CHAPTER FORTY ONE.
HOW JIMMY HEARD THE BUNYIP SPEAK, AND IT ALL PROVED TO BE "BIG 'TUFF."
I Need not recount what passed just then. But few words were spoken,and there was no time for displays of affection. One black had seen andpursued Jimmy, and others might be on our track, so that our work wasfar from being half done even now.
"Can you walk, sir?" said the doctor sharply.
My poor father raised his face toward the speaker and uttered someincoherent words.
"No, no; he has been kept bound by the ankles till the use of his feethas gone," said Mr Francis, who had remained silent up to now.
"Can't walk--Jimmy carry um," said the black in a whisper. "Don't makenoise--hear um black fellow."
"You are tired," said the doctor; "let me take a turn."
Jimmy made no objection, but bore the gun, while the doctor carried myfather slowly and steadily on for some distance; then the black took aturn and bore him right to the place where our black followers werewaiting, and where Jack Penny was anxiously expecting our return.
"I thought you wasn't coming back," he said as Jimmy set down theburden; and then in a doleful voice he continued, "I couldn't do that,my back's so weak."
But Ti-hi and his friends saw our difficulty, and cut down a couple oflong stout bamboos whose tops were soon cleared of leaves and shoots.Two holes were made in the bottom of a light sack whose contents wereotherwise distributed, the poles thrust through, and my poor fathergently laid upon the sack. Four of us then went to the ends of thepoles, which were placed upon our shoulders, and keeping step as well aswe could, we went slowly and steadily on, Mr Francis taking the leadand acting as guide.
Our progress was very slow, but we journeyed steadily on hour afterhour, taking advantage of every open part of the forest that was notlikely to show traces of our passage, and obliged blindly to trust toMr Francis as to the way.
It was weary work, but no one seemed to mind, each, even Jack Penny,taking his turn at the end of one of the bamboos; and when at last themorning broke, and the bright sunshine showed us our haggard faces, westill kept on, the daylight helping us to make better way till the suncame down so fiercely that we were obliged to halt in a dense part ofthe forest where some huge trees gave us shade.
Mr Francis looked uneasily about, and I caught his anxious gazedirected so often in different directions that I whispered to the doctormy fears that he had lost his way.
"Never mind, lad," replied the doctor; "we have the compass. Our way issouth towards the coast--anywhere as long as we get beyond reach of theblacks. No, don't disturb him, let him sleep."
I was about to draw near and speak to my father, in whose carewornhollow face I gazed with something approaching fear. His eyes wereclosed, and now, for the first time, I could see the ravages that thelong captivity had made in his features; but, mingled with these, therewas a quiet restful look that made me draw back in silence from wherethe litter had been laid and join my companions in partaking of suchfood as we had.
Watch was set, the doctor choosing the post of guard, and then, lyinganywhere, we all sought for relief from our weariness in sleep.
As for me, one moment I was lying gazing at the long unkempt hair andhead of him I had come to seek, and thinking that I would rest likethat, rising now and then to see and watch with the doctor; the next Iwas wandering away in dreams through the forest in search of my father;and then all was blank till I started up to catch at my gun, for someone had touched me on the shoulder.
"There is nothing wrong, my lad," said the doctor--"fortunately--for Ihave been a bad sentry, and have just awoke to find that I have beensleeping at my post."
"Sleeping!" I said, still confused from my own deep slumbers.
"Yes," he said; "every one has been asleep from utter exhaustion."
I looked round, and there were our companions sleeping heavily.
"I've been thinking that we may be as safe here as farther away,"continued the doctor; "so let them rest still, for we have a tremendoustask before us to get down to the coast."
Just then Jimmy leaped up staring, his hand on his waddy and his eyeswandering in search of danger.
This being absent, his next idea was regarding food.
"Much hungry," he said, "want mutton, want damper, want eatums."
The rest were aroused, and, water being close at hand in a littlestream, we soon had our simple store of food brought out and made arefreshing meal, of which my father, as he lay, partook mechanically,but without a word.
The doctor then bathed and dressed his ankles, which were in a fearfullyswollen and injured state. Like Mr Francis, he seemed as if his longcaptivity had made him think like the savages among whom he had been;while the terrible mental anxiety he had suffered along with his bodilyanguish had resulted in complete prostration. He ate what was given tohim or drank with his eyes closed, and when he opened them once or twiceit was not to let them wander round upon us who attended to him, but togaze straight up in a vague manner and mutter a few of the native wordsbefore sinking back into a stupor-like sleep.
I gazed at the doctor with my misery speaking in my eyes, for it was sodifferent a meeting from that which I had imagined. There was nodelight, no anguished tears, no pressing to a loving father's heart. Wehad found him a mere hopeless wreck, apparently, like Mr Francis, andthe pain I suffered seemed more than I could bear.
"Patience!" the doctor said to me, with a smile. "Yes, I know what youwant to ask me. Let's wait and see. He was dying slowly, Joe, and wehave come in time to save his life."
"You are sure?" I said.
"No," he answered, "not sure, but I shall hope. Now let's get on againtill dark, and then we'll have a good rest in the safest place we canfind."
In the exertion and toil that followed I found some relief. Myinterest, too, was excited by seeing how much Mr Francis seemed tochange hour by hour, and how well he knew the country which he led usthrough.
He found for us a capital resting-place in a rocky gorge, where, unlesstracked step by step, there was no fear of our being surprised. Herethere was water and fruit, and, short a distance as we had come, thedarkness made it necessary that we should wait for day.
Then followed days and weeks of slow travel through a beautiful country,always south and west. We did not go many miles some days, for theburden we carried made our passage very slow. Sometimes, too, our blackscouts came back to announce that we were travelling towards some blackvillage, or that a hunting party was in our neighbourhood, and thoughthese people might have been friendly, we took the advice of our blackcompanions and avoided them, either by making a detour or by waiting inhiding till they had passed.
Water was plentiful, and Jimmy and Ti-hi never let us want for fruit,fish, or some animal for food. Now it would be a wild pig or a smalldeer, more often birds, for these literally swarmed in some of the lakesand marshes round which we made our way.
The country was so thinly inhabited that we could always light a fire insome shut-in part of the forest without fear, and so we got on, runningrisks at times, but on the whole meeting with but few adventures.
After getting over the exertion and a little return of fever from tooearly leaving his sick-bed of boughs, Mr Francis mended rapidly, hiswound healing well and his mind daily growing clearer. Every now andthen, when excited, he had relapses, and looked at us hopelessly,talking quickly in the savages' tongue; but these grew less frequent,and there would be days during which he would be quite free. He grew somuch better that at the end of a month he insisted upon taking his placeat one of the bamboos, proving himself to be a tender nurse to ourinvalid in his turn.
And all this time my father seemed to alter but little. The doctor wasindefatigable in his endeavours; but though he soon wrought a change inhis patient's bodily infirmities to such an extent, that at last myfather could walk first a mile, then a couple, and then ease the bearersof half their toil, his mind seemed gone, and he went on in a strangelyvacant wa
y.
As time went on and our long journey continued he would walk slowly bymy side, resting on my shoulder, and with his eyes always fixed upon theearth. If he was spoken to he did not seem to hear, and he never openedhis lips save to utter a few words in the savage tongue.
I was in despair, but the doctor still bade me hope.
"Time works wonders, Joe," he said. "His bodily health is improvingwonderfully, and at last that must act upon his mind."
"But it does not," I said. "He has walked at least six miles to-day asif in a dream. Oh, doctor!" I exclaimed, "we cannot take him back likethis. You keep bidding me hope, and it seems no use."
He smiled at me in his calm satisfied way.
"And yet I've done something, Joe," he said. "We found him--we got himaway--we had him first a hopeless invalid--he is now rapidly becoming astrong healthy man."
"Healthy!"
"In body, boy. Recollect that for years he seems to have been keptchained up by the savages like some wild beast, perhaps through somereligious scruples against destroying the life of a white man who waswise in trees and plants. Likely enough they feared that if they killedsuch a medicine-man it might result in a plague or curse."
"That is why they spared us both," said Mr Francis, who had heard thelatter part of our conversation; "and the long course of being keptimprisoned there seemed to completely freeze up his brain as it didmine. That and the fever and blows I received," he said excitedly."There were times when--"
He clapped his hands to his head as if he dared not trust himself tospeak, and turned away.
"Yes, that is it, my lad," said the doctor quietly; "his brain hasbecome paralysed as it were. A change may come at any time. Under thecircumstances, in spite of your mother's anxiety, we'll wait and goslowly homeward. Let me see," he continued, turning to a littlecalendar he kept, "to-morrow begins the tenth month of our journey.Come, be of good heart. We've done wonders; nature will do the rest."
Two days later we had come to a halt in a lovely little glen throughwhich trickled a clear spring whose banks were brilliant with flowers.We were all busy cooking and preparing to halt there for the night. Myfather had walked the whole of the morning, and now had wandered slowlyaway along the banks of the stream, Mr Francis being a little furtheron, while Jimmy was busy standing beside a pool spearing fish.
I glanced up once or twice to see that my father was standing motionlesson the bank, and then I was busying myself once more cutting soft boughsto make a bed when Jimmy came bounding up to me with his eyes startingand mouth open.
"Where a gun, where a gun?" he cried. "Big bunyip down 'mong a trees,try to eat Jimmy. Ask for um dinner, all aloud, oh."
"Hush! be quiet!" I cried, catching his arm; "what do you mean?"
"Big bunyip down 'mong stones say, `Hoo! much hungry; where my boy?'"
"Some one said that?" I cried.
"Yes, `much hungry, where my boy?' Want eat black boy; eat Jimmy!"
"What nonsense, Jimmy!" I said. "Don't be such a donkey. There are nobunyips."
"Jimmy heard um say um!" he cried, stamping his spear on the ground.
Just then I involuntarily glanced in the direction where my fatherstood, and saw him stoop and pick up a flower or two.
My heart gave a bound.
The next minute he was walking slowly towards Mr Francis, to whom heheld out the flowers; and then I felt giddy, for I saw them comingslowly towards our camp, both talking earnestly, my father seeming to beexplaining something about the flowers he had picked.
The doctor had seen it too, and he drew me away, after cautioning Jimmyto be silent.
And there we stood while those two rescued prisoners talked quietly andearnestly together, but it was in the savage tongue.
I need not tell you of my joy, or the doctor's triumphant looks.
"It is the beginning, Joe," he said; and hardly had he spoken when Jimmycame up.
"Not bunyip 'tall!" he said scornfully. "Not no bunyip; all big 'tuff!Jimmy, Mass Joe fader talk away, say, `where my boy?'"
CHAPTER FORTY TWO.
HOW I MUST WIND UP THE STORY.
It was the beginning of a better time, for from that day what was likethe dawn of a return of his mental powers brightened and strengthenedinto the full sunshine of reason, and by the time we had been waiting atTi-hi's village for the coming of the captain with his schooner we hadheard the whole of my father's adventures from his own lips, and how hehad been struck down from behind by one of the blacks while collecting,and kept a prisoner ever since.
I need not tell you of his words to me, his thanks to the doctor, andhis intense longing for the coming of the schooner, which seemed to bean age before it came in sight.
We made Ti-hi and his companions happy by our supply of presents, for wewanted to take nothing back, and at last one bright morning we sailedfrom the glorious continent-like island, with two strong middle-aged menon board, both of whom were returning to a civilised land with thetraces of their captivity in their hair and beards, which were as whiteas snow.
Neither shall I tell you of the safe voyage home, and of the meetingthere. Joy had come at last where sorrow had sojourned so long, and Iwas happy in my task that I had fulfilled.
I will tell you, though, what the captain said in his hearty way overand over again.
To me it used to be:
"Well, you have growed! Why, if you'd stopped another year you'd havebeen quite a man. I say, though I never thought you'd ha' done it; 'ponmy word!"
Similar words these to those often uttered by poor, prejudiced,obstinate old nurse.
To Jack Penny the captain was always saying:
"I say, young 'un, how you've growed too; not uppards but beam ways.Why, hang me if I don't think you'll make a fine man yet!"
And so he did; a great strong six-foot fellow, with a voice like atrombone. Jack Penny is a sheep-farmer on his own account now, andafter a visit to England with my staunch friend the doctor, where Igained some education, and used to do a good deal of business for myfather, who is one of the greatest collectors in the south, I returnedhome, and went to stay a week with Jack Penny.
"I say," he said laughing, "my back's as strong as a lion's now. How itused to ache!"
We were standing at the door of his house, looking north, for we hadbeen talking of our travels, when all at once I caught sight of whatlooked like a little white tombstone under a eucalyptus tree.
"Why, what's that?" I said.
Jack Penny's countenance changed, and there were a couple of tears inthe eyes of the great strong fellow as he said slowly:
"That's to the memory of Gyp, the best dog as ever lived!"
I must not end without a word about Jimmy, my father's faithfulcompanion in his botanical trips.
Jimmy nearly went mad for joy when I got back from England, dancingabout like a child. He was always at the door, black and shining asever, and there was constantly something to be done. One day he hadseen the biggest ole man kangaroo as ever was; and this time there was awallaby to be found; another the announcement that the black cockatooswere in the woods; or else it would be:
"Mass Joe, Mass Joe! Jimmy want go kedge fis very bad; do come a day."
And I? Well, I used to go, and it seemed like being a boy again to goon some expedition with my true old companion and friend.
Yes, friend; Jimmy was always looked upon as a friend; and long beforethen my mother would have fed and clothed him, given him anything heasked. But Jimmy was wild and happiest so, and I found him just as hewas when I left home, faithful and boyish and winning, and often readyto say:
"When Mass Joe ready, go and find um fader all over again!"
THE END.
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