Australian Hauntings: A Second Anthology of Australian Colonial Supernatural Fiction by James Doig

go. I’ll be back by daylight. There’s no fear of the blacks turning up again, I know the run of these fellows.”
    “I’m game,” said the wounded man faintly.
    “Right. I’ll load your revolver up for you, and be back as soon as I can. Keep your pecker up, you’re safe enough here.”
    With this rough but kindly consolation the stockman departed, and the survivor of the two men who had been suddenly attacked by the natives when camping, was left alone. Not a pleasant position, but nerves are not supposed to be known in the outside country.
    There was a first-quarter moon, and the shadows soon got darker and darker beneath its feeble light. The man with the broken head had quite recovered his consciousness but he still felt dizzy and weak. It was an awful time to wait until daylight. Supposing the niggers came back again after all! Then he recalled all the stories he had heard of the blacks mutilating the dead bodies of their enemies. If they came back at all it would be for that. Supposing he was unconscious when they came and they commenced on him! He must watch all night to prevent that. Poor Joe, his mate, he wouldn’t like him to be cut up by the darkies.
    Surely, he thought, one of the bodies had moved. The moon gave such a sickly half-light now it was sinking that it was impossible to make certain. Yes, it was a dark figure creeping up to Joe’s body, not one of the dead ones, for he could still count them—one, two, three, four. A live nigger crawling up to hack Joe about. He took aim and fired. That dropped him; he could see him writhing in the streak of light that broke through a rift in the trees. Go and finish him, to save another shot. On his hands and knees he crawled over, picking up a dropped club on the way. Then the silence of the night was broken by fierce and heavy blows, and he crawled back to his tree and fainted.
    The moon had set when he opened his eyes again, but, by the pale light of the stars, he saw, to his horror, another black shadow approaching the dead body of his mate. Another successful shot and, full of rage, he again crept over and used the formidable club. But the savages were not to be deterred; one after another the dark forms came creeping up, to fall beneath revolver and club, until at last the man’s senses left him.
    The day had broken, but the sun was not yet up, when the stockman and another man drove up in the buggy. They jumped out, and hastened to the apparent sleeper, but he was dead.
    “Have the niggers been back and killed him?”
    The stockman shook his head. “I can’t make it out—look at this club in his hand covered with blood and—”
    The two stood up and gazed curiously about. One, two, three, four black bodies and one red heap.
    “He wasn’t like that when I left him,” said the stockman, hastily; “he was speared clean.”
    The head was pounded out of recognition, the body and limbs smashed by maniacal blows; the corpse of the wretched Joe was beaten out of all semblance of humanity.
    “There have been no blacks here since I left.”
    “What can be the meaning of that club in his hand?” was the reply.

A STRANGE OCCURRENCE ON HUCKEY’S CREEK, by Ernest Favence
    The Bulletin , 11 December 1897
    The heat haze hung like a mist over the plain. Everything seen through it appeared to palpitate and quiver, although not a breath of air was stirring. The three men, sitting under the iron-roofed verandah of the little roadside inn, at which they had halted and turned out their horses for a mid-day spell, were drenched with perspiration and tormented to the verge of insanity by flies. The horses, finding it too hot to keep up even the pretence of eating, had sought what shade they could find, and stood there in pairs, head to tail.
    “Blessed if there isn’t a loony of some kind coming across the plain,” said one of the men suddenly.
    The others looked, and could make out an object that was coming along the road that led across the open, but the