“What name you come along house belong me sun he go down?”

“Me Charley,” the man muttered apologetically and wearily.  “Me stop along Binu.”

“Ah, Binu Charley, eh?  Well, what name you talk along me?  What place big fella marster along white man he stop?”

Joan and Sheldon together listened to the tale Binu Charley had brought.  He described Tudor’s expedition up the Balesuna; the dragging of the boats up the rapids; the passage up the river where it threaded the grass-lands; the innumerable washings of gravel by the white men in search of gold; the first rolling foothills; the man-traps of spear-staked pits in the jungle trails; the first meeting with the bushmen, who had never seen tobacco, and knew not the virtues of smoking; their friendliness; the deeper penetration of the interior around the flanks of the Lion’s Head; the bush-sores and the fevers of the white men, and their madness in trusting the bushmen.

“Allee time I talk along white fella marster,” he said.  “Me talk, ’That fella bushman he look ’m eye belong him.  He savvee too much.  S’pose musket he stop along you, that fella bushman he too much good friend along you.  Allee time he look sharp eye belong him.  S’pose musket he no stop along you, my word, that fella bushman he chop ’m off head belong you.  He kai-kai you altogether.’”

But the patience of the bushmen had exceeded that of the white men.  The weeks had gone by, and no overt acts had been attempted.  The bushmen swarmed in the camp in increasing numbers, and they were always making presents of yams and taro, of pig and fowl, and of wild fruits and vegetables.  Whenever the gold-hunters moved their camp, the bushmen volunteered to carry the luggage.  And the white men waxed ever more careless.  They grew weary prospecting, and at the same time carrying their rifles and the heavy cartridge-belts, and the practice began of leaving their weapons behind them in camp.

“I tell ’m plenty fella white marster look sharp eye belong him.  And plenty fella white marster make ’m big laugh along me, say Binu Charley allee same pickaninny—­my word, they speak along me allee same pickaninny.”

Came the morning when Binu Charley noticed that the women and children had disappeared.  Tudor, at the time, was lying in a stupor with fever in a late camp five miles away, the main camp having moved on those five miles in order to prospect an outcrop of likely quartz.  Binu Charley was midway between the two camps when the absence of the women and children struck him as suspicious.

“My word,” he said, “me t’ink like hell.  Him black Mary, him pickaninny, walk about long way big bit.  What name?  Me savvee too much trouble close up.  Me fright like hell.  Me run.  My word, me run.”