Read Ebook: Steve Brown's Bunyip and Other Stories by Barry John Arthur Kipling Rudyard Contributor Lindsay Lionel Sir Illustrator

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Ebook has 1471 lines and 75960 words, and 30 pages

So, unperceived of Hassan Ali, who was fast asleep in the hot sunshine, or any of the rest dozing in the tents, Greg, plucking a wattle up by the roots to keep the flies off, sauntered quietly away. He was not impressed by inland Australia. In the first place it was hot and dusty, also the flies were even worse than in his native Ceylon. Nor, so far as he could discover, was there anything to chew--that is--no tender banana stems, no patches of young rice or succulent cane. All that he tried tasted bitter, tasted of gum, peppermint, or similar abominations. He spat them out with a grunt of disgust, and meandered on.

Presently the scrub grew thicker, and, heated more than ever by the exertion of pushing his huge body through an undergrowth of pine and wattle, he hailed with delight the sight of a big waterhole, still and dark, in the very heart of it. Descending the slope at the far side of the thickly-grassed, open glade, Steve Brown, driving a couple of 'lost' horses, paused in dismay and astonishment at sight of the immense beast, black, shining wetly, and sending up thick jets of water into the sunlight to an accompaniment of a continuous series of grunts and rumbling noises.

And then he laughed to himself as he saw how the loose horses, snorting with terror, galloped off one way, and the horseman another.

But it was getting late; so, coming out of the water, and striking a well-beaten pad, he followed it. Supper time was approaching, and he kept his ears open for the shrill cry of Hassan Ali.

Meanwhile Steve had made a bee-line on the spur for home, with some vague idea surging through his dull brain of having caught a glimpse of an Avenging Power. It is mostly in this way that anything of the sort strikes the uneducated conscience.

'What's the matter now?' asked his wife as he entered, pale, and with hurried steps. 'You looks pretty badly scared. Did the traps spot yer a-plantin' them mokes, or what?'

'Traps be hanged!' replied Steve. 'I seen somethin' wuss nor traps. I seen the bunyip down at the big waterhole.'

'Gam, yer fool!' exclaimed his wife, who was tall, thin, sharp-faced, and freckled, like himself. 'What are you a-givin' us now? Why, yer gittin' wuss nor a black fellow wi' yer bunyips!'

'Well,' said Steve, fanning himself with his old cabbage-tree hat, and glancing nervously out of the door, 'I'll tell yer how it was. Ye knows as how I dropped acrost that darkey's mokes when he was camped at the Ten Mile. Well, o' course, I takes 'em to the water in the scrub--you knows the shop--intendin' to hobble 'em out till such time as inquiries come this road. Well, jist as I gets in sight o' the water I seen, right in the middle of it, I seen--I seen--' but here he paused dead for want of a vocabulary.

'Well, thick-head, an' wot was it ye seed--yer own hugly shadder, I s'pose?' said Mrs Brown, as she caught up and slapped the baby playing with a pumpkin on the floor. 'Look better on yer, it would, to wind me up a turn o' water, an' it washin' day to-morrer, 'stead o' comin' pitchin' fairy stories.'

'It warn't,' replied Steve, taking no notice of the latter part of her speech. 'But it was as big--ay, an' a lot bigger'n this hut. All black, an' no hair it was; an' 't'ad two white tushes's, long as my leg, only crookt, an' a snout like a big snake, an' it were a-spoutin' water forty foot high, and soon's it seen me it bellered agin and agin.'

'You bin over to Walmsley's shanty to-day?' asked his wife, looking hard at his pale face and staring eyes.

'No, s'elp me!' replied Steve; 'not fer a month or more! An' yer knows, Mariar, as it aint very often I touches a drop o' ennythin' when I does go over.' Which was strictly true, for Steve was an abstemious rogue.

'Well, then, you've got a stroke o' the sun,' said his better-half, dogmatically, 'an' you'd best take a dose of salts at oncest, afore ye goes off yer 'ead wuss.'

With a scream the woman, snatching up her child, bolted into the bedroom, leaving Steve quaking in an ecstasy of terror, as Greg, spying the pumpkin, deftly reached in with his trunk and asked for it with an insinuating grunt.

But Steve, pretty certain that it was himself who was wanted, and that his time had come at last, tumbled off the stool and grovelled before the Unknown Terror.

Without coming in further, Greg could not get within a foot of the coveted article. To come in further would be to lift the house on his shoulders, so Greg hesitated.

For ten years--long ago in the days of his youth--he had been a member of the Ceylon Civil Service, and had learnt discipline and respect for the constituted authorities. Also, besides being chief constable of his fellows, he had been a favourite at headquarters, had borne royalty itself, and was even named after Governor Gregory. Therefore, hungry as he was, Greg hesitated about demolishing a house for the sake of a pumpkin; but Steve, now on his knees in the middle of the floor, with that curling, snakelike thing twisting and twitching before his eyes, knew less than nothing of all this.

Had he been able, he would doubtless have prayed in an orthodox manner to be delivered out of the clutches of the Evil One. Being unable to pray, he did the best he could, which was indifferent.

'Oh good Mister Bunyip,' he quavered, 'let's off this oncest, an' I'll takes them mokes back to the nigger. I'll give up them two unbranded foals as I shook off the carrier larst week, likewise the bag o' flour off his waggin. If yer'll go away, Mr Bunyip, I'll never plant nor shake nothin' no more. I won't--s'elp me! An' if yer'll go back quiet'--here the wall-plate began to crack, and Steve's voice to rise into a howl--'I'll promise faithful never to come next anigh yer waterhole over yonder to plant hosses.'

As he concluded, Greg, having at length jammed his big head in far enough to just reach the pumpkin with his trunk, withdrew, taking both doorposts with him.

'He's gone, Mariar,' said Steve, after a pause, wiping his wet face; 'but it wor the narriest squeak you ever seed. Took nothin', he didn't, only that punkin as was on the floor. Tell you wot,' as his wife came trembling out of the other room, 'we're a-goin' to shift camp. Neighbours o' that sort ain't ter be played with. Ain't it a wonder, bein' so handy like, as he never come afore? I knows how it was, now!' he exclaimed, a happy inspiration seizing him. 'It were all through them two larst cussed mokes! The feller as owns 'em's a flash blackfeller shearer. I had a pitch with him the night afore an' he reckons as how he'd just cut out ov a big shed on the Marthaguy. So I sez to myself, "You're good enough, ole chap, fer a fiver, ennyhow."'

'What's that got to do with it?' asked his wife softly, regarding the crushed doorway with affrighted face.

'Don't yer see? The bunyip's the blackfeller's Devil. Ole Billy Barlow tell'd me oncest as he seen the head ov one rise up out of a lagoon. I'll have to fossick up them mokes, Mariar, an' take 'em to that darkey straight away, afore wuss 'appens. S-sh, sh-sh! Wot's that?'

It was Greg, who wanted his supper badly, and was soliloquising at the other end of the hut. He had been down to a little fenced-in paling paddock on the flat, and, looking over, to his delight had seen a crop of maize, sweet and juicy and not too ripe, also more pumpkins.

But with the love of the law and the memory of discipline still strong in him, he had returned to ask permission of the owner--the stupid white man who sat in his hut and talked nonsense. And now he was holding council with himself how best to make the fool understand that he was hungry, and wanted for his supper something more than a solitary pumpkin.

Hassan Ali, he knew, had but dried hay and the rinds of melons to give him. Here, indeed, was a delectable change, and Greg's mouth watered as he gurgled gently in at the opening which did duty for a window, and close to which the family crouched in terror.

Why could not the stupid fellow understand? Could it be that he and his were deaf? A bright idea, and one to be acted upon, this last!

Therefore, carefully lifting up and displacing half the bark roof, Greg looked benignly down and trumpeted mightily until the hut shook as with an earthquake, and the whole land seemed to vibrate, whilst his audience grovelled speechless. Then, finding no resulting effect, and secure in the sense of having done his uttermost to make himself understood, he went off with a clear conscience to the corn-patch and luxuriated.

'It ain't no bunyip, Steve,' wailed his wife, as they heard the retreating steps; 'it's the "Destryin' Hangel" as I heerd a parson talk on oncest when I was a kid, an' that wor the "Last Tramp"--the noise wot shows as the world is comin' to an ind. It ain't no use o' runnin'. We're all agoin' to git burnt up wi' fire an' bremston! Look out, Steve, an' see if there's a big light ennywheres.'

'Sha'n't,' replied Steve. 'Wot's the good? If it's the end o' the world, wot's the use o' lookin'? An' I b'lieve 'ere's yer blasted Hangel a-comin' agen!'

Sure enough, Greg, having had a snack, was returning just to assure the folk that he was doing well; that his belly was half full, and that he was enjoying himself immensely.

All through the hot summer night he passed at intervals from the paddock to the house and back, and all the night those others lay and shivered, and waited for the horror of the Unknown.

Then, a little after sunrise, a long, loud, shrill call was heard, answered on the instant by a sustained hoarse blare, as Greg recognised the cry of his mahout and keeper.

And presently Steve, plucking up courage in the light, arose, and, looking out, shouted to his wife triumphantly,--

'Now, then, Mariar, who's right about the bunyip! There he goes off home to the waterhole with a black nigger on his back!'

DEAD MAN'S CAMP.

One lurid summer, in 1873, I was crossing over from Saint George's Bridge, on the Balonne, to Mitchell, on the Maranoa. I had been to a rush at Malawal, N.S.W., but as it proved a rank duffer, got up by the local storekeepers in a last effort to keep the township in existence, I made back again by 'The Bridge,' on chance of getting a job of droving with some of the mobs of sheep or cattle always passing through the Border town, bound south from the Central and Gulf stations.

Queenslanders will remember that summer, on certain days of which men were stricken down in dozens, and birds fell dead off the trees in the fierce heat.

There is no drearier track in Australia than the one I speak of--all pine-scrub, too thick for a dog to bark in, and the rest sand and ant-hills.

There was nothing doing just then in 'The Bridge,' so I pushed on for the Maranoa. It was only the beginning of summer, and I reckoned on finding water twenty-five miles along the track, at a hole in the Wullumgudgeree Creek, known of aforetime.

It was a dismal ride, with nothing but walls of close-set scrub on each side, and sand, heavy underfoot, and glaring ahead. Even the horses seemed to feel its influence as they ploughed along, heads bent down, coats black with sweat, and big clusters of flies swarming thickly at their leather eye-guards. Even one's own close-knit veil was but poor protection, for the pests gathered on it in such numbers as to almost obscure the sight. The flies and mosquitoes were a caution that summer. However, shogging steadily on, with a pull at the water-bag now and then, I at length reached the creek, dry as a bone where it crossed the road. But, following it down through the scrub, I found the hole, pretty muddy and fast diminishing. Nor was it improved by the dog and the pack-horse rushing into it and rolling before I could stop them.

The sun was setting, a big red ball, over the tops of the pines as I hobbled out, pitched the tent on one side of the round open space, lit a fire, and slung the billy. There was not bad picking for the horses, and as I belled the pack I fervently trusted they would not stray far in such a God-forsaken spot.

After supper--damper, mutton and sardines, washed down by tea, boiled, skimmed and strained three times before coming to table--I felt pretty comfortable, and lay down with my head on one of the swags to enjoy a smoke and fight the mosquitoes, who were beginning to sample freely. The sun had set, but the moon, big, yellow and hot-looking, hung in a hazy sky.

But for the buzzing of the insects and the snoring of the dog, fast asleep in a deep hole scratched in the sand, everything was very quiet. The thick scrub into which the horses had retreated deadened the sound of the bell.

Presently, however, evidently compassionating my lonely state, a little bird, after partaking of the remnants of my supper, came and perched on the ridge-pole of the tent, and piped forth at short intervals in a shrill monotone. 'Sweet, pretty creature! Pretty, sweet, little creature!' He was company of a sort, spite of his egoism. But there was other toward.

The flies had, ere this, gone to roost, but the mosquitoes were troublesome. They had also taken anticipatory possession of the tent. Burning some old rags, I cleared them out of that, fixed up the netting, and was preparing to turn in, when I heard the sound of hoofs coming thump, thump, down the dry creek bed. The dog, awaking, barked loudly, and in a minute or two a man and a woman rode into the bright firelight. They each had a big swag in front of them; and at a glance I saw that their horses were not only well-bred, but had come far and fast.

'Water!' exclaimed the man.

I gave him some; and he lifted the woman off and handed her the mug.

'We're travellin', mate,' said he, as I helped him to unsaddle. 'Got bushed atween 'ere an' the Maranoa. A bit o' damned bad country!'

He had not come from that direction at all; but in such a scrub all directions were much alike. And, anyhow, it was no business of mine. They had plenty of tucker, and I put the billy on again.

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