ee if my wives are safe. Something terrible has surely
happened." And Byamee turned in haste towards the spring. When he
reached there he saw the bough shed his wives had made, he saw the yams
they had dug from the ground, and he saw the frogs, but Birrahgnooloo
and Cunnunbeillee he saw not. He called aloud for them. But no answer.
He went towards the spring; on the edge of it he saw the goomillahs of
his wives. He looked into the spring and, seeing it dry, he said, "It
is the work of the kurreahs; they have opened the underground passage
and gone with my wives to the river, and opening the passage has dried
the spring. Well do I know where the passage joins the Narran, and
there will I swiftly go." Arming himself with spears and woggarahs he
started in pursuit. He soon reached the deep hole where the underground
channel of the Coorigel joined the Narran. There he saw what he had
never seen before, namely, this deep hole dry. And he said: "They have
emptied the holes as they went along, taking the water with them. But
well know I the deep holes of the river. I will not follow the bend,
thus trebling the distance I have to go, but I will cut across from big
hole to big hole, and by so doing I may yet get ahead of the kurreahs."
On swiftly sped Byamee, making short cuts from big hole to big hole,
and his track is still marked by the morilla ridges that stretch down
the Narran, pointing in towards the deep holes. Every hole as he came
to it he found dry, until at last he reached the end of the Narran; the
hole there was still quite wet and muddy, then he knew he was near his
enemies, and soon he saw them. He managed to get, unseen, a little way
ahead of the kurreahs. He hid himself behind a big dheal tree. As the
kurreahs came near they separated, one turning to go in another
direction. Quickly Byamee hurled one spear after another, wounding both
kurreahs, who writhed with pain and lashed their tails furiously,
making great hollows in the ground, which the water they had brought
with them quickly filled. Thinking they might again escape him, Byamee
drove them from the water with his spears, and then, at close quarters,
he killed them with his woggarahs. And ever afterwards at flood time,
the Narran flowed into this hollow which the kurreahs in their
writhings had made.

When Byamee saw that the kurreahs were quite dead, he cut them open and
took out the bodies of his wives. They were covered with wet slime, and
seemed quit