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On the 16th day, when he was following the Jinjin River, "a small swarthy white face popped out" of the woods. It was a runaway half-caste, Tocky, whose "tucker" had been "yams an' lily roots — an fresh-water tuttles an' fish an' stick-eggs —an' pool lil frogs an' birdses— an' sometime nussing." Norman feasted her on cold roast bustard, chutney, tinned peaches jam; she became his lubra. Half-caste bastards, they returned to the farm, lived in primitive vigilance against the police— pregnant Tocky was resolved not to return to the dreaded native compound from which she had escaped.
But it was Norman the police were after. A sack of bones, a riddled skull and Norman's rifle had been discovered at a camp site beside the Jinjin River. Circumstantial evidence pyramided against him. But Lawyer Bightit (who inside an hour managed to resemble bull, lamb, toad, dove, turkey cock, shark, and a huge red spider) miraculously managed to reconstruct the crime exactly as it had happened: during a time when Norman left her alone, Tocky had blasted the brains of a lusting intruder.
Norman returned home, was startled "by the sudden appearance of two crows that swept up from out the broken tank. ... He climbed the ladder, looked inside.
A human skull — no — two — a small one and a tiny one. And human hair and rags of clothes and a pair of bone-filled boots. Two skulls, a small one and tiny one. Tocky and her baby!" Norman's infant had not waited for the midwives of the Binghi— and had at least escaped the fate of a Nawnim.
Snipes and Nuttaguls. Xavier Herbert's uncombed tale of an exotic land is also frequently a hymn to Terra Australia : "When the multicolored schisty rocks split golden waterfalls— when the scarlet plains were under water, green with wild rice, swarming with Siberian snipe— when the billabongs were brimming and the water lilies blooming and the nuttaguls shouting loudest. ..."
The Author. Xavier Herbert, 42, son of a gold prospector and a gold prospector's daughter, was born on Australia's wild northwest coast. He studied medicine in Melbourne, began to write, switched to Sydney and wrote in earnest. City life stunned him. He set out to battle the 4000-mile journey home: sawmilled, stock-rode, cattle-drove, dingo-trapped, came upon his literary promised land—the Northern Territory.
He got little recognition as a writer, got more from the Japanese as a pearl diver, soon earned enough money to take him to London. Two years of European bread lines gave him gnawing homesickness.
Capricornia was written during years of work among the aborigines. Sergeant Herbert is now on active service on his beloved northern coast.