XXXIV.— SPECTRALIA 332 XXXV.— THE VOYAGE CONTINUED 350 XXXVI.— BROOLYI 359 XXXVII.— NOOLA 376 POSTSCRIPT 419 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ RIALLARO ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration] RIALLARO ------- INTRODUCTION THE MYSTERIOUS SHOT “DEAD, for a ducat, dead,” roared Somm, as he shouldered his gun and rushed to the beach. Nothing had come within reach of shot all afternoon till, in the thickening twilight, a flash of broad wings in the distance awakened our camp. “A wounded albatross,” shouted both my companions, as they peered through the shuttling grey of the evening, and watched the south wind, still wild with the force of storm, shepherd some baffled creature of wings up towards our nestling-place. “Some still stranger bird,” I thought, as we seized our guns and ran to the edge of the cliff. The sudden descent of night checked further question; and as the winged thing gleamed along the face of the precipice, three shots echoed across the sound, and, in a lull of the fitful gusts, we heard a dull plunge in the water far below. It seemed but a few minutes till we met Somm in the rocky hollow that was the harbour for our boat; he had rowed out and back, and was leaning over some dark object that lay in the stern. Not a sign of feather or anything that gleamed was there about it. It was the form of a human being, apparently dead. We bore it up through the bush with the tender care that diggers are wont to give to the corpse of a comrade. Our burden was so light that we expected to look upon a thin, emaciated body. But, as we laid it in the flicker of our hut fire, we were amazed to see the rounded form and ruddy cheeks of the dead stranger.