Page:The Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina.djvu/156

151 Many thanks for your good advice, which I shall follow incontinently. I shall save one, though, just for company's sake."

The foolish Kurwie was but a very short time engaged in the destruction of her promising brood, whilst the cunning old Courtenie looked on all the time with badly-suppressed glee, and when but one of the late numerous clutch remained alive she clapped her wings and danced, ejaculating the while, "Geralka Beralka, Geralka Beralka," which brought the whole of her abundant brood speedily from their hiding places in the rushes to her heels.

The vile, barefaced wickedness of the cunning Dame Courtenie being thus patently made manifest, rendered the poor simple bereaved Kurwie absolutely dumb, so that she could do nothing but gaze open-mouthed in speechless horror; but whilst so engaged the punishment of the wicked overtook the infamous Dame Courtenie on the spot where her latest villany [sic] had been so shamelessly enacted.

Her long graceful neck, which had hitherto been the admiration and envy of bird and beast, became awry and crooked on the instant, and her dulcet vocal powers disappeared as though they had never been, leaving her with two discordant notes only, these being the tones by which she had been accustomed to call her family around her, Geralka Beralka, Geralka Beralka, and from these, down even to the present time, the tones have not varied. This deprivation, together with the crooked neck, still remains distinctive characteristics of well-merited punishment, and doubtless they will be reproduced from generation to