n't regular cannibals, but in the bunya
season they'd all collect in the scrubs and feed on the nuts and
nothing else for months. Then after a bit they'd get meat-hungry, and
there not being many wild animals in Australia and only a few cattle in
those outlying districts, they'd satisfy their cravings by killing and
eating some of themselves--lubras--young girls--by preference, and,
naturally, half-castes, as having no particular tribal status, for
choice.'

'Half-castes!' She repeated, a little puzzled.

'These ones had Chinky blood in them--daughters of a Chinaman
fossicker.... We're not partial to the Chinese in Australia--only we
don't eat them, we expel them--methods just a bit dissimilar, but the
principle the same, you see.... Anyway, of course we took on the gin
and her girls, and for about a year didn't have any particular trouble
at the station with the blacks--though there was a shepherd speared in
one of the out-huts.... That was his fault, however, poor devil--the
old story--but it don't matter. The trouble came to a head with a black
boy, called Leura-Jimmy, that Jerry the bullock-driver brought up with
him and left at the station where he went down to the township for
store supplies--He took me with him--I told you I was learning
bullock-driving....'

McKeith paused, and the dark look came upon his face.

'And Leura-Jimmy?' put in Bridget.

'Oh, he was a fine, big fellow--plausible, too, and could speak pidgin
English--he was never weaned from his tribe, and he was a treacherous
scoundrel at heart.... As a precautionary measure, my father forbade
the blacks to come up to the head-station. But Jimmy fell in love with
the eldest of the half-caste girls. She encouraged him at first, then
took up with one of the stock-boys....

'It was the bunya season again, and the girls' old tribe, under their
King Mograbar--a devil incarnate in a brute--I sent him to Hell
afterwards with my own hand and never did a better deed'--McKeith's
brown fists clenched and the fury in his eyes blazed so that he himself
looked almost devilish for a moment. His face remained very grim and
dour as he proceeded.

'Jimmy had got to know through the half-caste girl about our ways and
doings, and he made a diabolic plot with King Mograbar to get the
blacks into the house.... Every living soul was murdered ...surprised
in their sleep ... My father ... my mother ... my sisters ... God! ...
I can't speak of it....'

He got up abru