Page:More Australian legendary tales.djvu/74

 and get more, or find out whence she had brought the one he had thought so good, that he might get some. Away he flew in the direction she had gone. He overtook her some miles up the creek beside a big waterhole. Before she saw him coming he had swooped down upon her, crying, "Give me some more of that fish in two shells you brought."

"I have no more. Let me go."

"Tell me, then, where you got it, that I may get more for myself."

"They do not belong to your country. They live in one far away which I passed in my flight from the big salt water here. Let me go." And she struggled to free herself, crying piteously the strange, sad cry of her tribe.

But Wahn, the crow, held her tightly. "If you promise to go straight back to that country and bring some more I will release you. That you must promise, and also that when I have finished those you shall bring more, that I may never be without them again. If you do not promise I will kill you now."

"Let me go, and I will do as you ask. I promise my tribe shall help me to bring Mungghee to your creeks."

"Go, then," said Wahn, "swiftly back, and bring to me here on the banks of the creek the fish that hides itself between two shells." And he let her go, turning her head towards the south.

Away she flew. Days passed, and months, and yet Mungghee wurraywurraymul did not return, and Wahn was angry with himself for not having killed her rather than let her so deceive him.

He went one day to the creek for a drink, and stooping,