enjoying the cool rest the water gave their hot, tired limbs, when they
were seized and swallowed by two kurreahs. Having swallowed the girls,
the kurreahs dived into an opening in the side of the spring, which was
the entrance to an underground watercourse leading to the Narran River.
Through this passage they went, taking all the water from the spring
with them into the Narran, whose course they also dried as they went
along.

Meantime Byamee, unwitting the fate of his wives, was honey hunting. He
had followed the bee with the white feather on it for some distance;
then the bee flew on to some budtha flowers, and would move no further.
Byamee said, "Something has happened, or the bee would not stay here
and refuse to be moved on towards its nest. I must go to Coorigel
Spring and see if my wives are safe. Something terrible has surely
happened." And Byamee turned in haste towards the spring. When he
reached there he saw the bough shed his wives had made, he saw the yams
they had dug from the ground, and he saw the frogs, but Birrahgnooloo
and Cunnunbeillee he saw not. He called aloud for them. But no answer.
He went towards the spring; on the edge of it he saw the goomillahs of
his wives. He looked into the spring and, seeing it dry, he said, "It
is the work of the kurreahs; they have opened the underground passage
and gone with my wives to the river, and opening the passage has dried
the spring. Well do I know where the passage joins the Narran, and
there will I swiftly go." Arming himself with spears and woggarahs he
started in pursuit. He soon reached the deep hole where the underground
channel of the Coorigel joined the Narran. There he saw what he had
never seen before, namely, this deep hole dry. And he said: "They have
emptied the holes as they went along, taking the water with them. But
well know I the deep holes of the river. I will not follow the bend,
thus trebling the distance I have to go, but I will cut across from big