Page:More Australian legendary tales.djvu/33

 of the wood. Again they struggled on through the scrub to another plain.

"There it is! I told you so! There is the water."

And looking ahead they again saw a sheet of water.

Again their hopes were raised, and though the sun beat fiercely on them they marched, only to be again disappointed.

"Let us go back," they said. "This is the country of evil spirits. We see water, and when we come where we have seen it there is but dry earth. Let us go back."

"Back to Beereeun, who would kill you?"

"Better to die from the blow of a boondee in your own country than of thirst in a land of devils. We will go back."

"Not so. Not with a boondee would he kill you, but with a gooweera, or poison stick. Slow would be your deaths, and you would be always in pain until your shadow was wasted away. But why talk of returning? Did we not set fire to the big plain? Could you cross that? Waste not your breaths, but follow me. See, there again is water!"

But the Bullai Bullai had lost hope. No longer would they even look up, though time after time Weedah called out, "Water ahead of us! Water ahead of us!" only to again, and again, disappoint them.

At last the Bullai Bullai became so angry with him that they seized him and beat him. But even as they beat him he cried all the time, "Water is there! Water is there!" Then he implored them to let him go, and he would drag up the roots from some water-trees and drain the water from these for them.