Page:Tom Petrie's reminiscences of early Queensland.djvu/33

Rh (or, to be correct, Bon-yi Mountains—the natives always pronounced it so). Of the "bon-yi season" I will speak later on.

Well, these men, instead of doing as they had promised, landed at St. Helena, and there set nets for catching dugong, acting as though they had not the slightest intention of going near Bribie. They also took possession of the young gins, paying no heed to Billy, who pleaded for their wives and to be taken to Bribie as promised. So Billy, poor soul, didn't know what to do, and at last bethought him to kill the men. He did it in this way: Some distance from where they were camped a cask was sunk in the sand for fresh water, and Billy, in broken English, called to one of the men. Bob Hunter by name: " Bob, Bob, come quick, bring gun, plenty duck sit down longa here." Bob went to Billy all unthinking, and, passing the cask in the sand knelt to drink. There was Billy's chance, and he took it, striking the man from behind with a tomahawk on the back of the head. Bob threw up his arm to save himself, only to be cut on the arm, and then again on the head, and was killed. Billy then dragged him down to the water; and that was the end of that man.

On returning to the camp after this "deed of darkness," Billy told the gins in his own language of what had happened, and that he meant to finish by killing the other two, and they then could all get away together. The gins begged of him not to kill the others, but his mind was fixed, and remained unmoved. Fortune favoured him surely, for he found one man alone sitting by a camp fire smoking, and, creeping up stealthily behind him, cut open his head with the tomahawk; and this man's body was in turn dragged to the water.

There now remained but one other, and he at that time away in the scrub shooting pigeons. Billy followed, and, watching his opportunity, struck the white man as he stooped to go under a vine. This last body was also dragged to the water, and that was the end of the three; and who can say the blacks were wholly to blame?

After the white men were thus disposed of, the natives all got into the boat and came to the mouth of the Pine River, where they left the boat, and walking round on the