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We of the Never-Never by Jeannie Gunn
page 24 of 289 (08%)
her sleep and cooed softly, Mac murmured drowsily: "Move-over-dear,
Move-over dear"; and the dove, taking up the refrain, crooned it again
and again to its mate.

The words of the songs were not Mac's. They belong to the lore of the
bushmen; but he sang or crooned them with such perfect mimicry of tone or
cadence, that never again was it possible to hear these songs of the
Never-Never without associating the words with the songs.

The night was full of sounds, and one by one Mac caught them up, and the
bush appeared to echo him; and leaning half drowsily, against the
pack-saddles and swags, we listened until we slipped into one of those
quiet reveries that come so naturally to bush-folk. Shut in on all sides
by bush and tall timber, with the rushing river as sentinel, we seemed in
a world all our own--a tiny human world, with a camp fire for its hub;
and as we dreamed on, half conscious of the moonlight and shoutings, the
deep inner beauty of the night stole upon us. A mystical, elusive beauty.
difficult to define, that lay underneath and around, and within the
moonlight--a beauty of deep nestling shadows, crooning whispers, and soft
rustling movement.

For a while we dreamed on, and then the Maluka broke the silence. "The
wizard of the Never-Never has not forgotten how to weave his spells while
I've been south," he said. "It won't be long before he has the missus in
his toils. The false veneer of civilisation is peeling off at a great
rate."

I roused as from a trance; and Mac threw a sharp, searching glance at me,
as I sat curled up against a swag. "You're right," he laughed; "there's
not a trace of the towney left." And rising to "see about fixing up
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