hole to big hole, and by so doing I may yet get ahead of the kurreahs."
On swiftly sped Byamee, making short cuts from big hole to big hole,
and his track is still marked by the morilla ridges that stretch down
the Narran, pointing in towards the deep holes. Every hole as he came
to it he found dry, until at last he reached the end of the Narran; the
hole there was still quite wet and muddy, then he knew he was near his
enemies, and soon he saw them. He managed to get, unseen, a little way
ahead of the kurreahs. He hid himself behind a big dheal tree. As the
kurreahs came near they separated, one turning to go in another
direction. Quickly Byamee hurled one spear after another, wounding both
kurreahs, who writhed with pain and lashed their tails furiously,
making great hollows in the ground, which the water they had brought
with them quickly filled. Thinking they might again escape him, Byamee
drove them from the water with his spears, and then, at close quarters,
he killed them with his woggarahs. And ever afterwards at flood time,
the Narran flowed into this hollow which the kurreahs in their
writhings had made.

When Byamee saw that the kurreahs were quite dead, he cut them open and
took out the bodies of his wives. They were covered with wet slime, and
seemed quite lifeless; but he carried them and laid them on two nests
of red ants. Then he sat down at some little distance and watched them.
The ants quickly covered the bodies, cleaned them rapidly of the wet
slime, and soon Byamee noticed the muscles of the girls twitching.
"Ah," he said, "there is life, they feel the sting of the ants."

Almost as he spoke came a sound as of a thunder-clap, but the sound
seemed to come from the ears of the girls. And as the echo was dying
away, slowly the girls rose to their feet. For a moment they stood
apart, a dazed expression on their faces. Then they clung together,