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My Wife’s Lovers
by
Presently Bingong sighted an iguana and caught it, and the three gathered about it in the shade of the sandal. After a time the interest in the iguana seemed to have shifted to something else; and they were all speaking very earnestly. At last I saw Billy and my wife only talking. Billy was excited, and apparently indignant. I could not hear what they were saying, but I saw he was pale, and his compatriots in worship rather frightened; for he suddenly got into a lofty rage. It was undoubtedly a quarrel. Mulholland saw, too, and said to me: “This looks as if there would be a chance for you yet.” He laughed. So did I.
Soon I saw by my wife’s face that she was saying something sarcastical. Then Billy drew himself up very proudly, and waving his hand in a grand way, said loudly, so that we could hear: “It’s as true as gospel; and you’ll be sorry for this-like anything and anything!” Then he stalked away from her, raising his hat proudly, but immediately turned, and beckoning to Eversofar and Bingong added: “Come on with me to barracks, you two.”
They started away towards him, looking sheepishly at my wife as they did so; but Billy finding occasion to give counter-orders, said: “But you needn’t come until you put the cockatoos away, and stuck the iguana in a barrel, and put the hose up for–for her.”
He watched them obey his orders, his head in the air the while, and when they had finished, and were come towards him, he again took off his hat, and they all left her standing alone in the garden.
Then she laughed a little oddly to herself, and stood picking to pieces the wet leaves of a geranium, looking after the three. After a little she came slowly over to us. “Well,” said I, feigning great irony, “all loves must have their day, both old and new. You see how they’ve deserted you. Yet you smile at it!”
“Indeed, my lord and master,” she said, “it is not a thing to laugh at. It’s very serious.”
“And what has broken the charm of your companionship?” I asked.
“The mere matter of the fabled Bunyip. He claimed that he had seen it, and I doubted his word. Had it been you it would not have mattered. You would have turned the other cheek, you are so tame. But he has fire and soul, and so we quarrelled.”
“And your other lovers turned tail,” I maliciously, said.
“Which only shows how superior he is,” was her reply. “If you had been in the case they would never have left me.”
“Oh, oh!” blurted Mulholland, “I am better out of this; for I little care to be called as a witness in divorce.” He rose from his chair, but I pushed him back, and he did not leave till “the cool of the evening.”
The next morning, at breakfast-time, a rouseabout brought us a piece of paper which had been nailed to the sandal-tree. On it was written:
“We have gone for the Bunyip. We travel on foot! Farewell and Farewell!”
We had scarcely read it, when John Marshall and his wife came in agitation, and said that Billy’s bed had not been slept in during the night. From the rouseabout we found that Eversofar and Bingong were also gone. They had not taken horses, doubtless because Billy thought it would hardly be valiant and adventurous enough, and because neither Bingong nor Eversofar owned one, and it might look criminal to go off with mine. We suspected that they had headed for the great Debil-devil Waterhole, where, it was said, the Bunyip appeared: that mysterious animal, or devil, or thing, which nobody has ever seen, but many have pretended to see. Now, this must be said of Billy, that he never had the feeling of fear–he was never even afraid of me. He had often said he had seen a Bunyip, and that he’d bring one home some day, but no one took him seriously. It showed what great influence he had over his companions, that he could induce them to go with him; for Bingong, being a native, must naturally have a constitutional fear of the Debil-debil, as the Bunyip is often called. The Debil-debil Waterhole was a long way off, and through a terrible country–quartz plains, ragged scrub, and little or no water all the way. Then, had they taken plenty of food with them? So far as we could see, they had taken some, but we could not tell how much.