his own belongings by the fire at the entrance. He called Anne to come up to her camp--so he named the further fire--and the girl gladly obeyed.

Never had distressed damsel more chivalrous servitor, as Anne had found good reason to assure herself during these wanderings. Each night she had softly sung a prayer, and Kombo, reverently listening, had made the Black's obeisance to Baiamè, the masonic sign taught young men when initiated into the Bora mysteries. Anne knew of those rites, which aboriginal tradition held that Baiamè himself had established when, in long past ages, he had descended as a great white man upon earth. When she had sung, Kombo would retire, and Anne would lay herself to sleep--the first night or two of their journey with her revolver clutched in her right hand close by her side, beneath the blanket. But after a little time she realised the magic power of her incantation, and the depth of Kombo's loyalty to his gods, and to the woman who he believed was their representative. She knew most surely that she had nothing to fear from Kombo himself, and also that his outpost camp was a protection against intruders, upon which she might safely rely. It gave her no anxiety to know that both her honour and her life were at Kombo's mercy, for she realised that they could only be assaulted across the boy's dead body. In her trustful gratitude to Kombo, Anne almost cried sometimes when she thought of the treachery which pioneering Whites had dealt to his race. She was certain that those savages they had ill-used would have been faithful, had they been taught by their conquerors the meaning of fidelity. When she thought of the dispossessed tribe dying out down south, killed by the very vices they had learned from Englishmen, her heart burned with indignation. Setting aside superstition, Kombo loved her and was true to her because she had been kind to him, had never scoffed at his traditions, nor had tried to force on him a religion which experience told him had, on the part of its professors, led to outrage upon the women of his race, and cruelty to its men. Kombo once told Anne of a certain squatter in the back blocks, who, when a camp of Blacks pitched their gunyas beside his water-hole, had called up the chief and palavered with him, telling him that the Whites wanted to make a feast for the Blacks, as it was Christmas Day, and that "a pudding like-it white man's Christmas pudding" should be made for them by the white cook, and given to the chief if he would take it down to the camp. The chief came, the pudding was given to him, and the next day nearly all the tribe was dead, for the pudding had been poisoned. Was it any wonder, she thought, that afterwards white men were speared from behind gum-trees, and that there were murders on the lonely stations?

Anne remembered this story now, and found in it a plea for black murderers. Then the realisation of the tragedy so near, came home to her, and she wept bitterly. Her kind old aunt, her young cousins; why had they, who had never wronged either Black or White, been chosen as expiatory victims for the wrongs civilisation had committed? She could scarcely believe, even now, in the truth of that grim story which Kombo had told her. She could not have credited it at all but for the horrible sight she herself had seen by the lagoon. Her brain was dazed, her senses numbed, the future was a blank. All her plans had been destroyed; she could think of nothing now, but that for the moment, her weary body had found a refuge in which she might lay herself down to sleep. Kombo came up presently with a billy full of water he had found in a hole among the rocks, and with the ration bags of tea and sugar. They had a segment of damper, baked the previous night, and this she ate greedily, not waiting for the billy to boil in order to wash it down with quart-pot tea.

Kombo chuckled benevolently at the sight of her hunger, and produced a bleeding lump of the snake's body which he laid on the embers to roast. It seemed to him that he had provided a delicious repast, to the merits of which his mistress had hitherto been insensible, but which now, in her need for food, she would surely recognise. He had never yet been able to persuade Anne to eat the blacks' favourite delicacy, snake; the easiest food procurable in the Bush. But even now Anne shuddered at sight of the dainty morsel, and bade him take it to his own fire.

"Mine got plenty more, Missa Anne," said Kombo. "That very good, altogether bujeri," and he smacked his lips in anticipatory relish, but Anne still refused the delicacy.

"Mine find-im bandicoot to-morrow," said Kombo, grieved that she should fare so ill, and took the bit of snake to his own camp, where he cooked and devoured it, while Anne ate her damper and drank her tea. Then she softly sang her little hymn, and bruised, tired, and sore, she stretched herself as she was, on her blankets, and slept long into the morning.