Page:The Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina.djvu/157

152 generation through all time, or so long as the Courtenie race has a single representative on the fair face of the earth.

CHAPTER XIX.

AN ADDITIONAL EPISODE IN THE LIVES OF THE KURWIE AND COURTENIE; OF THE FIRST ADVENT OF THE SUN's LIGHT ON THE EARTH AND ITS CAUSE; REWARDS AND PUNISHMENT FOR GOOD AND BAD DEEDS; NOBLE CONDUCT AND ITS GUERDON, AS DISPLAYED IN THE LEGEND OF THE NGAROU (BUSTARD, OR WILD TURKEY OF THE COLONISTS) PEOPLE.

The Courtenie and Kurwie did not again come in contact until a goodly time had elapsed after the cruel slaughter of the Kurwielets, and when chance did once more bring them together, the feelings of the Kurwie were scarcely of a friendly nature towards the cunning old Dame Courtenie.

The wholesale slaughter of her promising young brood by the margin of the great reedy marsh still rankled in her mind, and the unsolicited presence of the vile Dame Courtenie, that had, by dint of the most specious mendacity, induced the unmotherly act, did not tend to lessen the never ceasing regret; but, on the contrary, it brought all the terrible proceedings as vividly to her mind as though the deed were only a day old, instead of a dozen moons.

Breeding time had again come round, and the Kurwie was patiently sitting on thirteen eggs, which, she trusted, would in due time produce an equal number of downy Kurwielets. the fate of which she determined should be very different to that of her former clutch. 