long ago, black people were scattered all over the earth, and the forests and plains were full of them. but a great flood came. for weeks it rained all day and all night, until nearly all the plains were great swamps. then the snow was washed from the hills, and the rivers and creeks overflowed their banks, and swept over the country. there was scarcely anything to be seen except the tops of the tallest trees sticking out of the waters that covered the land. all the camps were washed away, and nearly all the people were drowned.
in one tribe, the only people left alive were a man and three women. their camp was near a river; and when the flood came and the river rose and washed away the wurleys, they clung to a great log that lay upon the bank. it was so huge a log that they did not think any flood would ever move it. but they had seen only little floods, and they did not know what the river could do when it rose in its wrath.
the water crept higher and higher as they clung to the log, and at length they felt its great length give a little shiver beneath them. presently it shifted a little, and the water slipped below it; and soon it swung right round until one end pointed over the bank. still the flood came rising and rising, and presently a wave flowed right over the log and washed off some of the people who were clinging to it. but the man and the three women dug their fingers into knot-holes and cracks, and held on desperately.
then a fresh rush of water took the log, and it bumped heavily three times on the bank and slid off into the water. at first, its weight took it under the surface, and the four blacks, feeling the cold dark water close over their heads, made sure that death had come for them. still they gripped the log, and presently it rose, and the current whirled it round and sent it off downstream. it bumped heavily on a snag, and one of the women fell off, crying for help as she went. the man leaned over quickly and by good chance gripped her by the hair. somehow, half pulled, half climbing, she managed to scramble back, and got another grip upon the sodden wood. then the flood carried them into the darkness.
all through the cold blackness of the night they held to their rocking place of refuge. sometimes it went aground, with a jar that shook it through its great length, and hung awhile before a fresh spurt of water washed it off again, to float away into the storm-riven night once more. then there would come bends in the river, when the current would fail to take the log round quickly enough, because it was so long; and it would sail on and ram its nose into the bank, running so far into the soft mud that perhaps an hour would creep past before the washing of the water worked it loose again. then the log would swing right round, shaking in the eddies, until it seemed that numbed fingers could hold no longer. but still the terrified blacks held on, while their raft spun down the stream once more, with the cold waves splashing over their shivering bodies.
dawn broke slowly, in the mist of driving rain, and showed them a country covered as far as they could see with water. on either side of the river, the topmost ridge of the high banks still could be seen: but soon these were almost submerged and the log floated in the midst of a great brown sea.
about two hours after sunrise a sudden swirl of water took the log and floated it out upon the top of the left-hand bank. it came to rest with a shock, and one of the women loosened her grip and fell off, with a mournful little cry that she could hold on no more. but to her surprise, the water was only up to her knees, and the log lay at rest beside her, its voyage over.
the man, whose name was karwin, grunted as he straightened his stiffened limbs, slipping down into the water beside the woman.
"that was good luck for you, murla," he said. "if the water had been any deeper you would have gone for ever, for there is no strength left in me to pull you out."
"i thought it was the end," said murla, her teeth chattering with cold. "and, as far as i can see, it might as well have been the end, for it is better to die quickly than slowly, and we shall never get out of this dreary place."
"that is very likely," said karwin. "but still i am glad to be able to let go of that shaking log and stand upright once more."
the other women had scrambled to a sitting position on the log, and were rubbing their stiffened limbs.
"i think those who stayed in camp will have died more comfortably than we shall," said one. "how are we to get any food?"
"oh, there will be no food," karwin answered. "unless the flood goes down very quickly, we shall certainly starve. i do not even know where we are, and i have no weapons. ky! none of our forefathers ever knew such a flood! it is something to have seen it!"
"'oh, there will be no food,' karwin answered."
"'oh, there will be no food,' karwin answered."
"that will not do us much good when we are lying dead in the mud," said murla shortly. "i would rather have a piece of kangaroo now than see the biggest flood that ever was in the world. i have had enough of floods! do you think the water will come any higher?"
"how can i tell?" answered karwin shortly. then, because they were all tired, and frozen, and hungry, they quarrelled about it, and became almost warm in the discussion. after awhile, karwin laughed.
"if i had a waddy i would give all three of you something to argue over," he said. "what is the use of becoming angry when there is nothing to be gained by it? it will not take us off this bank, that is certain."
"no, but it keeps us from thinking," murla said. "when i was angry just now i quite forgot that i was hungry."
"all women are a little mad," said karwin scornfully. "no amount of talking could ever make me forget that i was hungry. it is the most important thing in the world."
he looked about him. behind the ridge of the river bank, on which their log lay, the current of the flooded stream swept by, deep and swift. before, the sea of brown water stretched as far as he could see, broken only by clusters of storm-washed leaves, that were the tops of submerged trees. there, no current ran; but the wind fled along the surface of the water and blew it into ripples and little waves.
"i wonder how deep that is," said karwin thoughtfully. "i will go and see."
he took a few careful steps forward. then his foot slipped, and he slid off the mud of the crest of the bank, and immediately disappeared with a loud splash. the women set up a dreadful screaming, crying "come back!"—which, under the circumstances, was a very stupid thing to say. for a long moment the world seemed empty before them.
then karwin's head suddenly popped up out of the water, with his face very wet and angry. he swam to the ridge, but it was not easy to get upon it, for the crest was sharp, and very slippery, as karwin already knew to his cost. several times he clawed at it, only to slide back into the deep water, spluttering and wrathful.
"hold on to the log," said murla, quickly, to one of the women. "then give your sister your other hand, and she can hold mine."
the three formed a chain and found that, by stretching as far as they could reach, murla could just touch karwin with her hand. he made a great effort and caught it in a firm grip, and then they pulled all together, and so managed to tug him over the edge of the ridge.
karwin was very angry, and not at all grateful to them.
"you might have thought of that sooner," he growled. "ky! the water is cold, and i sank down into a clump of prickly bushes, so that i am stuck with prickles all over. there is no getting away from this bank, that is certain."
"we had suspected that," said murla, laughing. at this karwin became worse-tempered than ever, for a blackfellow does not like to be laughed at by a woman, any more than a white man likes it. he threatened to beat them all, and even struck out at one of the women who was grinning, but murla spoke to him severely.
"don't do that!" she said boldly. "we are all in the same fix together, and we will not be beaten by you. if you strike one of us we will all push you off into the deep water—and this time we will not pull you back. therefore, you had better be warned."
murla looked so fierce as she spoke that karwin stopped the hand he was lifting to strike the woman, and scratched his head with it instead. it was quite a new experience for a blackfellow to be ordered about by a lubra, and you can fancy that he did not like it. still, the other women were clearly prepared to back up murla; and he did not forget how he had struggled in the water at the edge of the bank before they pulled him in. so, instead of hitting the woman, he growled unpleasantly and waded to one end of the log, where he sat down and gave himself up to very bad temper. this time, however, he kept it inside him, and so it did not hurt anyone.
the sisters looked at murla with great respect, but murla only laughed at them. she was a pretty woman, for a lubra. her hair was long and very black and curly, and she was much fairer than most of her tribe, with a fine flat nose and a merry smile. none of her teeth had been knocked out, which happens to many lubras, and so there were no holes in her smile. she was little more than a girl, but she was tall and strong, and very clever. and she was not at all afraid of karwin.
for two days the four castaways sat on their log and watched the flood. once it rose higher, when a fresh mass of snow was washed from the distant hill-tops, and came down to swell the river; and they thought their log was again about to be carried down-stream, and gave themselves up for lost, for they knew that now they were too weak to hold on for very long. but the log held firm upon the bank, and the danger passed. it was very cold. they plastered themselves all over with a thick coating of mud, hoping that when it dried it would keep them warmer; and this helped them against the cold wind, though it was not at all comfortable in other ways.
but worst of all was hunger. on the second day they began to break pieces off the log and chew them, and that, as you can imagine, did very little good. karwin became more and more bad-tempered, and looked at the women as if it was their fault. also, he was very sore from the prickles, and the two sisters and murla spent quite a long time in picking them out of his back, though he was only a little grateful to them.
on the second day, the water began to go down. the river still roared and raced past them, bearing on its breast all kinds of things: trees, logs, bushes, interlaced fragments of ruined wurleys, drowned animals, and even dead blacks; but its water slipped back from the bank where their log lay, until it left them on a little mud island, with the brown sea still rippling about them in every direction. the tops of the trees came farther and farther out of the water, and new tree-tops came into view, with their boughs laden with mud. often they saw little living animals in the brushwood that went drifting by them in the river; and nearly all the floating rubbish was alive with snakes that had taken refuge from the flood. sometimes the brushwood would break up in the current, and they would see the snakes swimming wildly until the river carried them out of sight. two came ashore on their island, and karwin killed them with a stick he had taken out of the river. they ate them, and felt a little better. but they knew that they must soon die if they did not get more food. they watched the river anxiously, hoping that it might bring them something else.
towards evening, they were gazing up-stream, when murla cried out suddenly.
"what is that?" she said, pointing to a dark spot on the water.
"it is a bush," said one of the women, in a dull voice.
"no, i am certain it is an animal," murla said. "it is floating towards us. let us try to get it."
so they held hands, as they had done when karwin fell in, and karwin slipped into the current, holding murla's hand tightly. he had found a stick with a sharp hook on one end, where a branch had broken off, and when the dark object came bobbing down-stream he thrust at it fiercely, savage with hunger. the hook caught in it, and very carefully they drew it ashore, and managed to get it on their island. it was a harder matter to get karwin back, but they managed that too, and then they all lay on the mud and panted, and, except for murla's fair face, they looked as if they were part of the mud.
their find was a plump young wombat, and it probably saved their lives. of course they had no way of cooking it, but at the moment that scarcely troubled them; neither did they at all object to the fact that it had been dead for a good while. they ate it all, and long after the moon had come out to cast her white light into the flood it showed them sitting on the log, happily crunching the bones.
