‘He’s gone, Mariar,’ said Steve, after a pause, wiping his wet face; ‘but it wor the narriest squeak you ever seed. Took nothin’, he didn’t, only that punkin as was on the floor. Tell you wot,’ as his wife came trembling out of the other room, ‘we’re a-goin’ to shift camp. Neighbours o’ that sort ain’t ter be played with. Ain’t it a wonder, bein’ so handy like, as he never come afore? I knows how it was, now!’ he exclaimed, a happy inspiration seizing him. ‘It were all through them two larst cussed mokes! The feller as owns ’em’s a flash blackfeller shearer. I had a pitch with him the night afore an’ he reckons as how he’d just cut out ov a big shed on the Marthaguy. So I sez to myself, “You’re good enough, ole chap, fer a fiver, ennyhow.”’ ‘What’s that got to do with it?’ asked his wife softly, regarding the crushed doorway with affrighted face. ‘Don’t yer see? The bunyip’s the blackfeller’s Devil. Ole Billy Barlow tell’d me oncest as he seen the head ov one rise up out of a lagoon. I’ll have to fossick up them mokes, Mariar, an’ take ’em to that darkey straight away, afore wuss ’appens. S-sh, sh-sh! Wot’s that?’ It was Greg, who wanted his supper badly, and was soliloquising at the other end of the hut. He had been down to a little fenced-in paling paddock on the flat, and, looking over, to his delight had seen a crop of maize, sweet and juicy and not too ripe, also more pumpkins. But with the love of the law and the memory of discipline still strong in him, he had returned to ask permission of the owner—the stupid white man who sat in his hut and talked nonsense. And now he was holding council with himself how best to make the fool understand that he was hungry, and wanted for his supper something more than a solitary pumpkin. Hassan Ali, he knew, had but dried hay and the rinds of melons to give him. Here, indeed, was a delectable change, and Greg’s mouth watered as he gurgled gently in at the opening which did duty for a window, and close to which the family crouched in terror. Why could not the stupid fellow understand? Could it be that he and his were deaf? A bright idea, and one to be acted upon, this last! Therefore, carefully lifting up and displacing half the bark roof, Greg looked benignly down and trumpeted mightily until the hut shook as with an earthquake, and the whole land seemed to vibrate, whilst his audience grovelled speechless. Then, finding no resulting effect, and secure in the sense of having done his uttermost to make himself understood, he went off with a clear conscience to the corn-patch and luxuriated. ‘It ain’t no bunyip, Steve,’ wailed his wife, as they heard the retreating steps; ‘it’s the “Destryin’ Hangel” as I heerd a parson talk on oncest when I was a kid, an’ that wor the “Last Tramp”—the noise wot shows as the world is comin’ to an ind. It ain’t no use o’ runnin’. We’re all agoin’ to git burnt up wi’ fire an’ bremston! Look out, Steve, an’ see if there’s a big light ennywheres.’