even the wisest among us is apt to lose his
head. God knows I paid dearly enough for my lack of judgment on this
melancholy occasion.

My wound was not at all serious, and, thanks to Yamba's care, it quickly
healed, and I was able to get about once more.

But I ought to tell you that when we returned I could not bear to go into
our hut, where every little bunch of withered flowers, every garment of
skin, and every implement, proclaimed aloud the stunning loss I had
sustained. No, I went back direct to the camp of the natives, and
remained among them until the moment came for my departure. I think it
was in the soft, still nights that I felt it most. I wept till I was as
weak as a baby. Oh the torments of remorse I endured--the fierce
resentment against an all-wise Providence! "Alone! alone! alone!" I
would shriek in an agony of wretchedness; "Gone! gone! gone! Oh, come
back to me, come back to me, I cannot live here now."

And I soon realised that it was impossible for me to remain there any
longer. There was much weeping and lamentation among the native women,
but I guessed it was not so much on account of the poor girls, as out of
sympathy for the loss the great white chief had sustained. I think Yamba
went among them, and pointed out the magnitude of the disaster; otherwise
they would have failed to grasp it. What was the loss of a woman or two
to them? I felt, I say, that I could not settle down in my hut again,
and I was consumed with an intense longing to go away into the wilderness
and there hide my grief. In making an attempt to reach civilisation, I
thought this time of going due south, so that perhaps I might ultimately
reach Sydney, or Melbourne, or Adelaide. I argued thus casually to
myself, little dreaming of the vast distances--mountain ranges and
waterless deserts--that separated me from these great cities. For all I
knew, I might have come upon them in a few weeks! All I was certain of
was that they lay somewhere to the south. Time was no object to me, and
I might as well be walking in the direction of civilisation as remaining
in idle misery in my bay home, brooding over the disaster that had
clouded my life and made it infinitely more intolerable than it was
before the girls came.

Yamba instantly agreed to accompany me, and a few weeks after the loss of
the girls we started out once more on our wanderings, accompanied by my
ever faithful dog.

Bruno also missed his young mistresse