CHAPTER XVII.

LEAVING THE VALLEY.

For an instant the two lads lay where they had stumbled together on the bank, but the next they sprang to their feet and rushed to the edge of the cliff, and kneeling down looked over. For a few seconds the roar of the great volume of escaping water and the heavy rolling of the rocks and stones borne along in its current boomed in their ears, but this soon ceased, and only the usual noise of the falling cascade could be heard. The pool could not be refilled, as the opening on the far side of it had not been closed up again, and through this gap the stream flowed out into its old, worn channel.

Four of the _myalls_ lay dead and mangled among the stones beneath the fall, and the body of one lay jammed across the opening in the rocks, through which the water flowed, with his long black hair streaming in the current like a dusky weed. One man only remained alive, and he was bruised and cut and bleeding. He was dragging himself slowly and with difficulty out of the rushing stream, and was evidently so badly hurt that he could hardly stand.

"Oh, Alec, isn't it awful?" said Geordie, with a shudder, as he looked down. "And to think that we have killed those five men."

"It was in self-defence; they would have murdered us without hesitation."

"Yes, I know. But I wish I were at home; I have had enough of death."

"Let us go down and see what we can do for the one fellow that is left."

So saying, the boys descended from the cliff. Both of them were greatly affected at the work they had had to do in self-defence; they were not hardened to the sight of death, and to have thus swept five strong men from life into the black and unknown sea of death was very terrible to them. George, who was more emotional than his brother, was very pale; the intense excitement and enormous physical strain that he had undergone in the last few moments had quite unnerved him. He could hardly walk, but he made a determined effort and pulled himself together. Perhaps what did more to restore him to his usual state, than his own determination to be himself, was the sight that he and Alec saw as soon as they reached the foot of the cliff.

The one half-stunned _myall_ that was still alive had managed to get out of the stream, and was hurrying, as fast as his wounded condition would let him, towards the valley, and close behind him was Murri in full pursuit with _waddy_ in hand. They could see at a glance that Murri meant killing this man. They both of them shouted at the top of their voices to stop him, and, rather to their surprise, he stood still. He probably thought that Alec and George wished to kill the man themselves, for as Alec came up to him he handed him his _waddy_, and said--

"Along um side o' head, bail um top, yo hit him."

All that Alec vouchsafed in reply was--

"Get out of the way, you brute; I am not going to kill the man."

It was very evident that the _myall_ thought very much the same way as Murri, for as Alec and George caught him up, just round the bend of the gully, he turned on them savagely like a wounded animal at bay, meaning to sell his life as dearly as possible. The ground was covered with sand and loose shingle just there, for after storms the swollen stream swept over it. The Wyobree was a plucky fellow, for although badly hurt and weakened by loss of blood, by great drops of which, indeed, he could be traced all the way from the waterfall, he showed a bold front, and manfully offered fight. The boys could not help admiring his savage valour as, thus weakened, he stood up to his two foes.

The lads could see that they would be unable to make him believe they meant him no harm, so, not giving him time to strike a blow, they sprang on to him from both sides at once and easily overpowered him. He struggled and kicked and fought as long as he could, but the boys held him down without difficulty until Murri came up, whom they made tell the _myall_ that they would not hurt him.

"What must we do with the creature now that we've got him? I can't see why you didn't let him quietly sneak off," said George.

"If we had not caught him he would have been home in no time, and we should have had the whole tribe on to us before we knew where we were."

"But we don't want to take home prisoners of war as well as plunder," said Geordie, with a nod of his head towards the end of the gully where the gold was.

"I know we don't, but we will keep this gentleman--pretty fellow, isn't he?--till we have caught the horses and are quite ready to start, and then we can let him go."

"In the meantime we'll take him to the humpie and bandage the poor beggar's head up. That cut would have knocked most men over, but these black fellows do stand pain wonderfully. Come along, old ugly," said Geordie, putting his hand under the man's arm and helping him to rise.

Between them, and followed by the wondering Murri, they led the _myall_ to the humpie, and George, who felt all right again directly that there was anything for him to do, managed to tie up the gash on the side of the man's head, from which a great stream of blood was pouring. He was not particularly clever at that sort of work, and the bandage was doubtless a clumsy one, but it stopped the bleeding, and that was the main point.

The utter ingratitude and treachery of these Australian _myalls_ were shown very brutally by this fellow whilst George was doing what he could for him. Having dropped one of the strips of the flannel shirt he had torn up for bandaging, Geordie stooped to the ground to pick it up, and the _myall_ instantly aimed a deadly blow at the back of his head with a short, heavy _nullah_, which the boys had not removed from his girdle, and which he snatched from his thigh. But Alec, who was standing by his left hand side, saw the movement of his hand, and before the blow could descend he had struck the man to the earth with one blow of his fist.

"You infernally ungrateful brute!" he shouted, livid with passion at the dastardly fellow.

"Good gracious, Alec, whatever's the matter?"

"Why, this black demon tried to beat your brains out the instant you stooped down. I believe Murri is right after all. I've a good mind to put a bullet through his wicked head."

"Oh, no, you haven't. Loose him, Murri," for that worthy fellow had pounced on him and was nearly throttling him with his hands. "You know what they are well enough; they are born and bred and live in treachery and cunning. They are like dingoes or snakes in that respect."

"Yes, and deserve equally to be shot with those beasts."

"But they are men, remember."

"Well, I wouldn't lay another finger on him if I were you. Let the brute bleed."

"Very well," said George, composedly, sitting down, for he knew perfectly well that he only had to wait a minute for Alec to cool for him to think very differently.

After a moment or two had passed without a word from either, during which the _myall_ sat sullenly and silently with the blood flowing from his wound, Alec said, in rather an ashamed voice--

"I say, Geordie, we can't let that beggar bleed to death."

George sprang up with a glad face.

"I knew you thought so. I only said 'very well' because I was sure of it, and because I can't bear to act as though I thought I were a better fellow than you, old man. Come on, give us the bandage."

George very soon had completed his surgical work, and the wounded man sat without offering to move hand or foot, having failed in his one attempt at vengeance.

"Give him a billy of water to drink, and then tie his feet together with this strap and his hands behind his back, so that he can't get away whilst we are catching the horses."

Murri carried out Alec's instructions, tying the knots with much vindictiveness, grumbling to himself all the time that it would be better to kill the fellow at once and save all this bother. The antipathy that all partly civilised Australian natives feel for those that are still quite wild and savage is one of the strangest results of their progress, and it was this feeling on Murri's part that prompted him to urge the killing of the _myall_ upon the boys.

Leaving the wounded man safely bound in the humpie and in the care of Como, who had returned from the hiding-place to which he had flown at the approach of the _myalls_, the boys and Murri went down the valley in search of the horses. It took them some little time to find them, for, although they all were hobbled, they had managed to ramble to a good distance, and having been without work for the last week or ten days, and having had plenty of good feed all the time, they were all rather wild and difficult to overtake. It would have taken them a much longer time had not Alec caught a glimpse of Amber, and calling to him by name the docile animal recognised his voice, and came shambling up to him as quickly as his shackled feet would let him move.

Alec took the hobble from the horse's feet, having first put on his bridle, which he had brought with him for the purpose, and lightly sprang on to Amber's back.

"Hurrah! I feel I am myself again now that I have a horse between my legs. I've never been so long without mounting a horse since I first learned to ride."

"Don't sit grinning there, then, but just head the other horses round towards the end of the gully and let me have one too."

Alec Law could ride a horse bare-backed almost as comfortably as he could a saddled one, and he cantered off after the other horses, sitting erect and graceful as easily and naturally as though his feet were in stirrups. Geordie looked after him admiringly as he rode along in the sunshine; he might fairly have compared him with those Greek horsemen who live for ever in the marble of the Parthenon frieze had he ever seen or known anything of those most beautiful and gracious of riders, but, unfortunately, he was quite ignorant of them and of Greek art, too, so the opportunity for a beautiful simile was lost.

As the three other horses were all hobbled, Alec easily overtook and turned them, and a short time after Amber had given himself up to his proud servitude they were all bridled and led to the humpie. There the boys tied them up whilst they completed their preparations.

There was little to be done in the way of packing, for their luggage was of the scantiest description, and nearly all the carefully hoarded provisions were exhausted. Still, there were the nine shot bags of gold to be tied up somehow and secured to the saddles of the horses, for although the pack saddle was almost empty they could not load the one horse with all the great weight of gold.

"I'm blessed if I know what to tie up the mouths of these bags with. Here is every one of them gaping and showing his golden teeth, and we can't carry them like that," said Geordie.

"Oh, here's the infant Solomon at fault at last!" said Alec, addressing an imagined audience. "I am glad that there is some one thing you have forgotten, most sapient brother; I don't feel quite so small as I should have done had you remembered everything we wanted, down to bits of string. Nay, be not thus cast down," he went on, theatrically, for his spirits had risen to a high pitch again now that things were successful once more. "What a pity that the lovely Murri doesn't wear stays, we might have used the laces."

"The infant Solomon, as you cheekily call him, is himself again," said Geordie, with a sudden laugh, as Alec's words suggested an idea to his quick wit, "and thus he reasserts his supremacy over Alexander, the dullest of his subjects." And then, as Alec did not understand him, he explained, "The _myall's_ kangaroo sinew girdle, you old muff."

Returning to the humpie for the purpose, they took the unfortunate captive's girdle from him without the least hesitation and returned to the fall. They had taken the dead bodies of the men from the water and laid them in the shadow of the cliff, and all of them still had their belts on, but a strange feeling, they did not quite know of what, prevented the lads from robbing the dead.

The tough sinew which they obtained by untwisting the _myall's_ belt answered their purpose admirably, and with it they succeeded in securely tying and sewing up the mouths of the bags. They loaded the pack-horse with six of these precious little sacks, and secured one on to each of the other horses. The rest of their packing, when this most important part was finished, only took them a few minutes, and, taking a last look round to see that they had left nothing behind them, and as a sort of farewell to the place where so much had happened to them, they mounted their horses. Before they left the humpie for the last time, they untied the _myall_, who had never once moved from the position in which they had placed him, and told him he might go. Looking half ashamed of himself, as young folk do if detected in a kindness, Alec gave the black fellow a strong knife that he always carried with him, and said apologetically to Geordie as he did so--

"I know it is silly of me, but you know I was such a brute to the fellow just now."

George had pretended not to see what his brother was doing, but when he spoke to him he said,

"Don't make excuses, old fellow. Give him what you like. We're taking thousands of pounds worth of gold away with us, and I can't help feeling a bit that it is their property somehow."

The _myall_ said nothing as he took the knife, and hardly deigned to look at it; but the last thing the boys saw of him, as they rounded a bend in the valley, was that he was carefully examining his new possession.

The sun was high in the heavens, for it was some time past noon, as, laden with the gold they had come to seek, and in the gaining of which they had endured so much, they left the Whanga valley. Ten days before this they had ridden into the valley worse than penniless, because so much in debt; and now they were leaving it with gold enough to pay off all they owed and to put the run in thoroughly good order.