Nemarluk Read online

  He walked on, alert for a wallaby. Game was scarce down here in this rocky canyon. He must seek food, and then a shelter place. He frowned at the grim mouths of the caves, he might have grim company should he enter there alone. No, he would seek shelter between two boulders, with his back to a cliff. Any possible enemy then could only approach over his feet. He would light a fire for company and sleep in that position.

  His dread of the coming night, his anxiety to find a secure camping place, robbed him of his cunning in seeking game. Black night fell. He lit a fire and crawled under an overhanging boulder.

  From far up the gorge came a whispering that grew into a hollow moaning with the night. Far up, he could see the rim of a cliff in starlight against a black sky. Black crags were there, and moving things that were the wind-blown branches of trees. Black monsters seemed to be leering down at him.

  From far up in the skies a big wind arose.

  Down through the canyon came a sighing and a shrieking. Nemarluk, crouching deep in the Valley of the Dead was alone with the spirits of the night.

  CHAPTER XVII

  TRAPPED

  After long hours, Nemarluk dozed into fitful sleep. A frightful crash, a thunderous roar striking the cliffs brought him to his feet. With beating heart he glared into blackness as thunder rolled down the canyon. Flame and a dazzling blue lit up crag and watercourse and cliff. The lightning vanished leaving Nemarluk dazzled. Then thunder crashed again, roaring down the canyon.

  Nemarluk ran. And a howling wind hastened his heels.

  He leaped into blackness and hurried on with trembling spears outstretched. Lightning followed him in and a skull grinned at him. Another grinned from a ledge higher up. Then blackness. Nemarluk had leaped into a burial cave of his people. On ledge after ledge their skeletons slept.

  Another flash, and he stared into living eyes, the eyes of old Wadjee the witch doctor. There crouching before him was the shrivelled form of the man who had betrayed him. Nemarluk drew a long breath, slowly getting over his fright. He did not hurl a spear. He dare not attempt to kill this witch doctor while he was here about his business with the dead. Nemarluk was glad of his unseen company, crouching in the darkness opposite.

  From outside came a new roaring as the storm broke in blinding rain. But the wind hurled the rain away. All night it shrieked in banshee voices moaning throughout the valley. It was a long, long night. In chill dawn Nemarluk crept out of the cave. The witch doctor had vanished.

  That day nearly brought a lingering death to Nemarluk. Hungrily, his eyes searched the rock ledges, the scrub patches that here and there grew along the canyon, for sight or sign or sound of a rock wallaby. He noticed fresh tracks on a patch of drift sand and hurried eagerly forward, spear fitted to wommera. The tracks led up along the bottom of a great crevice that split one wall of the canyon. On the moist sand among the boulders fresh wallaby tracks were plain. Nemarluk’s spear arm suddenly jerked back but the wallaby leaped to escape. Nemarluk ran up the dry watercourse leaping the boulders as he sought a chance for a running shot. He sprang on to a pile of driftwood and vanished to a crackling roar of falling stones dashing against rock walls. Crashing in water among falling sticks and stones, he leaped up waving frantic arms, stumbling to his knees as a stone fell upon his head. But for that thick mop of hair his skull would have been split. He staggered up again, gasping.

  The falling of debris had ceased. He saw a bright round hole up above, with far, far away a tiny circle of blue sky. He had fallen down a boil hole.

  In these mountain valleys sometimes a watercourse has its boil hole. That is where, in the rainy season, the water boils over a bar to pound a hole in a patch of soft rock. In this small hole a few hard stones collect. Next season the water pounds down, the swirling stones grinding the hole deeper. Season after season the hole grows deeper and deeper, the stones in it become ground away but other heavy stones are washed in and these in turn are swirled around and around, becoming smaller and smaller as the seasons pass. Their edges are ground away until they are as round as cannon balls. In the course of years such a boil hole may become surprisingly deep; it depends on the hardness of the rock, and whether the weight of the wetseason water still pours over the bar in exactly the same place.

  Nemarluk was trapped. “Like a dingo!” he snarled. He was in the bottom of a circular, very narrow well. But the bottom was considerably wider than higher up, for here the rock was softer and the pounding water and grinding stones of many years had cut out the bottom until this boil hole was the shape of a bottle. And Nemarluk was like an ant in the bottom of the bottle. Even he could not climb these smooth walls because of their overhanging shape. He glanced at the rubble floating around his knees. It was just a mass of rotten sticks and leaves. The storm of the night before had hardly touched this long crevice, only sufficient water had fallen down it to wash those sticks and leaves across the little round mouth of the boil hole.

  Nemarluk had been badly shaken. And each deep knife wound had broken open during his frantic struggle when falling. What made him really terrified was that he was weaponless. He had dropped his spare spears up above as he crashed while the one in his hand had been smashed on the rim of the hole as he fell through. He gazed up again, a terrible longing in his face. He knew it was hopeless. The witch doctor had gone—even if he would have helped him.

  Of all his many adventures, far too many to relate in this book, Nemarluk afterwards told me that being trapped alone down there was the experience which frightened him most.

  Especially at night. For it was very cold and pitch dark, just a little circle of faint light above. Sometimes he would gaze at a star like a twinkling gem of fire that seemed very close; gaze until his neck ached. Then he would sit with his knees under his chin, staring at his feet. He had made a heap of the stones and on these stacked the sodden sticks and fallen leaves. This pile reached just above the water and on it he sat. He dared not risk cramp. Although he could see nothing but death awaiting him he knew that his legs and feet must never fail him. When his neck was rested he would gaze up at the star again.

  The second night he was terribly lonely, for the wail of spirits was all around him, whispering in the voices of his fathers’ and of tribesmen long gone. It really was a light wind up on top.

  This wind sucking down the mouth of the boil hole seemed to the superstitious captive below to be the whispering voices of the many dead.

  On the morning of the fourth day he was squatting like a huge black toad. He had not quite given up hope. Something made him glance up ... his heart ceased beating, then it went “Thump! thump! thump!” The ugliest, the funniest, the loveliest thing was glaring down at him, a little black dwarf man in the brilliant ring of sunlight away above. Then, beside those humped shoulders, that ugly head, appeared the head of the ugliest old gin in the mountains.

  To Nemarluk’s burning eyes came the light of understanding, from his throat came a funny noise, the gladdest cry he had ever uttered.

  “Nemarluk!” came a shriek from above.

  Slowly Nemarluk stood up; he was very weak. “I’m trapped!” he called. And waited.

  Both heads disappeared. There came the sound of excited talk, the sweetest music to Nemarluk’s ears. Then the two grotesque heads appeared again.

  “Are you hungry?” shrilled the dwarf.

  Nemarluk laughed.

  “Catch!” shrilled a voice. Nemarluk held up his hands and down came the roasted leg of a wallaby. Nemarluk wolfed it as the heads disappeared.

  He stood there happily, gnawing the bone as a dog would gnaw it. After a long while he grinned; they were dragging a tree along. Slowly they did it, the little dwarf man and the crippled, ugly old gin. He could hear the long sapling dragging over sand, over rocks; could now hear them gasping. That sapling would have to be very long, it would be heavy to the two small ones. The two ugly heads appeared again.

  “Stand aside!” shrilled the dwarf. “Stand aside!” shrilled the gin.


  Then Nemarluk saw the butt end of a long, dead sapling appear over the hole. It began to creep down as they upended it. They clung to it as well as they could but they had to tip it almost upright to allow it to come down the little hole. Then its weight took it, Nemarluk heard two gasps, then two shrieks.

  “Look out!”

  And down came the pole with a rush. It reached to nearly the rim of the hole.

  “Wait a little!” shrieked the dwarf.

  Nemarluk waited, and presently heard them coming panting back. Then down the hole trailed thick strong vines roughly twisted.

  Nemarluk began to climb the pole. Only when on top did he realize how very weak he was. But his face seemed to become the face of a boy again. He laughed at them; thumped them on the back; shook them; made much of them. And they stood there rocking under his big hands, their funny faces twisted into distorted grins. They gazed up as Nemarluk laughed; laughed at them, at the cliffs, at the skies; then happily laughed at his spears still lying where they had fallen.

  Nemarluk. was alive again; was a boy again.

  The dwarf and the old woman stared at him in awe. But he shook them again, and their ugly faces crinkled into sympathetic grins. The dwarf drew himself up to his full tiny height, clutching his little spears. “You want the feel of a fire,” he said importantly; “she will light one for you while I hunt that you may eat.”

  And he strode away.

  The old woman grinned fearfully, then limped away and began gathering tinder. Nemarluk watched her as she crouched down twirling her firestick. The big chief’s heart warmed to this poor old thing. Long ago she had been terribly burned, she was almost shapeless. She was the faithful companion of the little dwarf; she looked after him and was very proud of him.

  She boasted of him around the camp fires of their tribe. He was a mighty hunter so she swore, a great man; she defied any woman to say there was a better man in the land. The little man loved to hear her speak of him so, his tiny chest would swell with pride. He would have protected her with his life, if need be. Nemarluk knew the queer hill tribe to whom these two people belonged. A tribe which lived just on the edge of the plains, and just within the first barrier of the ranges. Good hunters, these people, but a shy, timid tribe. Still, for ages past they had proved capable of holding their own among the craggy hills of their tribal grounds. But they preferred to keep to themselves, always seeking to avoid the surrounding tribes.

  Nemarluk spread out his limbs to the fire, although it was a warm day. Like all primitive people he loved fire. And now his limbs were stiff after those three days and nights down there in the cold hole. He laughed as he talked to the woman. She answered shyly, only glancing at him now and then from halffrightened eyes. Nemarluk the big chief was known to her people but it was rarely he had visited them.

  The dwarf returned in an hour’s time with a freshly speared wallaby draped around his neck. The old woman grinned her pride; she “knew he’d do it!” Nemarluk was hearty in his applause and the dwarf nearly fell over at such praise from the warrior chief. He slung down the wallaby with a grunt and the woman immediately set about cooking it. She simply spread out the coals and threw the wallaby upon it.

  Nemarluk’s nostrils quivered to the odour of the singed fur.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  THE DWARF

  That night Nemarluk lay at ease, close by the friendly fire. His wounds were dressed with goanna oil, kaolin, and soothing ashes, for the dwarf was an expert with wounds, and prided himself on being a doctor. He was good, too.

  With great care he had prepared these healing clays and ashes so as to separate the useless matter in them from the healing. He dressed Nemarluk’s wounds, working silently, a frown on his stubby little face; he was as painstaking as any doctor. The old woman was his assistant.

  Nemarluk lay back with a sigh. His body felt wonderfully rested, the burning was rapidly going from his wounds.

  The dwarf and his old woman friend were in the Valley of the Dead searching for herbs that only grew here. He explained how he had seen Nemarluk’s tracks and followed them up. He gave Nemarluk news of the police for even his tribe had been raided some time ago. “I faced them with my spears!” shrilled the dwarf.

  “Yu ai!” nodded the old woman.

  “I would have killed the white policeman had he not been so quick!” boasted the dwarf.

  “Yu ai!” agreed the old woman.

  The little man really had been brave. Constable Langton suddenly appeared before him in the steely light of dawn. The dwarf had really leaped up and threatened with shaking spear, the old woman glaring behind him. Langton had brushed the little man aside and carried on with the raid.

  “They had Chugulla on a chain,” said the dwarf. “Two white police were there, and Bul-bul and Tommy the tracker and other trackers l did not know. But Tiger’s men had gone two days before. They caught Tiger’s wife though and she told them Tiger’s Mob had killed the white men. She told them Tiger had gone to the Daly River for the ceremonies.”

  “The white police have caught them all now,” frowned Nemarluk.

  “So the smokes told us,” replied the dwarf, “but you can rest in peace. The white police are far away.”

  They were too. Constable Langton was hurrying on the return trip back to Darwin, by Timber Creek then the Katherine, a thousand miles of trackless country. He must beat the wet season. His prisoners were Tiger’s Mob, one of the toughest little bands of aboriginals that ever roamed the north. Twice they tackled him, even with steel upon their wrists they rushed him and tried to tear him to pieces. A thousand miles of anxiety and hardship in which even horses floundered and perished. But he got through.

  And Tiger was caged.

  The dwarf and the misshapen old woman stayed with Nemarluk three weeks. His wounds healed, quickly he became the Nemarluk of old. He admired the hunting prowess of the dwarf. The little man had the keenest eyes, the keenest hearing, the keenest scent. Nature had recompensed him for his tiny height. His little body was a ball of muscle and sinew, he could climb cliffs that the powerful Nemarluk could never have climbed; like a monkey he could work his way along a narrow ledge far up and spear the little cliff wallabies sheltering there. He could worm his way far into crevices in the rocks seeking his precious herbs, or the snake or furry little animal sheltering there; could vanish in a second upon ground on which it would seem a bird could hardly hide; could climb the tallest trees and creep out on branches that would break under the weight of an ordinary man.

  Nemarluk slowly realized that this despised little creature could do things he, a noted hunter, could not do. He would never have noticed it had he not been compelled to now lead an inactive life and depend on these two strange people. Ungrudgingly he praised them; and they loved his praises. Poor creatures, they had never had any one to praise them before.

  At night time the dwarf whispered fascinating stories. His eyes grew wide, he whispered very earnestly while the old woman listened and stared at Nemarluk’s face. Nemarluk listened intently, never smiling, for he had heard of some of these things before.

  “I am a giant!” hissed the dwarf, “a giant bigger than you, as the messmate is to the shrub. I am a terrible giant to all the tiny people. But they like me. Sometimes I meet them. They come to me, they show me things, they talk in funny ways.” And he hissed, with tiny, quick little hisses, then with laughing little hisses.

  “Yes,” he whispered, “they laugh just like we laugh and their faces all crinkle up. They grow very angry too, then they look ugly. Some are no bigger than your finger. They have their little women too, the little women have lots of hair—as much as you have on one eyebrow.”

  And so the dwarf would tell them of the fairy people he met, here in the Valley of the Dead and in distant places as well. Tiny people who lived in the cracked walls of caves deep within the cliffs. Little people who came out into the sunlight or moonlight on ledges high up, to laugh and play and pop back into the cracks like a baby ’roo i
nto the pouch of its mother.

  Nemarluk, now he was strong again, grew very restless.

  Far away in the lagoons the crocodiles were lying; the plains, where the huntsmen had burned the dry grass, would now be carpets of green; the turtle were stirring deep down in the now moistened mud. For the early storms had come, the wet season was almost upon them, the patrols would have vanished until after the wet. A fierce longing seized Nemarluk for An-demallee camp and the fires of his people. One morning the strange three passed down the Valley of the Dead and on among the foothills, the long strides of Nemarluk growing so eager that the two little people behind him had to run to keep up. They came out on to the plains to see green clouds in the distance—the trees and foliage surrounding the swamps.

  The heart of Nemarluk was singing. With a boyish laugh, though regretfully, he turned to farewell the two who had been and would still prove to be faithful friends. The frowning little dwarf and the old crippled woman were nearly crying. Nemarluk would leave them now, for his home was far away towards the coast. They must turn back into the foothills where their people were already congregating in the caves that would give them shelter throughout the wet season.