Part 22 (2/2)

Tom, her man, alternately petted and beat her She, no doubt, deserved both, for she was proud and haughty for a black gin, and as venomous at times as a scorpion His hand is heavy, and when he lifted it in anger poor ”Little Jinny” suffered--but suffered in silence Her chastisements were not frequent, but they seemed to increase her loyalty towards her lord and master

From a European standpoint, ”Little Jinny” had little of which to be vain She had a fuzzy head of hair So her face a singularly unbeco cast I did not notice this peculiar unco, and I felt then ed in accordance with our standard of beauty--though she had norance of civilised as pathetic, yet she was vain and coquettish as the fairest of her sex And her besetting vanity was endeavouring to be a ”lady” Work was sordid, for she wore garments which made her the leader of fashi+on She possessed a pair of--well, a bifurcated gar to live up to it--or the and precise, and she lazed away her days quite artistically A can of water was too heavy for her to carry, less than two hours ”spell” at a time quite an offence to her ideal of the aarment should pero-tree and pretend to do a little gardening

It was all pretence What she really loved to do was to wander a on, the next to nothing being the drawers There, you have them Then you saw her at her best--or rather worst, for she was a thin sapling of a girl, of a dull coppery colour, and the garment was not always snohite

Hers, after all, was an ideal existence She had plenty to eat, as audiness outrivalled the flame-tree and the yellow hibiscus She was the favourite of two consorts, and only when her pride and scorpion-like attributes got the better of her was she corrected

Now, just the othera bingey” (stoood It was quite a common occurrence for her to be sick It was such an easy and excellent excuse for a day's holiday, when she would bask on the soft grey sand and s for meal-times So no one took her sickness seriously

Subsequent inquiries, however, elicited the fact that ”Little Jinny”

had eaten little or no tucker the day prior to Tom's application for medicine on her behalf, and that she was really entitled to sympathy of the most practical kind But no one had the least suspicion of the fact

Dinner-ti about the flat below the house, apparently only a ”little bit sick,” as Tom reported when he caht to-morroas the reply to an inquiry

But at five o'clock Tom visited his hut, and hurried back for medicine

”Little Jinny” was very bad We went doith renosis of the case and description of the sy She had never complained nor whih the dried trickle of blood had been seen on her forehead, and now that she lay a-dying, with her figure strangely swollen, she ht to squeeze out the deadto him, the cause of the trouble

But it was all too implacable and crafty a ”debil-debil” for To flannels; but it was all so useless, for none understood the sickness, or how to prescribe a rerievous We could only repeat the sips of brandy and water, and endeavour to warm the chilly little body with stea 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 te her cold hands and war incident of the pathetic scene We had brandy and blankets and flannels ith to endeavour to afford relief Poor Nelly had nothing Her poverty was gri 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 War them over the fire until the oil exuded, she would apply theirl, 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 warently odorous leaves, and rubbed the hands that had often shed piteously as she continued her work, while To to expel the ”debil-debil!” His theory was, and is, that some man whom ”Little Jinny” had knon about Hinchinbrook had died, and his ”debil-debil all the saey,”--hence her distended condition

His efforts to cast out this personal ”debil” were futile, and as the poor creature lapsed into unconsciousness he would blow gusty breaths upon her big black eyes It was his norance I knew none reat eyes of this specihtened She moaned in response to To Nelly applied without ceasing the one means of relief that she possessed, the heated ”Raroo” leaf, to cheek and forehead, while we exhausted our woefullyto ease the last

But poor ”Little Jinny's” creditor was not to be denied He was exacting, cruelly exacting, i's worth of her poor, crude life

Nelly ht e, and the others do their best, which was pitiably poor, and their utter Wor sighs, each at a longer interval than the last, until the final one, ”Little Jinny”

passed away as the sun touched the dark blue barrier of mountains across the channel to the west

Then Nelly's sighs changed into a wail, in which the otherfalsetto cry which continued for two days,man's expression of woe, a loeird yet not inharmonious hum For two days they chanted the virtues of the dead, told of her likes and dislikes, and of their grief, crouching beside the blanket-covered form Then they buried her in the srave in the black sand, and there she rests with the of his tribe, and will not for several years eat of a certain fish associated with ”Little Jinny's” original name

Nor can he bear to be reminded of her The day after she was buried he spent the hours between daylight and sunset wandering about wherever ”Little Jinny” had been wont, obliterating the tracks ht, which is one of the superior qualifications of the race, he discerned the tracks on the sandy, forest-clad flat, and rubbed them out with his foot

Just as love-lorn Orlando ran about the forest of Arden carving on

”Every tree The fair, the chaste, the unexpressive she,”

so this tough, rude savage, spent the, whole day s” of the poor creature for whoe stands for love Nature would have performed the office as effectually, and perhaps rief drove hin of the dead girl ree it

When I ponder upon Nelly's ”Raroo” leaves and To out the memory of the past, I alected of men, can be as devoted to one another as truly as ho are so superior to them in many attributes