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pocket-watch and sprung open the case so that he could check the time. Ten o’clock and half-a-minute; and still no sign of Charlotte. He shivered, partly with cold and partly because he was bursting to empty his bladder. But supposing he went for a piss and missed Charlotte altogether? Or supposing she came out, all perfume and beauty, and caught him at it? He swore to God that he would never drink beer again.
    He whistled again, and listened. A parrot creaked and chattered, and fluttered in the branches off to his left. One of the windows in the Lindsay house dimmed, and then the window next to it brightened, as if someone werecarrying an oil-lamp from room to room. A window was closed, and then four or five shutters. It sounded as if the family were preparing to go to bed.
    Eyre thought of the afternoon when he and Charlotte had walked in the abandoned Botanic Gardens, among the wild and scraggly bushes, down by the Company’s bridge. A flock of sulphur-crested cockatoos had suddenly risen from the river-banks like a shower of snow, and circled around them, fluttering and crying, and then gradually settled again. And while Yanluga had sat placidly at the reins of the carriage, smoking his small clay pipe, Eyre had drawn Charlotte close to him, and kissed first her cheek, and then her forehead, and then her lips, until she had lifted her fingers gently and touched his mouth, to make him stop, because he was disturbing her so.
    A dog barked three or four times, over by the mill. Then there was silence again, for endless minutes; except for the insects, and the night-birds, and the whispering of the trees.
    Eyre decided that Charlotte wasn’t coming; and that it was time to give up this amorous vigil as nothing but self-inflicted torture, both physical and mental. He collected up his blanket and his bottle of wine and his parcel of cakes, and retreated from his hide-out by the Lindsay’s back gate at a slow backstepping crouch, until he was well beyond the stringy-bark gums. He paused for a clattering pee; and he was just buttoning himself up again when Yanluga appeared out of nowhere, the whites of his eyes as bright as a beast’s, and his teeth shining in a disembodied grin.
    Eyre let out a whoop of fright.
    â€˜Mr Walker, sir,’ said Yanluga, clutching his sleeve.
    â€˜Yanluga! You scared me out of my skin.’
    Yanluga couldn’t help giggling. ‘You were making
kumpa
on the dry tree-bark. Anybody could hear, for miles and miles.’
    â€˜Only if they had ears like a blackfellow; or a dingo. Where’s Miss Charlotte?’
    â€˜Miss Charlotte had to go to her room, sir. Mr Face FunGus say so.’
    â€˜Damn it,’ said Eyre. ‘I thought as much. Damn. Can you give me another message for me?’
    â€˜You shouldn’t worry, sir,’ said Yanluga. ‘Miss Charlotte said, wait for just a little while, and she can escape from her room. Then she will come to the garden to see you.
Ngaiyeri
Face Fun-Gus is very tired from travelling; and from
ngraldi
, from anger.’
    â€˜
Ngraldi,
’ Eyre repeated. ‘I think that describes it perfectly. Will she be long?’
    â€˜One minute, two minutes. But wait here.’
    Eyre laid down his blanket and his wine, and then reached out and took Yanluga’s hand, and squeezed it. ‘Teach me another word,’ he said. ‘The blackfellow for “friend.”’
    Yanluga kept on smiling, but he was silent for a very long time.
    â€˜What’s the matter?’ asked Eyre.
    â€˜No white sir ask me that before,’ said Yanluga.
    â€˜Well, there’s always a first time.’
    Yanluga squeezed Eyre’s hand in return. ‘Friend is
ngaitye
, in my tongue, sir,’ he said.
    â€˜
Ngaitye,
’ Eyre pronounced; and then he said, ‘That’s you.’
    Yanluga hesitated, and then he bowed his head, and said, ‘I go find Miss Charlotte, Mr Walker,