Our young friend, whose bush experience has not been lengthy enough to teach him to trust his steed rather than himself in such an emergency, now goes through the usual bewildering tactics of a new “hand.” One minute pushing on hurriedly, the next stopping to listen for Rupert’s bell, anon trying to retrace his steps, till he is completely lost, and as cold and miserable as he was jolly and warm half an hour before.
By-and-by the storm begins to withdraw from off the face of the sky like the black edge of a magic-lantern slide, and a patch of starlit heaven shows towards the east, shining all the brighter apparently for having had such a washing.
Claude now gradually makes out that he is close under a cliff, and strains his eyes into the darkness to see more; when, hiss! and the blackness before him is suddenly dissolved into fire. A blue-white column of flame has leapt from the cloud above and struck the earth close in front with frightful force, and everything around whirls into sparks, chaos, then silent darkness.
For, unconscious of the mighty crash of thunder that, like a thousand exploding shells, follows instantly upon the flash, Claude is lying stunned and bleeding beneath a tree against which his frighted steed has thrown him, on the other side of the valley to that where his camp amongst the rocks is situated.
“Thou hast said well; for some of you there present, Are worse than devils.”
Taking advantage of the storm whose parting fusillade has left Claude _hors de combat_ for the time being, Manager Browne’s “rounding-up” party, under the skilful generalship of Inspector Puttis and Sub-Inspector Morth, has completely invested the native village upon the rocky promontory.
It is made up of strange constituents, this murderous shooting party. Squatter J.P.’s are there; youthful “rouse-abouts,” some of these youngsters only a few years released from the sanctified thraldom of a Christian home in the old country; reckless, godless stockmen; a colonial legislator, who has made a name by howling for separation from England; and numerous blacks, oiled, naked, and anxious for their work to begin.
There, in the darkness, around the unconscious villagers, amongst wet, dripping rocks and slimy brushwood, crouches a bloodthirsty circle of Native Constables, naked, save for a cartridge-belt and a red band round the head, and armed with Snider carbines and tomahawks; and with them are a number of no less sanguinary white men.