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The Land of the Hibiscus Blossom




(1888)
Country of origin: Australia Australia
Available texts by the same author here Dokument


XXXVI. White Gods.

   "ARROWS poisoned, and too far in; white man will not live."
   This was the verdict given by three of the elder women as they rose up after examining the Professor, whom they had laid upon the aft-deck with his hair mattress under him, while the younger females and children stood round with sympathetic faces.
   "Take out the arrows, and let us try what we can do."
   "No, he will die at once if the arrows are pulled out; him live till to--morrow this time if they are left in."
   They were slowly steaming up the river while this consultation was going on, the natives completely at their ease with their white friends, and eager to carry the surprising news of a victory over their old enemies home, along with the great strangers who had come to help them.
   Killmann they had not seen before, and regarded him as an outsider. It was towards Collins and Hector that their hero-worship was extended, whom they regarded with their repeating rifles to be invincible.
   There are no gods in New Guinea, yet here was something which came as nearly up to their ideal of what the immortals should be as their materialistic instincts permitted them to entertain.
   The savages in the gully they had left behind still leaping about the water's edge and shouting out their blind impotent rage, the arrows which they sent off striking harmlessly against the plated sides or falling short of their mark into the stream.
   "Plofesley no bling back Nigley," observed John, gliding up to the group and speaking softly over the heads of the girls.
   "By Jove, you are right, John," said Hector with a start, as they remembered, for the first time, the Greek.
   "Where is Niggeree?"
   The Professor opened his languid eyes at this moment, and gasped out, "Water!"
   They ran for a pannikin of water from the cabin, and, adding a few drops of brandy, brought it and held it to his lips, which, after he had drunk, seemed to revive him.
   "Niggeree!" he murmured.
   "Yes, where is he?"
   "Dead."
   A silence fell over the group, then the Professor continued in a low whisper, with many a pause,--
   "We went up the gully till we came to a vast cavern, into which we penetrated. It was pitch dark, so that we had to carry lighted sticks--a gloomy cavern of vast circumference, and seemingly without a termination, filled, as we advanced, with noxious gases, which made us feel as if intoxicated. Niggeree had the only box of vestas with him, and went on in front. After going about half a mile we both fell over a ridge where the ground seemed to recede under our feet, and our lights were knocked from our hands and all was blackness.
   "I shouted to Niggeree to give us another light, but he did not answer me, and for a few moments I lay on the ground listening and waiting for him to speak. Then, in front of me, I heard the muffled rumbling and roaring of a mighty cataract, which seemed to have its termination far underground.
   "At last I could bear no more suspense, but crept forward, feeling in front of me with my hands; then all in a moment I found myself half hanging over the edge of a precipice, with nothing to grasp at before me.
   "It was so black that I could see nothing, only feel the cold damp mist floating up from that vast abyss, with a deadly feeling as if millions of tons of water were gliding silently before me--how far off I could not say--millions of tons, sinking pronely down, down, thousands of feet into that everlasting darkness.
   "A mighty horror chained me to that spot, so that I could not draw myself back, but lay feeling as if years had passed away since last I saw the daylight, and that eventually I must be sucked into that awful gulf, and no one ever know more of my doom than I did of Niggeree's.
   "My mind, also, even while thrilled with the horror, seemed to be hard at work forming a hypothesis of the cause of this gulf and the former depressions in the rock over which I had stumbled, so that while I was lying in all this hell of icy fear I seemed, also, to be travelling over the countless centuries which had already passed, and to feel the water rolling over me as I lay at the bottom of the dried-up basin into which I had first fallen--a period when the rocks above projected over where I was lying, and the torrent rushed into the cavern from the mountains above and formed an outlet down the valley.
   "Then the upper ledge becoming thinner by the constant wear, and finally breaking off, or by an internal convulsion being split along with the earth in front of me, shifting the position of the fall while it swallowed it up, leaving the cavern and gully outside dry.
   "At last I seemed to wake up from my frozen stupor to a burning desire to escape; or was it that I felt myself drawn back by strong hairy claws, with which I fought, and at length threw from me? I cannot say, for my mind seemed utterly unstrung as I madly sprang back in the direction we had taken, and fled with a thousand horrors behind and around me.
   "There were some fissures which crossed our path in the coming, but I did not think upon them as I rushed along, and somehow chance aided me in my leaps, for I must have crossed them by accident.
   "I panted as I ran, and it must have been my own hot breath returning upon me from the near proximity of the rocks, which I at times struck against, but it seemed to my excited imagination as if I was pursued by demoniac figures, who blew their steaming breath against me, while clutches were made at my shirt and hair from behind as I ran.
   "At length I saw daylight filtering grim and grey as it reflected upon the sides of the rocks nearest, and much of my fear departed--my foes also, if there were any, seemed to drift back into their congenial darkness and leave me alone. Another turn, and the gully spread before my eyes bathed in the ever-blessed sunshine of God, through a framework of rocks and rope-like roots which dropped from above.
   "I was free, and a great flood of gratitude filled my burning brain like rose-coloured flames, as, beside the headless body of a great snake which Niggeree had shot at the entrance, now growing putrid, I flung myself down and gabbled out loudly my incoherent thanks."
   The Professor's cheeks glowed with fever spots, and his dark eyes blazed, as he recited his weird experiences, so that he seemed to forget his weakness, as the words came with fewer pauses and louder as he went on; but now he made a longer pause, and seemed unable to go on.
   "So that's the wind up of Nig the bold, is it?" observed Collins, holding up the pannikin to the dying man's lips.
   Killmann slowly nodded assent as he drank.
   "It is good for you that you could remember some prayers up there."
   "Why so?" retorted the Professor.
   "Because it always becomes a man to be thankful for benefits received, and I hope ye didn't forget to put in a word or two while at it for our poor mate, who had no time to do the job himself."
   The Professor did not reply, but shut his eyes as if tired out.
   "Where did ye meet the savages?"
   "Not far from the mouth of the gully. I had come out of the dry watercourse and was wading through the stream, when my first intimation was this arrow in my left shoulder--my shirt had been torn from me in my passage through the cave. I turned about to see a vast number sliding down the steep sides of the hill, and holding on to limbs of trees, and ran on, shooting backwards as I went. It was just before I met you that I received the second one into me; then I can remember no more."
   "Bad wounds they are, Professor," said Collins still wishing to prepare the wounded man for his end.
   "Not so bad--not fatal."
   "I don't like to say much, Professor."
   "But I feel easier now--bah, I have been wounded before as seriously."
   "Not when your blood was in such a heat; hardly so deep, and I doubt if ever by the same kind of weapon."
   "Ah, now I know; are they poisoned?"
   Collins only looked down without replying.
   "My God! am I to die like a poisoned rat, and with none of my work in order--hardly begun?" shrieked out the wounded man, in an agonized tone, while the women looked on with pitiful eyes.
   "But, sir, there are some still left alive amongst my destroyers. Where is my revolver?" and he pointed savagely at the group of friendly natives with one hand, while he felt about his empty belt with the other.
   As he snarled out the words, they all turned about as if to leap overboard in their fear, when Collins stopped them.
   "Hold hard, friends, he can't hurt you, for he has no weapon; and you, sir, if you want to die easy, keep still, as they have been good friends to you."
   "No dark skin can be a friend of white men."
   "Can't they though, keep your mind easy, we have punished your enemies pretty well, and these people are taking us home out of kindness."
   Killmann breathed hard as he lay back, but said nothing more on the subject, and in a few moments afterwards permitted one of the women to come over and sit beside him.
   They had reached a portion of the river where it made a sharp turn, and ran through a long valley with sloping banks and broad green grass--fields.
   Native pathways led through the fields and down to the waterside over to a thick plantation, where at last they could see the welcome tops of banana-trees.
   "Let me go on shore and tell my people that the strangers are our friends," said one of the natives, as the anchor was dropped over the bows. So giving him some presents to take to his chief, they sent him off, the women and children still staying with them.
   In a short time they heard the loud sounds of drums, while from the plantation came a band of men, women, and children, following the chief, who strode on in front unarmed, and displaying lively symptoms of joy; their friends had been singing the praises of their great deeds of daring and the victory which they had won.
   Hector and Collins met them on the banks, and made the usual signs of friendship observed throughout the west; then the chief took their hands and welcomed them as benefactors.
   "Welcome, great white strangers, with your fire bamboos. Stay and help us to kill all our enemies."
   They all went through the gardens and villages, finding little difference between the arrangement of houses there and those upon the Fly River; only that they were mostly new, and some as yet unfinished, as they had lately returned to this part of the country, having been driven away the former season by the hill-tribe, and the old place destroyed.
   That night there was a great feast, celebrated with a native dance, and many impromptu songs delivered in honour of the White Gods who had come amongst them. The fires were lighted on the banks of the river so that the Nora shone out brightly, on the deck of which they sat with the chief and looked on at the performers, as they danced in their feathered head-dresses and sang.
   One of the young girls who had come aboard in the afternoon still hovered about near to Hector, with whom she had made great friends; a pretty young maiden of about sixteen, who showed her preference with the open candour of a widow of forty-five.
   In the shadow of the galley they both sat together and talked, while Collins and the old chief smoked gravely on the open deck full in the warm firelight.
   Some of the wise women of the village had taken the Professor under their charge, and were now busy upon him with their soothing herbs, and muttering charms.
   Before they went to sleep, they had arranged a grand walloby hunt for the next day.
   Professor Killmann had been deeper struck than even they at first feared, and that night kept them all awake with his ravings.
   His body was swelling rapidly before they came to anchor, and the old chief no sooner saw him than he said calmly, "He will die before the sun comes up," and went on to discuss the arrangements for the morrow as if that matter was settled and need no longer be talked about.
   All through the night the fires were kept up on shore, while the natives kept coming and going, sometimes with messages from the old women who acted as death-bed attendants, or moving about the deck and engine--house, touching things out of curiosity.
   Collins sat smoking or dozing off close to the mattress on which the dying man was laid, while Hector, tired out with his courting and unaccustomed gallantry, had laid himself down on the cabin sofa where he now lay sound asleep, while his dusky inammorata took her place calmly on the floor beside him, to look after and watch the awakening of her own special white god.
   "Blast me, if that err wench won't make another Joe of my mate, if he don't look out; none of them ever bother me."
   Collins had come in to mix himself some grog, when he saw this picture of connubial-like repose.
   When he reached the deck the Professor was re-acting the scenes of the day which had so fatal a termination.
   "Hands off, you thief," he shouted. "It's all mine--gold--gold! No, I will not give you a penny-weight. Ah! you will have it?--where is he?--God, what a gulf."
   "Strikes me, somehow, the Professor hasn't given us his yarn quite complete," murmured Collins, stroking his jaws with his hand as he meditatively stood looking down and puffing slowly.
   "I guess he knows more about Nig's death than he is willing to say. No odds, his score will be all wiped off the slate soon now. I wish I could remember something suitable for the occasion, even a grace might do for want of anything better."
   But Collins could not recollect even a grace to do service over this dying sinner.
   A picture of pathetic gloom, this man of culture and scientific enthusiasm dying like a dog, without being able to command a prayer at this last dark hour. On the deck he lies, raving out suggestions of past blood-guiltiness, with classical reminiscences of old college days, or formerly built up arguments for his theories, ever and anon coming back to that hour of gold lust and the after-time of horror.
   The crowd of natives squat or lounge about with perfect indifference to his recollection or wealth of words, and only Collins tries to pick out some thread of information regarding the fate of Niggeree.
   Hector woke up next morning as the daylight began to dawn, and cast rather a sheepish eye upon his companion, who quietly rose as he stirred and prepared to accompany him on deck.
   "Pletty comfortably last night, skippel?" blandly inquires the Chinese cook and steward, as he glides about, putting things to right. "Bely pletty wifely you hab got now; me get mallied also befole we leab."
   "How is the Professor to-day?" inquired Hector, ignoring the other's inuendo.
   "He jist about finishly up his plofessleyship. Will you hab yurl bathly firstly or your coffee?"
   "I'll take coffee, and go up to see him; bring it to me?"
   "All right, skippel; Misely Hector will help you, pelhaps, to bathly aftelwalds."
   Mrs. Hector, as John described her, seemed prepared to help the young man in anything;--prepared for every extremity, in fact, except that of losing sight of him; as he went up the little companionway she glided after him like his shadow.
   The dying man lay on his side, where he had been propped so that the arrows might not touch against anything; his hollow eyes wandered over the distant hills which terminated this fertile valley, through which this broad river wound about like a silver-grey ribbon. The light was pulsing up over the sky, and rapidly bringing life to this sleeping landscape as it was ebbing away from Killmann. He knew now that he was dying, and, like the brave explorer that he was, had accepted the inevitable calmly, if not with resignation.
   "Bury me here, for it is the fairest spot that I have yet seen in this adopted land, and it is mine by right of discovery; you will remember that if ever dispute arises--my discovery."
   "Yes, Professor," said both the men.
   "Call this river the Albert River, and write over my grave, 'Discoverer of the Albert River;' you promise to do this?"
   "We do."
   "Thank you;--my steamer and specimens take on to Thursday Island, they are all addressed and catalogued as I went on, and my diary is pretty complete; you have only to deliver them over to Government as they are, and I leave you to tell the manner of my death----"
   A long pause, as if the Professor was struggling with his feelings, and trying to brace himself up to say more. They waited patiently for his next words. At last they came, abruptly and hurriedly,--
   "Good-bye, my two friends, and forgive me if you can; I would have killed you as I killed Niggeree yesterday, if I could have done it; I threw him over the precipice, although I did not know it was there, we quarrelled about--the----"
   The Professor stopped, while his head suddenly fell forward on his chest as the sun lifted its upper rim over the hills.


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