The Confessions of a BeachcomberBanfield, E. J. (Edmund James)
History
The Confessions of a Beachcomber
Banfield, E. J. (Edmund James)
Dunk Island (Qld.); Natural history -- Australia -- Queensland
But at five o'clock Tom visited his hut, and hurried back for medicine.
"Little Jinny" was very bad. We went down with remedies that seemed
fit from his diagnosis of the case and description of the symptoms, and
there lay "Little Jinny," obviously dying. She had never complained nor
whimpered when Tom's heavy hand had corrected her, though the dried
trickle of blood had been seen on her forehead, and now that she lay
a-dying, with her figure strangely swollen, she moaned only when Torn,
with his heavy hand, sought to squeeze out the dead man, "all the same
like debil-debil," who was, according to him, the cause of the trouble.
But it was all too implacable and crafty a "debil-debil" for Tom to cast
out. We did our best with brandy and steaming flannels; but it was all
so useless, for none understood the sickness, or how to prescribe a
remedy that might be effective. Our helplessness was grievous. We could
only repeat the sips of brandy and water, and endeavour to warm the
chilly little body with steamy flannels.
All did something. Even Nelly, the second best wife, who had had to play
a very subordinate part in the camp, and whom "Little Jinny" had
slapped and had abused with all the volubility of spite and temper,
crouched beside her dying rival, chafing her cold hands and warming her
cheeks.
And here was the most touching incident of the pathetic scene. We had
brandy and blankets and flannels wherewith to endeavour to afford
relief. Poor Nelly had nothing. Her poverty was grim, but she had some
resource. She had no means of alleviating the suffering save those which
spendthrift Nature provided--the smooth oily leaf of the "Raroo." She
used these aromatic leaves, all that she had, with no little art and
tenderness. Warming them over the fire until the oil exuded, she would
apply them to the hairy jowl of the girl, and anon to her furry forehead
and cheeks.
While there is life there is hope is evidently Nelly's creed, and so she
crunched and warmed the pungently odorous leaves, and rubbed the hands
that had often smitten her in anger. Poor Nelly sighed piteously as she
continued her work, while Tom massaged the body of the girl, hoping to
expel the "debil-debil!" His theory was, and is, that some man whom
"Little Jinny" had known down about Hinchinbrook had died, and his
"debil-debil all the same like dead man," had "sat down" in "Little
Jinny's bingey,"--hence her distended condition.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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