between a sneeze and a cough.—"No good name dat—Ramon berry good."[1]
"Ahoy! Weevel," said Slinger, arousing him from his nap by a smart rap on his back. Poor Weevel jumped on his legs as if he had been electrified. His face was almost as ugly as any of his sable contemplators. He saw nothing but the blacks grinning around him. Feeling assured that murder could be their only object, he seized on a portmanteau and laid about him with the valour of desperation.
"Yock-ki!—Berry drunk, white fellow," said the chief of the little party, as he retreated beyond the reach of Weevel and his weapon.
"Help!—Murder!!—Murder!!!" screeched Weevel:—"Raymond!—Slinger! Oh where are you?"
"Here we are," said Slinger, giving him a slight prick behind with a spear taken from the hands of a native. "What is the row?"
Oh I'm so glad to see you," said Weevel, recovering his courage, but panting with the exertion and excitement he had undergone.—"Fearful contest!—dreadful death!—Oh dear! Oh dear!—What a place to live in!—you fall asleep for a few moments, and when you awake find yourself at the mercy of—devils." This last word was pronounced sotto voce, as the bare possibility of the "devils" understanding so much English flashed across the discreet Weevel's mind.
In the fracas the looking-glass hat had fallen to the ground. It had not escaped the notice of the natives, who passed it
- ↑ The Australian natives having no sound of s in their language, find it almost impossible to overcome the pronunciation of it in another. If a Port Philip black fellow is told to say "split sixpence," he emits a spluttering sound resembling tplit tickpent—c.
