The Germ Growers: An Australian story of adventure and mystery by Robert Potter (best historical fiction books of all time .txt) 📖

Jack suggested that he and I and Gioro should all go together and visit his tribe.

Gioro hesitated for a little while, but after some apparently careful thought he said yes, he thought we could go.

After that we often talked it over with him, learning from him what we could about the disposition of his tribesmen towards white men, and about the distance of the triennial meeting-place of the tribes. It was quite impossible to say how far or how near this [50] meeting-place might be; and on this depended in my judgment the practicability of the scheme. But at least, I thought, if the black fellows were friendly we might, under Gioro’s guidance and protection, see a good deal of strange life and return home in a few days by the way we came. As far as I could gather, Gioro was the only one of his tribe that had ever seen a white man, although they had often heard of them, and curiosity rather than fear seemed to have been for some time the dominant feeling about them. But quite lately, for some reason or other, their fear began to exceed their curiosity.

The cause of this change was evidently something that had happened in the far west; some encounter with white men as Jack and I thought at first. But we had reason afterwards, as you will hear, to think that we were mistaken.

One evening I said to Gioro, “When did you see your people last?” He looked at the stars, and I knew he was going to be exact. Then he said, “One year.”

“Did you tell Bomero then about the white men?”

“Yes, tell Bomero. Bomero never see white man.”

“What did Bomero say?”

“Bomero say, white man all same dibble dibble.”

“But Bomero never saw dibble dibble?”

[51] “Yes, Bomero saw dibble dibble one, two, three, two two, two three, great many.”

“Where?”

“Far away west.”

“Where black fellows meet every three years?”

“More far.”

“Bomero saw white men, not dibble dibble.”

“No fear, Bomero saw dibble dibble and run away. Bomero run away from no man, black man, pigtail man, white man; but Bomero run from dibble dibble.”

“Did any black fellow but Bomero see dibble dibble?”

“Yes, two three black fellow, more, all run away.”

“And what like was dibble dibble?”

“White man all same dibble dibble.”

That was all I could ever get out of him on the subject.

I spoke to Mr. Fetherston about our purpose of going westward with Gioro. He shook his head very gravely. “Well, Easterley,” said he, “if you will be guided by me you will do nothing of the sort. You see we know next to nothing of those north-west blacks, and if you go it is even betting that you never come back. If you get, say, a hundred miles west of here you will be entirely dependent on the blacks. You [52] will have to live among them, and to live as they live, if they let you live at all.”

“But we have our compasses and the telegraph line.”

“That would be all very well if it were a country through which you could make a ‘bee line.’ But you will want water and food, and you cannot get either without the help of the blacks.”

“But,” said I, “Gioro will come back with us.”

“Gioro is a very good fellow, but if I were you I would not put myself altogether in his hands like that. He won’t understand your anxiety to get away; he will think you are very well as you are. His interest in his own people will make him careless about you.”

“But I know Gioro well, and I should trust him anywhere.” So said I, and Jack eagerly agreed with me.

“But,” said Mr. Fetherston, “Gioro may die or may be killed; they fight a great deal, and those who have been among white men are often subject to special enmity.”

“I expect we shall have to chance that,” said Jack. “Any of us may die or be killed.”

“Well, gentlemen, wilful men you know—— I don’t pretend to any right to constrain you, only let it [53] be fully understood that if you go, you go against my wish and in defiance of my advice.”

We agreed that everyone should know that, and so the matter dropped.

The road was now growing very difficult, the water scarcer, and the timber very much denser. But we pushed on little by little from day to day. We were ascending slowly the watershed between the north and south, and we had left behind us the last point to which the wire had yet been carried, when one morning Mr. Fetherston, after a specially careful observation, announced that within three days we might expect to meet the superintendent’s party from the north, if all had gone well with them. The same afternoon Gioro took me aside, and told me that he meant to start the day after the next in search of Bomero and his people. We had come, he said, to certain landmarks that he recognised. The tribe would be already on the march, and he was confident that he could pick them up by following the water until it crossed their track. Next day was not Sunday, but we made a Sunday of it. We camped early, the Union Jack was hoisted, and Mr. Fetherston, the officers and volunteers, with one guest selected from the men in charge of the teams, sat down to dinner together. The man selected was [54] a bushman of great and well-known experience, and, like Mr. Fetherston, he had been with Stuart on one or more of his exploring expeditions. I guessed from his presence that Mr. Fetherston intended that I should before the evening was over state my intention of going westward. Accordingly, when dinner was over and as we were about to light our pipes, I said before them all,

“Well, Mr. Fetherston, my friend Wilbraham and I are going to leave you for a few days at least. We propose to go westward with Sir Gioro, in order to see something of the aborigines. We may be back within a week, but we may push on with the blacks into the interior, and perhaps we may make for the north-west or west coast.”

Mr. Fetherston turned to the man of whom I spoke just now and said:

“Well, Tim, what do you say to that?”

The man turned to me and said: “I didn’t quite catch all you said, governor. Would you mind saying it again?”

I repeated what I had said. “Well,” he replied, “it has been a main wet season out north, that I can see, and if you don’t go more than forty or fifty miles from the track you may get back within a week safe [55] enough.” He paused for a moment, and looked me steadily in the face, and went on—

“But, governor, if you go for the second part of the programme you’ll never see a white man again.”

“Why so?” said I.

“Well,” said he, “you are depending on Gioro. Now Gioro is a good fellow, far the best black fellow I ever knew by a very long way. And my best hope for you is that Gioro will take you back once he has had a look at his people. He will, if he knows what will happen as well as I know it.”

“And what will happen?” said I.

“Well, they’ll kill Gioro before he has been very long among them. Sooner or later they always kill the blacks that have been among white men.”

“And then,” struck in Jack, “I suppose they will kill us.”

“They may and they may not. You have ten times a better chance that Gioro. But if they don’t you will be as good as their slaves for life. You won’t be able to get back unless they take you back, and they will never take you back.”

“Suppose we start to return on our own account?”

“Well,” said the man, “if you are not more than forty or fifty miles to the west of the wire when you [56] make the start eastward, and if you are able to make straight for the wire you may get back. But if you are much further away, or if you have to go a long way round you’ll die of thirst or hunger in the bush.” I noticed that he put thirst first.

“And, mind,” he went on, “the chances are that you will be three times fifty miles to the west before you think of turning back.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s easy enough to travel with the blacks, easy enough for men of your sort, men that are hardy and are up to larks. The blacks know how to get food and water and fire, and you can live while in their company. It’s only when you leave them that you will be done for.”

Here Jack chimed in again. “Never mind,” said he, “Mr. Easterley and I are going to try it, win or lose. Besides, after what you have told us, I wouldn’t let poor ‘Jo’ go alone. We’ll save him and he’ll help us.”

The answer came slowly. “Jo is your trump card, certainly ... and your only one.”

Then Fetherston spoke. “Gentlemen, if I were your master I should absolutely forbid you to go, but I have not the right to interfere with your liberty. [57] But I am glad that you have had the benefit of Mr. Blundell’s experience.” (Mr. Blundell was Tim.) “His opinion and mine coincide exactly.”

“Well,” said I, “Mr. Fetherston, we will be careful and we will bear in mind your advice, and I think it is on the whole most probable that you will see us back within the week.”

“Possible,” said Jack.

They all looked very sober then, and nothing more was said on the subject, and indeed little on any subject until the company broke up.