He gave Naroo the cord five times before she was beaten. Then he had to lift her to her feet and hold her limply to him while slowly, painfully, she panted for breath to stand. Just the silence, chirp of a little bird somewhere deep within the gloom, and Naroo’s long, shuddering gasps.

Then he placed her dilly-bag securely across her shoulders, and Nareen’s across hers. Next he took a long, flexible hide thong from his belt, rapidly made one end into a running noose, and fitted the noose loosely round Nareen’s neck so that the end hung down her back. Should Nareen attempt to run away or tread on a dry stick to make a noise, or kick one stone against another to attract the attention of passing enemies, then one savage, downward jerk of the cord would bring her half paralysed to her knees. He left the strangling cord hanging from Naroo’s neck. But it was very unlikely, now that both girls had accepted their master’s load to carry, that they would attempt to run away. It would be so hopeless, anyway—unless there came some chance hope of a rescue.

Red Kangaroo pointed steadily ahead of Naroo with his wommera. She took the direction with her eyes.

“Hurry on ahead of me!” he ordered.

Falteringly both girls turned round, gazing back through the gloomy scrub in the direction of their camp. He let them be for a moment as slowly the tears welled and streamed from their eyes. This was farewell. They knew that if this devil proved as good a man as he had so far then they would never see their beloved tribal lands again.

Slowly Nareen turned, started off in the direction of the wommera. Naroo followed her. They glided like phantoms among the vines, even though their arms were tied behind them. Every now and then Red Kangaroo urged them on with a growl. Too well he knew that presently the best trackers of their tribe would be seeking them, the women, who since babyhood had been trained to the faintest tracks, the almost invisible signs that betray the presence of even the very small things of the air, earth, bush, and water. Those trackers of various insects, of beetles and frogs, of birds, of all manner of reptiles, of anything that can crawl wriggle, hop, or walk in bushland or waterland—these would be the first set to find the tracks.

He urged the girls on. Yes, sooner or later the women would find signs in the reedy creek. And then—Death would be stalking at his heels, with outraged warriors mad to run him to earth, to hack out his kidney-fat and wolf it before his glazing eyes.

They broke through the scrub into glorious daylight, to the “Cark! Cark!” of crows, the screech of parrots dining on honeyed tree blossoms, the whispering of a breeze among the forest branches, the scent of grasses luxuriating in the fresh earth. Spread out before them were the open bushlands to the foothills, and behind these the towering mass of the Warrumbungles.