CHAPTER XII.

THE WHANGA.

After the terrible time he had passed through on the side of the precipice, when he and death had looked so sternly in each other's face, George's sleep was disturbed that night. Awful dreams, in which he was again swaying, at the end of the bridle strap, above the ravine, haunted his slumbers and drove away his rest. Once he had awakened himself with a shriek, and had sprung up with the sweat of terror bursting out upon him, as in his dream the straps had broken, and he had fallen through the depths of space. The cry also awakened Alec and Murri, who were sleeping by his side near the little fire they had made, for the air was very cold at night upon the mountains at the height at which they were.

Murri, who lived in life-long dread of ghosts, _debil-debils_, and evil spirits, was trembling with superstitious fear. He thought the cry had proceeded from the awful blackness round them--for the sky was overcast and the night was very dark--and cowering down he flung fresh wood on to the fire and made a cheerful blaze. Even Alec and George were glad of its bright companionship, for though they feared no invisible visitant it was eerie and wild on that lone mountain side, with the starless night sky above them, and a black stillness all around.

They sat talking for some little time before they lay down to sleep again, glad to hear each other's voices, and to feel the fellowship of living waking men in that dark, awe-inspiring silence. George encouraged Murri, and told him that there was nothing to fear, that there was nothing there, just beyond the fire light, as the superstitious black believed. Murri had crept quite near to him, and, casting many a terrified glance around him, had told him in a low whisper, and in tones of fear, that he knew there was nothing there; and then, with that simple poetry of thought that all savages seem in some degree to possess, he added that what had alarmed him was that the darkness itself had stirred, and was moving towards him.

"That is a grand idea and a terrible one, isn't it?" said George, turning to his brother. "To make a sort of personality of the very darkness. I believe superstition is catching, for I can myself almost believe that I see the blackness moving."

"Geordie, you are ill," said the matter-of-fact Alec. "I am sure you are, or you wouldn't talk such nonsense. Blackness moving! indeed, it is just a _draught_ of it you want."

"Come a bit nearer the fire," said the boy, with a little uneasy laugh at himself. "I can't see you, and it is rather gruesome and grim to feel alone."

"I wish you could go to sleep, I am sure you are overdone," said Alec, quietly and kindly, looking earnestly in his brother's too bright eyes. "We will make a halt here to-morrow, and give you a thorough rest."

"Oh, no, not that; Alec, I can't bear to wait. We seem to have lost so much time already. Let us get on."

"What is the hurry?"

"It is just the gold and nothing else. Ever since we started it has been dazzling me and dancing before me. I can see nothing else, and think of nothing else."

"And I have been the same," said his brother, with little merriment. "When I have been silent and you have thought me tired, my mind has been busy making pictures of the gold and what it will procure us."

"It is terrible, isn't it? We were quite happy before."

"Yes, and shall be again when we have got this business off our minds. I don't want heaps of money; all I wish for is to find enough to clear off the debt from Wandaroo, and start again a free man, owing no one anything."

"What a nuisance money is after all. Look at Murri there, sound asleep again already, without a penny to bless himself with, and yet perfectly happy and free from care."

"Yes, a noble sight! A thoughtless savage, without a care for to-morrow, and snoring like a hog."

"And I vote we follow his example as quickly as possible. So good-night, old miser."

"Good-night, young avarice."

Pulling their blankets up to their ears, and settling their heads more comfortably on their saddles, they fell asleep again, and this time they slumbered on till dawn without disturbance.

The descent on the other side of the pass, although difficult enough, presented none of the dangers that the ascent had done the day before, and the little party accomplished it quite early in the day. They now found themselves in a strange land of mountains and valleys, little narrow gullies of rock without a tree or shrub about them, and hills covered so thickly with luxuriant bush and tropical vegetation as to be quite impassable for the horses. Everything was so different from the country round Wandaroo, that they might have been dropped down in another world.

It was evident that the terrible drought which the whole country had suffered from on the other side the mountains had not prevailed here, for trees and bushes, grasses, ferns, and flowers, were green and flourishing, and were running wild with that wanton luxuriance that a tropical sun engenders in a land where rain is frequent. Down some of the valleys little streams were flowing, a rare sight for Australia, and in one or two places the boys saw, for the first time in their lives, silvery cascades of water dashing and tumbling from the heights above to the clear basins below, into which their waters poured.

It was by the side of one of these streams that they had made their mid-day halt, and had cooked in his skin the young bandicoot that Alec had shot in the morning. The boys were now so excited at the thought that at last they were approaching the scene of their labours that they did not make so long a halt as usual. This did not so much matter, as the feed for the horses by the side of the stream was plentiful and good. At last, in the early afternoon, they made their way through a chaotic mass of rocks at the foot of a great grey mountain, and rounding his grand shoulder, that for some time had shut out their view of what was in front, Murri sang out--

"Missa Law, you _mil-mil_" (see) "mountain like um tooth. That fellow, Tooingoora, Whanga along o' that fellow other side. Mine bail _pitnee yarroman_ go there this day. One more sleep. _Yarroman_ go along o' that fellow plenty much picannini _ingin_." (I don't think the horses can get there to-day. One more night. Horses get there soon after baby sun, or sunrise).

"Oh, let us push on, Alec," said George, impetuously. "It can't be very far, and we can perhaps get there to-night."

"It won't be any use if we do, for it will be nearly dark, and we could not do anything. But let us try; I am every bit as anxious as you are to reach the valley. Geordie, do you know I believe I should die of sheer disappointment if we find nothing."

But Murri was, as usual in these matters, quite right. They could not manage to get to the valley before sunset, though they did their best to do so. They had to camp that night with still a few miles between them and the fateful valley.

Long before sunrise next day the boys were astir. They could not rest after the first call of the laughing jackass in a neighbouring tree had told them that dawn was at hand. They were too excited at the thought that at last the day had dawned which might see them rich, rich beyond their wildest dreams, with gold enough to pay off the odious debt on Wandaroo, and more, much more, besides. It almost seemed to them, with the Whanga gully so near, that they held the gold already.

"Oh, never mind breakfast, Alec, do let us get on. A hunch of damper will do for me. I am not hungry."

"Neither am I, or I don't feel it if I really am, but I am going to make a good breakfast, and so are you, young sir, so don't make a fuss. We have a day's work before us, and it may be a hard one."

It did not take them very long to get the tea and food ready, for they had made their fire over night, against a log of wood, and it had smouldered till morning. It is always advisable to do so when camping out, as it then is not necessary to feed the fire through the night.

After an hour's ride through country that was similar to that which they had passed over the day before, they had rounded the mountain, which Murri had said was Tooingoora, and at last they reached the opening in the hills which the black boy said was Whanga. The boys' hearts beat high as they looked up the valley which had been so constantly in their thoughts, and with flushed, eager faces they turned their horses' heads towards the entrance to it.

"Geordie, I declare that now I am here, I am almost afraid to go in. I know it is idiotic, but I am so nervous that I can hardly stay in the saddle."

"Get off and sit on the ground then," said George, with a little laugh, for now that the time was at hand, when they must learn the best or the worst, he was much the calmer of the two.

"I suppose we shall put the worth of our venture to the test within the next hour. What shall we do if we find nothing after all?"

"Go home again, I suppose," said George, with more calmness than he really felt. "We shall not be a bit worse off than we were before, at any rate."

"No, but we shall have suffered a great deal all in vain, and my disappointment will be none the less keen because we are none the worse off than before."

"You, at any rate, will be worse off than before, old boy, for your hair is half burnt off, and nearly all that fascinating moustache singed away," said George, lightly. Nearly everything had a comic side to it for him, and seeing Alec so gloomy and desponding he tried to cheer him up.

"How can you talk in that careless way of what is so important to us all?"

"To hide what I really feel," said Geordie, quickly, and looking round with a face that was serious for a moment; and then he added, as though to alter the impression his almost involuntary confession had made, "It is no use being down in the mouth _before_ we find we have come in vain, so let us be cheerful till then."

"Oh, I could be cheerful enough if I knew for a certainty that we had come on a fool's errand. It is only this anxiety and uncertainty that I cannot bear."

The Whanga valley, the entrance to which the party had now reached, was a narrow opening, between two great spurs of Tooingoora, which ran back for a mile or two till it ended in a precipitous mass of rocks at the very foot of the great mountain itself. The opening to this valley, which at its beginning was a mere rocky defile, was between two bold crags, the bases of which were clothed in dense green bush, but the summits of which were bare rocks of dazzling white quartz, that reflected the sunlight brilliantly. There was a stream flowing noisily down the centre of the valley, tumbling over the stones and boulders that blocked its course in many tiny cascades. The scenery was very impressive and grand, looking up the narrow defile, for the hills on either side of it rose in huge broken cliffs, throwing the greater part of the valley into deep shadow; but, where in one place it widened out, and a clump of tall _quandang_ trees grew beside the stream, the sun flooded it with brilliant light that fell upon the gleaming, flashing water, making it shine like burnished silver, and mellowing the warm tones of the rocks. Beyond all this, filling up the whole end of the valley, rose the great mass of the mountain high into the clear blue sky, its great white crags of quartz shining like fields of snow or ice upon its hoary summit.

The gorge--it can hardly be called a valley--was very far from level; it rose steeply from the entrance all the way to the end of it, so that riding along it was not at all easy. Murri pointed out in several places signs of the recent presence of _myalls_, but as there were no camp fires to be seen in the gully, and as he thought the traces were several days old, he said that he believed "black fellow go away two, four days."

The boys grew very silent as they approached the head of the valley, where they knew the hole was that the nugget had been taken from. Even George, for all his light-hearted gaiety, was quiet, and rode along with his eyes steadily fixed upon the end of the valley and his jaw squarely set, in a way that made him resemble Alec more closely than ever. Over country of the wild, rocky sort, of which the valley consisted, it is always the best plan to leave your horse to choose his own way, and both Murri and the boys followed this method.

The black boy, who was ignorant of the object of the long journey they had taken, and did not trouble his head to think why they should have travelled so far to see the Whanga, was the merriest of the party. He had no terrible anxiety about finding the gold to trouble him, and as he had plenty to eat and plenty of "toombacco" he was as happy as the day was long. He was singing a long, monotonous _corroborree_, with an appreciation of his own efforts that was very delightful to witness, occasionally interrupting it to shout at the horse he was leading, or to call out something to the boys, who were ahead.

For some little time they had heard a dull, roaring noise in front of them, and as the boys approached the head of the valley, the air was shaken by the heavy sound of a fall of water, but they could see no cascade that could account for it. When the party was within a very short distance of the great cliff in which the gully ended, Alec pulled up his horse, turned round and said to Murri, who was slapping his naked thigh in time to the song he was singing--

"Murri, whereabouts um hole where Black Harry find um 'heavy stone'?" which was the name the blacks had given to the nugget that Harry had worn.

"Yo go on along um picannini creek, other side along o' that fellow," answered he, making a sweep with his arm and indicating a great buttress of rock which projected into the gully, and round which the stream, "um picannini creek," was flowing. "Mine believe plenty much water fill um hole like along o' that time picannini Murri come along o' Whanga," added he, carelessly.

Alec's heart sank as he understood what Murri meant. He remembered that he had told him, at the camp at Wandaroo, that when he was there before, with his tribe as a little lad, the pool was full of water. Alec had hoped that it would be all dried up after the long drought they had suffered, and, notwithstanding the stream which flowed down the valley, he had trusted to the last that the water might not be flowing through that one particular pool.

"Geordie," said Alec, catching his brother up, "we must be prepared for the worst. Murri says that he believes the hole is filled with water, just as it was when he was a picannini and came here."

As he spoke they all rounded the great abutting rock, and saw before them a grand cascade of shining water falling in one huge column from the cliff, and plunging, amidst sheets of silvery spray, into the deep rock basin at its foot.

Murri ceased his _corroborree_ for a moment, and pointing to the foaming pool said in the most unconcerned manner--

"That's um hole yo come see. Yo like um?"