at this time there lived in the tribe a man called wurip.
he was not a lucky man. once, in a big tribal fight, most of his relations had been killed; and when he was still quite a young man, his wife died of a mysterious sickness, before they had been married very long. then, one night, he tripped and fell into a big fire, burning himself terribly. he got better, but his left arm and hand were quite twisted and withered, and were of very little use to him.
had he been a different kind of man, it is not unlikely that he would have been killed by the tribe, for the blacks had no use for maimed or deformed persons. but wurip was strong, apart from his twisted arm; and also he had a way of muttering to himself that rather frightened people. it was only a habit, but the blacks were always afraid of what they could not understand. so they left him alone.
he lived in a little wurley by himself, and though he was lonely, and would have liked to take another wife, he knew that no girl would want a man whose arm and hand were not like those of other men. so he did not try to get married, and gradually he became very solitary. he thought the other men disliked him, and he would go away by himself on hunting expeditions, and wander through the scrub alone. although he was half a cripple, he soon learned to know the bush more thoroughly than any man in the tribe, and he trained his shrivelled arm to do a great deal, although at first it had seemed that it must be useless for ever. the other blacks at first gave him nick-names about his arm, but he did not like them, and his eyes were so fierce that they did not let him hear them any more, and to his face only called him by his own name, wurip, which means "a little bird."
now, wurip loved his tribe. he had no special friends in it, which was partly his own fault, for he had grown very unsociable, but he was proud of the tribe itself, because it was brave and owned good country, and had been successful in many fights. it made him sore at heart to see it suffering from the want of fire, and also it hurt his pride that it should have been beaten by women. so he made up his mind that he would try to recover fire from the wicked fire-women. he thought about it for a long time, and laid his plans very carefully.
one day he left the camp, carrying no weapons, but only a single waddy. the other blacks said to him:
"where are you going?"
wurip said, "i go to try to get fire back."
"you!" they said. "a little man, and crippled! that is very funny." and all the people laughed at him.
wurip hesitated, and a gleam came into his eyes, so quick and fierce that those who had laughed shrank back. then he turned on his heel and walked off into the scrub, and the blacks said, "let him go. he is mad, and he will most likely be killed; and it really does not matter. he is not much use."
into the wild bush wurip went, taking short noiseless strides. he was a little man, but he had the quick movements of many little men, and at all times he could move rapidly through the bush, scarcely making a sound as he went.
he passed through the scrub, and came to boggy lands and morasses; his light feet carried him over swamps and across creeks fringed with reeds and sedges. then he saw a light curl of smoke going lazily skywards, and at the sight his heart gave a leap, for it was long since he had seen fire.
until then he had travelled very quickly. but now he slackened his speed and went slowly across the plain towards the fire-women's camp. as he drew near he could see them, sitting in front of the wurley and weaving their rushes. they did not look up as he came, and he advanced so near them that he began to think that the magic wall could be there no longer. just as he was wondering if this were indeed true, one of the fire-women glanced up and saw him; and almost immediately wurip felt some invisible object blocking his way, and knew he could go no farther.
he stopped, and burst out laughing, and at the sound of his merriment the other fire-woman glanced up sharply from her weaving, and the first one paused, with a stick of she-oak wood in her hand, and looked at him in blank astonishment. so silent was the place that wurip's shout of laughter echoed like a thunderclap. the fire-women looked at the little black figure standing among the harsh tussocks of swamp-grass, and he waved to them with his withered arm. but they took no further notice, going on scornfully with their work.
wurip had expected nothing else, and he was not discouraged. he began collecting sticks and brushwood for a wurley, singing as he went about his work, in full view of the two women. he made no further attempt to get through the invisible wall. there was not much timber about, and to find suitable material for his wurley was a difficult task. he walked slowly, using his crippled arm very little, because he hoped that the women would be less careful about him if they regarded him as a one-armed man. sometimes he felt that they were looking at him, and then he would work with particular awkwardness. always, however, he sang, and went about with a merry countenance, as if he had not a single care in the world.
he built his wurley and went off into the swamp to hunt, returning with some lizards and grubs, and a duck that he had caught just as it settled on a sedgy pool. standing a little way back from the wall, he called out and threw the duck towards the fire where the women sat. but it fell before it reached them, meeting the unseen obstacle.
"what a pity—it is for you!" called wurip, slowly, so that they could hear easily. "it is a fat duck." and saying this he laughed again, and went into his wurley, where he ate his supper contentedly—although it was not cooked—and went to sleep.
in the morning, the women were sitting as before. but the duck had gone, and, looking closely across the little space, wurip saw that there were feathers lying about near their fire. also there was a pleasant smell of cooking in the air. this gladdened his heart, for it showed that the women did not mind making him useful, and that was exactly what he wanted.
so the days went by, and wurip lived in his wurley, and the women in theirs. he never saw them away from it. neither did he try any more to go near it. from time to time he made them friendly signals, or called cheerful greetings to them, but that was all. each day he went hunting, and good luck always attended him, because it was the time when waterfowl are plentiful, and as no others hunted there, the birds were not afraid. it was quite easy to fill the bag he had made out of rushes. and each evening he put the best of the game on a big stone some distance from his wurley, and in the morning it was always gone.
this went on for fourteen days. when he was not hunting, wurip lay about his camp, always singing contentedly as he carved himself boomerangs or whittled heads for throwing-spears that he never used. once he carved a bowl from a root that he found, and this also he put on the stone, for the fire-women, and they took it. he gathered bundles of the rushes that women of the tribes use in weaving, and left them too. so that he became very useful to them, although he had never heard their voices.
then, after fourteen days, wurip pretended that he had fallen sick. he did not go out hunting any more, neither did he place offerings upon the big stone. in his wurley he had hidden sufficient food for himself to last him for several days, but he did not let the fire-women see him eating. instead, he crawled out, dragging himself along the ground, and cried out, sorrowfully, waving his withered arm to them. he crawled back into his wurley and ate and slept; but they did not come, as he had hoped they would.
next day he did not go out into the open at all. he kept close within his wurley, and all the exercise he took was to groan very mournfully. he groaned nearly all day, and by the time it was evening he was more tired than if he had hunted for three days. because he was tired he ate nearly all that remained of his food, after which he felt discouraged, for he realized that it would soon be necessary to go out hunting again, and he wanted to seem ill. so he groaned more loudly than ever, and once or twice cried out as if in pain. then he fell asleep.
the fire-women were fierce creatures, but still they were women. it troubled them that this crippled little blackfellow should be ill, too ill to bring them gifts or to busy himself, singing and laughing about his camp. to sit over a fire and weave mats of white and green may, in time, become dull; and it cheered the women to see wurip and listen to his songs. when he did not appear they took counsel together, agreeing that so small a fellow, with a withered arm, could not be dangerous.
so, in the morning, wurip heard steps, and opening his eyes, he saw one of the women entering his wurley. he almost jumped up; then, remembering, he groaned heavily, and looked at her with a stupid stare. she spoke to him, asking what was the matter, but he only moaned in answer. so she picked him up—it was not difficult, for she was very powerful, and wurip was quite light—and carried him over to where her sister sat. there seemed to be no invisible wall now: the fire-woman walked to the fire, and put wurip down before it. he nearly shouted, it was so long since he had been near a fire: but, luckily, he remembered to turn the shout into a groan.
for some days wurip pretended to be very ill, and the fire-women nursed him—not in the harsh fashion of the medicine-men, but in gentler manner, feeding him, and giving him a comfortable bed to lie on. wurip was only too glad to lie still and be fed, and it was not hard for him to pretend to be ill, because, being black, he was not required to look pale. moreover, to taste cooked food once more nearly made him weep with joy. he was very grateful to the fire-women, and told them that he was an outcast from the tribe, because of his crippled arm, and he begged that, when he grew better, they would allow him to serve them.
the fire-women were not sorry to have a servant. getting food and firewood was not very entertaining for them, and the gathering of rushes was a long and laborious task, which they hated. there could, they thought, be no risk in taking so harmless a person as wurip to work for them. still, they were stern with him. they told him that when he was well he must live in his own wurley and only come near theirs when it was necessary. also, they assured him that if he were unfaithful to them their magic would strike him dead immediately. this made wurip think very hard, for he did not want to meet such an unpleasant fate, although he was quite determined to take fire back to his tribe.
he showed great horror at the idea of being unfaithful, and when he thought it was prudent to get better he recovered his strength—not too quickly, for it was very pleasant to be nursed—and then began his duties. the fire-women found him an excellent servant. he was always at hand when he was wanted, and he did his work well. there was plenty of food at all times, and very long fine rushes that he found when he was hunting far from the camp. wood he brought also, but the fire-women would never allow him to go near the fire. he laid the sticks at a little distance away: and they tended the fire and cooked the food, giving him a share. altogether, they were very happy and comfortable, and if he had been able to forget the shivering tribe, wurip would have been content. although he was only a servant, he was less lonely than he had been in the company of the other blacks. the fire-women were stern with him, but they never made him remember that his arm was crippled—and when he had been with the tribe he could not forget for an instant that he was different to the others.
sometimes in the evenings, as he lay in his wurley, the thought came to him that it would be better to forget the tribe and stay with the fire-women. after all, they were good to him in their fierce fashion, and he remembered that he had very little to look forward to, in returning to the big camp. even if he took back the long-lost fire, they might be grateful to him for a little while, but he would never be as the other men were.
and then memory would come to him, bringing back pictures of the tribe, half starved and shivering; of the little children who were dying for want of proper food and warmth, and of the cold hearth-stones of his people. however they might treat him, he could not forget that they were his own people. he knew that he must go back to them.
