Page:More Australian legendary tales.djvu/66

 father, which flowed in one stream and blossomed as you see it now, for no man can kill blood, for more than the life of the flesh is in blood. Their blood shall live for ever, making beautiful with its blazing brightness the bare plains where are the salt lakes, the dried tears of the spirits whose songs Purleemil sang so sweetly, the salt tears which they shed when you and such as you poured out the life blood of their loved tribe. Here shall you sit for ever before your handiwork, the work of a coward."

So saying the spirit transfixed Tirlta to the ground, leaving the spear still through him.

There in the course of ages man and spear turned to stone as an everlasting monument of the spirit's power, and there at Tirlta's feet spread the beautiful red flower, the glory of the Western plains where the salt lakes are—Sturt's Desert Pea we call it, but to the old tribes it was known as the Flower of Blood.