’Twasn’t him, and it died with a flicker; and then what I’d long dreaded came:
I was serving two drovers with liquor when one of them mentioned his name.
‘Oh, yes!’ said the other one, winking, ‘on the Paroo I saw him: he’d been
In Eulo a fortnight then, drinking, and driving about with “The Queen,”
While the bullocks were going to glory, and his billet was not worth a damn!’
I told him to cut short the story, as I pulled-to the door with a slam.
Too late! for the words were loud-spoken, and Skeeta was out in the hall:
Then I knew that a girl’s heart was broken, as I heard a low cry and a fall.
And then came a day when the doctor went home, for the truth was avowed;
And I knew that my hands, which had rocked her in childhood, would fashion her shroud:
I knew we should tenderly carry and lay her where many more lie—
Ah, why will the girls love and marry, when men are not worthy?—ah, why?
She lay there a-dying, our Skeeta: not e’en did she stir at my kiss:
In the next world, perchance, we may greet her; but never, ah, never, in this!
