approaching each other and always with the same queer marks between, and suddenly Kuduna trembled and would go no further.’
‘But you,’ the medicine man interposed with sarcasm, ‘were unafraid?’
‘No,’ Wendourie said gravely. ‘I was very frightened because of what I had seen in the tree.’
‘Tell our guest what you had seen,’ Unyama said, watching Ooloo to note the effect of what was coming.
‘Someone… something had grasped a bough in passing.’
Unyama could not restrain himself. ‘Later,’ he told Ooloo eagerly, ‘he saw that other boughs had been grasped and the yellow blossoms and leaves scattered as though whole branches had disappeared.’
‘It is nothing,’ the medicine man said. ‘Children at their games…’
‘To grasp these branches,’ Wendourie said, ‘one would have had to sit upon my shoulders.’
‘To pluck the blossoms of which he speaks a man must need be a giant,’ Unyama emphasised, anxious that his guest should thoroughly understand.
‘I have a very clear picture.’ Ooloo said dryly, and addressed the young man. ‘You think, Wendourie, the hand that grasped the high branches and scattered the yellow blossoms belonged to the monster which made the strange tracks between the parallel lines?’
‘I did,’ Wendourie said, ‘and then I didn’t know what to think.’
‘Listen to this carefully,’ Unyama bade his visitor quite unnecessarily, for the Narranyeri man was absorbed in the recital.
Wendourie said, ‘Suddenly, in an open space, there were the tracks of a man.’
‘Coming from nowhere,’ Unyama implemented.
‘Ah!’ The medicine man smiled. ‘Tell us, young man, of the origin of these miraculous tracks.’
Unyama, greedy for his guest’s reaction, was not disappointed when Wendourie answered, ‘They were made by a man without toes.’
Urgali threw back his head and cackled. ‘And so,’ he cried, ‘now it seems we have two strange lines which never come closer each to the other, which is an impossibility as has been proved by every young man in the tribe who has experimented with trailing sticks; strange tracks of animals bigger than exist; and lastly, a man without toes!’
‘It may be that his toes had been cut off,’ Ooloo suggested.
‘Wait till you hear,’ Unyama said, his eyes bright. ‘Tell him, Wendourie.’
‘The toes had not been cut off,’ the young man said. ‘They were just not there; but the whole foot was the same shape and bigger than mine.’
‘Much bigger?’ Ooloo enquired.
‘Only slightly bigger,’ Wendourie explained.
‘You are sure it was a man’s track?’
‘It smelled like a man’s but not a man of our tribe, nor,’ – with a little bow to Ooloo – ‘of one of the Narranyeri.’
‘Answer the question,’ Urgali shouted. ‘Was it a man’s track?’
‘But for being toeless, it was a man’s.’
Urgali’s contemptuous glance swept the semicircle of tribesmen. ‘I ask the young men. I appeal to the greyheads. Where shall we find a toeless man? How would he climb trees? How pick up without stooping?’
The headman smothered the titter that followed. ‘Silence!’ he barked. ‘The man’s life may depend upon this.’ He whispered to Ooloo, ‘Now comes a very amazing statement.’
Wendourie said, ‘The tracks made by the toeless one ran, for a few yards alongside and outside one of the two, broad, parallel lines and then disappeared.’
‘But the tracks such as Wendourie has described, the two lines never varying in distance each from the other, went on,’ Unyama informed his guest.
Urgali bent his great height, stooping toward the young man in mock humility. ‘I am overwhelmed,’ he said. ‘I – Urgali, who consort with demons… demons peaceably inclined toward the Munamulla,’ he added hastily, ‘I, who can leave my sleeping form in my hut and travel the heavens by night and am versed in all magic, am willing to be taught. What is the explanation for the sudden disappearance of the toeless man’s tracks? Was the man absorbed into the earth? Did he fly into the sky? Did he evaporate?’
‘I thought,’ Wendourie said simply, ‘the monster had eaten the man.’
‘Tut, tut,’ Urgali protested. ‘You must do better than that. Had the tracks not abruptly appeared? Are you suggesting that this so-called monster was walking about alternately spewing out and gobbling up this remarkable toeless man?’
Unyama said testily, ‘Get on, get on. We are not here to listen to suggestions but to hear the whole story.’ He glanced at Ooloo for approval and signalled Wendourie to speak. Urgali, however, waved his long arms. ‘I think,’ he urged, ‘we are entitled to know what Kuduna thought of this miracle.’
The young man said, ‘We were both very frightened,’ Kuduna said, ‘truly, here are signs of a magic-man more powerful than any we have known – one who makes our own medicine man look like a child.’
Unyama covered his thick lips with his hand to conceal his smile and with his elbow nudged Ooloo in the ribs, calling his attention to Urgali’s scowl. ‘Continue, Wendourie,’ he said.
‘What Kuduna said or thought is immaterial.’
‘Night came,’ the young man continued. ‘We feared much but we heard nothing, saw nothing, smelled nothing. And in the dawn we saw that the tracks had gone.’
‘Very convenient,’ the medicine man said with fine sarcasm.
‘Very convenient, indeed. Like the remarkable toeless man, this alleged monster which, apparently, was trailing a couple of large snakes, one in either hand, disappeared into space, snakes and all.’
‘It had rained heavily in the night,’ Wendourie explained. ‘I know of no tracks which will stand against such rain.’
‘You were three days’ walk from here,’ Urgali snarled. ‘Only Kuduna could confirm this opportune rain. And so ends the first part of an ingenious story. It leaves Kuduna alive and well, if a little frightened at what no doubt I could have easily explained had I been on the spot. Now we come to Kuduna
Unyama shifted uneasily on his tree stump. He whispered to Ooloo, ‘I am afraid, as a logical man, I cannot accept what Wendourie will now relate. However, I don’t want to say anything to influence you.’ He motioned the young man to go on.
‘Kuduna wished to return to camp but I persuaded him to stay,’ Wendourie said. ‘If the monster has eaten the toeless one, he will be no longer hungry and will spare us, I told him. And then, of a sudden, there was salt in our nostrils and I knew we must be close to the great water which Kuduna had never seen. In his eagerness I think he forgot the monster and the strange tracks. As we crept through the scrub a voice shouted and it was like no voice we had ever heard and what is said was meaningless to us. We crouched, trembling, behind a bush but none spoke again, and by and by Kuduna raised his head cautiously.
‘I looked at Kuduna and he had fallen and was lying very still and I saw that he had a little hole in his forehead. I shook him and he did not move, and I knew he was dead, and I was very frightened that one could be dead so swiftly and from so simple a hurt, and I turned and ran and ran.’
Wendourie covered his eyes with his hands for a few moments before he went on. ‘But the shame of running away made me stop at last and wait, hiding. I heard nothing and could see nothing, and presently I decided to go back.’
‘Go back and face a thousand devils?’ the medicine man sneered.
‘No; go back and get Kuduna and bring him to the camp.’
‘It is a pity you didn’t carry out so noble a resolve,’ Urgali said. ‘I would undoubtedly have saved him.’
Unyama whispered in Ooloo’s ear. ‘He is very powerful in magic. I’m obliged to let him have his head a bit.’ To Wendourie he said, ‘Proceed.’
‘I went back slowly and very fearfully to the spot where I had left Kuduna,’ Wendourie told them, ‘but he wasn’t there.’
Urgali barked. ‘
