Corroboree (7 page)

Lathrop said abruptly, ‘Utyana. Tie the rest of those dogs up and bring Mr Walker up here. Captain Henry, do you hold your ground.'

‘Yes, sir, Mr Lindsay.'

Digging his heels into the grass, Eyre managed to push himself a little way up the side of the ha-ha on his back. He was shocked and trembling and he felt as if his skin had been curried all over with a wire brush. Utyana hurried over and lifted him the rest of the way out of the ditch; and then he lay back on the grass, sniffing and shaking, and up above him the sky was impossibly rich with stars.

Utyana knelt beside him, taking off his wide felt hat so that he was wearing only a red headscarf over his scalp. He was big-nosed and ugly, and his breath smelled of sour fruit, but he smiled at Eyre and touched his forehead very gently.

‘How's … Miss Charlotte?' asked Eyre.

‘Yes, sir,' nodded Utyana.

‘Going to be all right, no thanks to you,' remarked the
vinegar voice of Lathrop Lindsay, from somewhere out of sight.

‘And me?' Eyre whispered. ‘I'm not going to die, am I?'

‘Yes, sir,' nodded Utyana.

‘Only English the blighter ever learned,' said Lathrop. ‘Understands it, doesn't speak it'.

Eyre reached down and felt his chest. His waistcoat was badly torn, and his lapels were hanging in shreds. Then suddenly he felt his stomach, and to his utmost horror he could feel something wet and stringy. He lifted it up in his hand, and raised his head a little way, and there between his fingers was a bloody mess of tatters, with something pulpy right in the middle of it all.

He let his head drop back on the grass. ‘Oh my God,' he said, out loud. A feeling of nausea surged up in him, and his mouth flooded with blood and bile.

Lathrop came into view, on the right-hand side, and peered down at him. ‘What's the matter with you?' Lathrop asked him, shortly.

Eyre took three or four quick breaths. ‘I'm going to die, aren't I? Those dogs have ripped my guts out.'

Lathrop stared at him, and then down at his stomach. That, you mean?' he asked, poking at the stringy mess with his finger.

Eyre said nothing, but nodded rapidly. He was sure that he could already feel the coldness of death seeping into his legs; soon it would overtake him altogether.

‘That's the lining of your jacket,' Lathrop told him. ‘Got torn, that's all; and that bit there's your pocket, with your pocket-handkerchey. Ripped your guts out my Aunt Fanny. Wish they damn well had, the damage you've done.'

Eyre took another, longer breath, and then looked at Lathrop and attempted a friendly chuckle. It came out like a ghastly, irrational honk; and he was glad that Lathrop didn't hear it, and turned away.

It was then that Eyre realised how hushed the garden was; even the night-parrots were silent; and the insects
had hesitated as if rain were expected, or an unfelt earth tremor had shaken the deeper levels of the surrounding hills.

Eyre said to Utyana, ‘What's going on? Help me sit up.'

‘Yes, sir.' Utyana smiled, and continued to stroke his forehead.

‘For God's sake!' Eyre demanded. ‘I want to sit up!'

Utyana at last realised what he wanted, and gripped him under the armpits with his thin black muscly hands, and helped him to sit. Eyre looked around, and the tableau that he saw in front of him was so strange that at first he couldn't believe that it was real.

The greyhounds were still poised in the ha-ha; with Captain Henry standing a little way back; and Lathrop commanding the scene with one hand firmly planted on his hip, his musket angled over his shoulder, and the evening breeze billowing his nightshirt around his thick white ankles. But it was Yanluga who caught Eyre's attention. He was sitting cross-legged on the far edge of the ha-ha, his back very straight, and he was whispering, a peculiar hollow whisper that gave Eyre a prickly feeling all the way down his back, the way some particularly plaintive music can.

Yanluga was charming the greyhounds as if they were children. They stood hypnotised, their ears and their tails depressed, their white eyes wide, watching him as if they couldn't bear to let him out of their sight for a single instant. Eyre didn't recognise the words that Yanluga was using; they didn't even sound like Wirangu. But the effect they had on the greyhounds was undeniable; they stood pale and still like dogs from the Bayeux Tapestry; and the moon which had now moved out from behind the stringy-bark gums gave the garden a look of enchantment. Yanluga would have called it a
mirang
, a place where magic is practised.

Lathrop took two or three steps back, so that he was standing next to Eyre.

‘Remarkable, isn't it?' he said, without taking his eyes
off Yanluga. ‘You'd be quite amazed at what some of these blackfellows can do. Sensitive to nature, that's what it is; only a step away from being animals themselves, and there's the proof of it. What civilised man could speak to a pack of greyhounds, so that they'd listen?'

Eyre said thickly, ‘It seems that he saved my life.'

‘Well, you're probably right,' replied Lathrop. ‘After all, those are rare hounds, more than £50 apiece they cost me, and I'd have been loathe to shoot them, especially for the sake of a chap who's already trespassed twice in one day both on my property and on my patience; and abused my hospitality to the point of theft. You realise that if I speak to Captain Tennant, I could have you locked up; hanged, even. It wouldn't do you any harm at all, hanging. It might improve your manners.'

Eyre said, ‘I am conscious, sir, that I owe you an apology. But I hardly think that being in love with Charlotte can be construed as a capital crime.'

‘Abduction is a capital crime, sir.'

‘There was no question of abduction, sir. Charlotte came to meet me of her own free will.'

Lathrop slowly turned his head to look at Eyre with small and shiny eyes.

‘If I was the kind of father who was unaware of his daughter's extreme wilfulness; and was not quite accustomed to tantrums and foot-stamping and deliberate disobedience, especially during discussions about which young men are suitable companions for a girl of her quality and which young men are not; then I would be quite minded to whip you. But as it is, I
am
aware, and I
am
accustomed, and consequently I shan't.'

Eyre climbed slowly and painfully to his feet, with Utyana staying close by in case he needed help. He wiped his bloody mouth with the back of his bloody hand.

‘I think I should go now,' he said. ‘I'd like to wash out these bites before they go septic, and bandage myself up.'

Lathrop stared at him with a tight, forced smile. ‘Of course you would, of course you would. Bandage yourself
up, that's right. But there's one small aspect of this evening's amusements which still concerns me.'

Captain Henry called over, ‘Can I leash the dogs now, sir? Seems as if they're growing restless.'

‘In a moment,' Lathrop told him; then turned back to Eyre. ‘What I'd like to know is, how was tonight's tryst arranged? That's what I'd like to know. And why is young Yanluga here? He was the one who drove you around with my own daughter in my own carriage while I was off in Sydney, wasn't he? Could it have been
he
who helped you to meet my daughter in the woods, in the dark, under the most improper of circumstances?'

Eyre glanced across the ha-ha. Yanluga had raised his arms now, and was chanting to the dogs, a long, repetitive chant. But there was no doubt that the hounds were beginning to twitch now, and lick their lips, and paw at the grass.

Lathrop said, ‘I haven't punished him, you know; and until I discovered him here tonight I wasn't intending to. I like to think that I'm a forgiving employer, on occasions, as well as a stern one. But what he did tonight was really unforgivable.'

‘He saved my life,' Eyre repeated.

‘Ah,' said Lathrop. ‘But had you not been here; had Yanluga not arranged a sweetheart's meeting for you; then there would have been no need for him to save your life, now would there? So, who do we have to blame for all of tonight's distress? Why, Yanluga.'

Eyre said, ‘Leave him be. Please, for Charlotte's sake. For pity's sake.'

Lathrop peered at Eyre maliciously, as if he were trying to make out where he was in a particularly obnoxious fog. ‘Let me tell you something, sir. I am an exemplary husband, a benevolent father, and a trustworthy businessman. But, I am not a monkey. I have never been a monkey and I never will be a monkey, and you won't make me one, I promise you.'

With that, he lifted his musket from his shoulder; and,
still smiling at Eyre, cocked it. Then he swung around, and aimed it directly at Yanluga.

‘Boy!' he called.

Yanluga didn't look up at first; couldn't, because he was trying to keep the hounds calm. But then he glanced up quickly once; and then again and squinted at Lathrop in uncertainty and fear.

‘What the devil are you doing?' Eyre demanded. ‘You're not going to shoot him, not in cold blood!'

‘Of course not,' said Lathrop. ‘I am simply giving the chap a chance to leave my property, and my employ, as smartly as he likes. Boy!' he called again. ‘Stop that singing and chanting now, and be off with you! That's it! Make yourself scarce!'

‘Sir! called Yanluga. ‘Please ask Captain Henry to tie up the dogs first.'

‘You just be off,' said Lathrop. ‘Captain Henry will take care of the hounds when he pleases.'

‘Sir, if I run, sir, the dogs will chase me.'

‘As well they might. Now, let's have a look at those sandy-white heels of yours. And make it quick! I've lost enough sleep tonight as it is!'

‘You can't do this,' said Eyre. ‘Mr Lindsay, listen to me. Those dogs will tear him to pieces before he can get halfway across the garden.'

Lathrop continued to squint along his musket-barrel. ‘There are several things you don't understand, Mr Walker; and one of those things is the meaning of justice. What you are seeing now is justice. The wronged employer gives the ungrateful servant the opportunity to leave his property as expeditiously as possible. You won't find one magistrate who won't congratulate me for my fairness and my magnanimity.'

‘You windy old fraud!' Eyre shouted at him. ‘That's a boy's life you're talking about! Now, put down your gun, tie up those dogs, and let him be.'

Lathrop turned back to Eyre with his face already darkening with anger. He poked the muzzle of the musket
at him, and said, in a shaking voice, ‘You, Mr Walker—
you
, Mr Walker—you by God have crossed me just once too often. And let me remind you that I could blow your brains out where you stand, and still be well within the law; because you're a trespasser, sir; an illegal interloper; and a known eccentric.'

‘Don't you dare to wave that gun at me,' Eyre told him; but at that very instant, on the other side of the ha-ha, Yanluga twisted around and jumped to his feet, and with his head down began to run towards the distant shelter of the gum-trees.

‘Ha! Ha!' shouted Lathrop. ‘You see! You see what I mean! Doesn't that show you! Isn't that it! The guilty ones always take to their heels! Captain Henry—the dogs, Captain Henry!'

‘Yes, sir, Mr Lindsay,' acknowledged Captain Henry, and whistled through the gap in his front teeth, a weird, loud, rising whistle that gave Eyre the irrational sensation that something was flying through the air towards him, like a boomerang. The greyhounds barked, and pranced, and Captain Henry called, ‘
Koola! Koola! Taiyin! Koola!
'

‘No!' shouted Eyre; but Lathrop lifted his musket and discharged it in the air. There was a flat, ear-slapping bang; and a flash; and a sharp smell of gunpowder. Lathrop reappeared through the swirl of smoke with a look in his eyes that was so piggish and menacing the Eyre couldn't find the words to curse him. Instead, he turned to look across the lawns to see if Yanluga had managed to outrun the dogs.

Yanluga had almost reached the gum-trees; but the dogs had gone rushing off after him as soon as Captain Henry had given the word, and now they were only two or three yards behind him, swift as Yanluga's own shadow. Eyre breathed to Lathrop, ‘By God, Mr Lindsay,' and hobbled down the side of the ha-ha, and then up the other slope, making his way as quickly as he could manage to the end of the garden. Under the trees, where the bone-white moonlight couldn't penetrate, it was difficult to see what
was happening; but for a moment Yanluga's running silhouette was outlined against the pale bark of a large gum, followed hotly by the bobbing heads of the dogs.

‘
Koola! Hi! Hi!
' whistled Captain Henry, off to Eyre's left.

Yanluga reached the trees. Eyre could hear his bare feet sprinting across the dry, crackling bark. Then, instantly afterwards, the rush of the dogs. With a high-pitched shout of effort, Yanluga leaped up and grasped an overhanging branch; first with one hand, dangling for a moment, and then with the other. Two of the greyhounds jumped up at his feet, but he kicked them away, and then tried to swing his legs up so that he could work his way even higher into the tree, suspended underneath the branch like an opossum.

‘Yanluga!' Eyre shouted, through swollen lips. ‘Yanluga, hold on!'

‘Now then, Mr Walker, sir,' called Lathrop, from the far side of the ha-ha. ‘Don't give me any trouble.'

Eyre turned around, staggering on his lacerated leg. Trouble?' he yelled, almost screeching.

Yanluga was grimly silent, struggling to edge his way further up the blistery bark of the tree, while the dogs sprang and hurtled just beneath him. He had almost reached an elbow in the branch, where he would be able to perch well out of the reach of the greyhounds' jaws. Eyre had limped within ten yards now, and bent down painfully to pick up a dry fallen bough, to beat the dogs away. ‘Yanluga!' he called again. ‘Hold tight, Yanluga!'