The Promised Land. Mudrooroo

believes in it and accepts baptism will be saved; the man who refuses to belief in it will be condemned. And signs like these will accompany those who have professed their faith: they will use my name to expel demons; they will speak entirely new languages; they will be able to handle serpents; they will even be able to drink deadly poison without harm; and the sick upon whom they lay their hands will recover.”’

      ‘O Lord, you glow before me like molten gold!’ he suddenly shouted, glaring at his flock who, perhaps luckily, were not his flock. They stared back at him ·in puzzlement and he wished to move them as his bright vision had him. His mind returned to the old days and the words of a simple sermon came to him. He began to speak as if in tongues. It was broken English and he pushed his voice up to a shrill to reach into the hearts of each and every one who was listening. ‘One good God; one bad Devil. God good to us. He lives in sky and looks down. Devil is bad and lives underground in the fire. Good people who love God will go to Him when they die. All those go along same road, white man and blackfellow. True, true!’

      Sir George stopped, for the troopers were staring back at him with blank faces which did not reveal even limited interest in his words. Their leader had a different expression on his face, though he spoke kindly enough: ‘Sir, these heathen need someone to instruct them carefully. They know only my commands and what I teach them. Later, they will learn more when missionaries are sent among them. Your words only confuse them. It’ll take a while yet, before they are ready for such sermons.’

      ‘Hallelujah,’ the irrepressible Monaitch shouted. ‘Good, Father, good. Hallelujah!’

      ‘If there is only one prepared to listen, then that is enough; for it is not the size of the congregation that matters, but the faith in their hearts.’ And with this Sir George took the arm of the convert. He guided Monaitch to his tent where he talked to him not of God and Jesus, but of the stone streaked with yellow marks which the Bailey expedition had found. ‘I need to know about this magic stone if I am to further God’s work,’ he said, appealing to both the Christian and the savage in Monaitch.

      The native screwed up his face. Sir George watched him ponder, then smile. Monaitch laughed in glee as he replied: ‘That stone, not magic, but pretty. I found it, liked it and flung it into a dray. No one cared for it, not even that governor. Later, they want to know where it come from. True, true, silly stone. Well, my words not so many then and I mistook their question. I said “Yillarn”, which means in our language “rock”, and there is a place of that name too where Bailey been. But it not come from there. It come from Kalipa, a place in desert where they live without Jesus.’

      ‘Are there many such stones there, Monaitch?’ Sir George asked, placing his hand on the man’s shoulder. In his experience, such physical contact was welcomed by blackfellows.

      ‘Many, many, enough to build a big house for God.’

      ‘And I will too, that is a promise to you,’ declared Sir George. ‘So you know this place?’

      ‘I know this place. Jesus show me the way. He talk to me, He talk to me. He does, He does,’ the native shouted.

      ‘He does, I assure you He does,’ the knight replied, rubbing his hands together. ‘And you can lead us there?’

      ‘Too right I can. Hallelujah, Father, Hallelujah, for the tribe there know not the Lord. He not their Saviour. They believe in giant serpent. Kill it, kill it, for Jesus’ sake.’

      ‘The Devil, yes, that is the Devil and he must be unthroned. Monaitch, the Lord has smiled down on you this day.’

      When the native guide lifted up his cross, Amelia Fraser, who was preparing to sketch the scene, slipped quickly away from the detested symbol which shone a lurid painful light that blistered her skin. Sir George’s words about driving out demons might have made her smile at other times, but the symbol of another’s pain had hurt her enough to make her rage that there were such things of torment. The sun dipped below the horizon as she rushed into her tent. At last! She flung off her heavy and constricting clothing, which again reminded her of her mortality, then she transformed into a bat and flapped up into the sky. Her anger left her and she exulted in her mastery of the elements, though she had to keep close to the ground until the sun was well and truly gone and night was a warm refuge about her. Now she rose higher and higher until the land spread out below her as wide and as enduring and as lonesome as her life felt; but she had a friend. She flew a large circle and to the east saw a single dot of red which might be a campfire; but as she completed the arc to the southwest the small collection of lights which marked the town drew her. She darted off towards it.

      Except for the drawing room and Lucy’s bedchamber, the governor’s bungalow was in darkness with nary a figure in sight. Still, Amelia carefully circled the structure before coming down to the lighted window of the girl’s room. She fluttered there, beating her wings and hoping to attract her attention. She stopped this when she saw that her friend was not alone. She was conversing with Rebecca Crawley, or rather listening to her. Amelia hung at the window and waited.

      The bedchamber, as all the rooms, was overcrowded with furniture. A four-poster bed was pressed against one wall, a dressing table filled a gap between the head of the bed, and a huge mahogany dresser hulked along the wall, covering the bottom half of the window. Against the other wall, leaving scarcely room for the door to open, was a large wardrobe in which Lucy had stacked her husband’s and her own clothing in an attempt to keep them from the dust which covered everything. Alongside the bed an Axminster carpet had been laid out. On it were three stuffed easy chairs and pieces of luggage which made the space into an irregular maze.

      Lucy sat on the bed, which was perhaps the only comfortable and free place in the room, for the chairs were piled with odds and ends. It also provided enough space for the wooden frame of her embroidery tapestry which was before her though the canvas was still blank. The governor’s lady shared her bed, reclining on it and taking up much more space than the girl, who was forced to huddle against the bedhead.

      Rebecca Crawley with only Lucy as a guest had stopped any pretence of dressing appropriately for morning, noon and evening. She wore a pink domino, more than a trifle faded and soiled, and marked here and there with pomatum; but her arms shone out from the loose sleeves of the garment, which was tied tightly around her waist so as to set off her still trim figure. As she reclined on one elbow, she sipped on a glass of brandy, thus breaking up into paragraphs the monologue bemoaning her fate.

      ‘Is not this a strange and dismal place for a woman who has lived in a vastly superior world? Was it my fault that I put the interests of my country first and, I admit it, was naive enough to be led on by my Lord Steyne? Politics, my dear, is not for us women, and so alas and to my detriment what was to have been discreet became indiscreet and the subject of vain journalists who slung low jibes in my direction. Calumnies, but they hurt, my dear, they hurt as if I was being struck by arrows and I was too, arrows of outrageous fortune. I, who but followed the dictates of my husband, had to continue to do so when he was shunted off to this post.’

      She took a sip of brandy and passed one of Lucy’s lace handkerchiefs across her eyes.

      ‘But, alas, it is the lot of women to be alongside their men and I am the truest wife that ever lived. When he was made governor here, I accompanied him, though my heart bled to leave my child, my one darling boy behind; but it was for his own benefit. If he had come with me, he might have become as low as any of these savages. Still, I am as true a mother as I am a wife, and my heart bleeds for him.’

      She affected to break down and her sobs filled the handkerchief, though behind the concealing cloth her eyes remained dry.

      ‘O you poor thing,’ Lucy declared, ‘to be far from hearth and home and the sight of your dear child. I pity you. I couldn’t bear it. I have not your strength and devotion.’

      ‘And do not forget the luxuriant salons I frequented. I was in the highest of high, society, kings and princes and ambassadors were at my feet. Alas, to be denied all that; but, my dear, I admit it – I have always been restless and if I am here today, then tomorrow I shall be back among those who are my equals. It will be soon too,’ she declared with a tinkle of silvery laughter.