We found a large hole in the earth where a tree had been uprooted by a storm, and there, with the help of his boomerang and our own knives, we managed to give him decent burial. We both fell on our knees for a few minutes, but no words passed our lips, although I am sure our hearts were full enough. Then we stood up, and with one impulse held out a hand each to the other. The grip that followed was a silent English grip. But it meant that we knew that our case was desperate, and that we would stand by one another to the last. CHAPTER VI. LEFT ALONE. All the events described at the close of the last chapter succeeded one another very rapidly. I do not think that four hours in all could have passed from the beginning of Bomero’s last harangue until Jack and I stood together over Gioro’s grave. The sun had not reached the meridian; the atmosphere was perfectly clear; and the triple peak which had been the signal of so much disaster stood out clear and well-defined in the west. What were we to do now? Were we to stay here and die like starved bandicoots when the first drought should come on? That was the question in both our minds, and that was the form in which Jack expressed it. “Let us get some food first,” said I, “and then we shall see. Thank God it is easy enough still to get food.” We soon lit a fire and shot some duck, and with the help of some of the wild fruit already mentioned and the water of the creek we did well enough. Then we talked over the situation, and it soon became clear that only two courses were open to us if we were to return to civilisation, or even to live. The one course was to push backward by the way we came. And if it had not been for the last two days’ journey we should probably have chosen that way without hesitation. And even now if we could be sure of not meeting the blacks again, I think we might have tried it. It was true that we might wait here long enough to make sure that the blacks would have gone westward, but all the while we should wait, the tracks and the other waymarks would be gradually becoming obliterated. Besides, it was certain that we could not live by snaring birds and spearing fish for food as the blacks could, and our powder and shot would soon be done. Our better hope seemed to lie in the chance of finding white men somewhere near, and the strange proceedings of Bomero seemed surely to indicate the near presence of white men. He must have met some pioneers from the west coast. Such men were often known to treat the blacks as if they were mere wild beasts, and it seemed not unlikely that some act of reckless cruelty on the part of the white men might have been witnessed by him, or, at least, that he might have heard of such from some other blacks.