Dunk Island (Qld.); Natural history -- Australia -- Dunk Island (Qld.)
After deliberate and impressive silence it was announced by moody Yan-coo
that Wylo's heart's blood had been restored, whereupon that hero rose to
his feet sound and well though lean.
No word of anger or complaint passed Wylo's lips the while he regained
normal strength and gaiety. With frank ardour he resumed his sketchings
and flirting with old-time success. He actually modelled the grossest of
debils-debils for the piccaninnies and impaled all the vital parts with
grass darts, while the piccaninnies broke into open jeers at Yan-coo, for
the spell of the debil-debil had been destroyed.
Such outrages upon the craft of the sorcerer could not be tolerated. But
Wylo watched Yan-coo, and one night as he strolled out of the camp Wylo
followed with that light-footed caution and alertness significant of his
artistic perceptions. Wylo carried a great black-palm spear fitted into
a wommera with milk-white ovals of shell at the grip.
Yan-coo went straight to his surgery. Once more he prepared the
death-bone. Every detail of the unholy rite was performed with
determination, for he had abandoned all remorse.
As he pointed the death-bone towards the camp where, as he supposed, Wylo
rested, that hero cast his spear. He was strong. He had the sure eye of
the artist, the vigorous hate of a black.
When they found Yan-coo next morning he was still kneeling on one knee,
for the polished spear had impaled him, and, sticking six inches into the
ground before him, kept him from falling. With his chin on his left
shoulder and his right hand still retaining the string of the death-bone,
he had died as unconscious of the hand of the artist as the artist had
been primarily of his wizardry.
White folks heard of the, "murder." Wylo was apprehended and put on
trial. The solemn and upright judge could not learn the true facts of
the case, since the witnesses were incapable of intelligently stating
them. Wylo, who had promptly confessed to the crime in the terms, "Me
bin kill 'em that fella one time--finish," but who was denied the right
of explaining that Yan-coo had been prosecuting designs against his life
quite as effectual as a spear, and that Yan-coo had been "justifiably
killed," was sent to gaol for several years.
Constraint was dreadful to him, and the sorest trial which he endured was
the suppression of artistic longings; but he made pictures, he tells me,
everywhere--"alonga wind, alonga cloud altogether, alonga water, alonga
dirt, alonga stone." They were mostly imaginative, but to his mind, in
fine frenzy rolling, they were soothing and real. He made pictures out
of airy nothing, and gloated over them with his mind's eye. No power
other than that which had bestowed the breath of life could subdue the
beneficient mania that exalted his soul.
Wylo, is at the camp, sketching, flirting, and modelling fearsome
debils-debils for a new generation of hilarious piccaninnies.
THE END
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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