"Is she talking about the Swan Lady?" Tram whispered to her friends. "Probably," answered Banjo. "But what would this Judith want with some mute anyway?" Hans, Tram, Banjo, Elisa, and even the black swan hid themselves behind trees. Inside the house, Mad Dog said, "What will you do with the girl once she is in your hands?" "Ignorance is bliss, my friend," said Judith, who refused to answer the question. "Don't trouble yourself with too many questions."
There were several horses that were tied to trees. Judith and her guards leapt onto their horses and rode away."Is anyone hungry?" asked Hans to his friends. "I know I am. What is that amazing smell?"
"I think it's the smell of soup," said Banjo, rubbing his tummy. "I think I smell a bit of olive oil as well.""Please, Mr. Hans, tell me that you're not considering breaking into that house, that also happens to be filled with bushrangers," said Tram, turning to Banjo and then Hans. "Bushrangers are basically highwaymen. They're robbers, and they might rob us."
She pointed at Banjo and Hans, having remembered that they too were bushrangers. "I might have something planned, regarding how to break into that house," smiled Hans. He then pointed at Banjo.
"Banjo, do you know anything about aboriginal paint?" he asked him. "Do you know how to make it?" "Of course I know how to make aboriginal paint, Hans," replied a slightly annoyed Banjo. "I know everything about aboriginal culture. I have aboriginal blood flowing through my veins." Banjo soon collected ochre. Ochres are rocks that contain the pigments needed to make paint. The rocks were crushed and mixed with water from a nearby stream. Many different paints were made. Hans took off all his garments except his underwear. Then Hans said to Banjo, "Paint my body deathly white, so that I may look like a ghost." This is what Banjo did. Then Hans applied red paint around his eyes so that it looked as if his eyes were bleeding. He also applied the red paint in the area surrounding his lips, so that he looked like a bloodthirsty cannibal.
He then painted his lips black and painted fake bullet wounds all over his body. Hans gazed at his reflection on the edge of the stream and he was impressed. "I'm ready!" he said to everyone. "You're going to get yourself killed," Banjo told him. "Probably!" replied Hans nervously. Hans approached the doorway of the house and knocked on it. The sound of the knocking woke Mad Dog up from his slumber. Mad Dog leapt off the floor on which he slept and puzzled. At first, Mad Dog thought the troopers were knocking on the door. Then Hans made ghostly noises and laughed a ghostly laugh. One of the members of Mad Dog's gang said to Mad Dog, "Do you think it's a ghost? I've heard many stories about this abandoned house. Some say that it was once an Asian settlement. Many Asians were massacred here." "I don't know if Asians even have souls," remarked Mad Dog.
Mad Dog and his gang members crept closer to the door. Then Hans knocked on the door again. He then ran at the door and knocked the door down! "I am the ghost of an Asian man, who was killed here by Europeans," cried Hans. "I have come to seek my revenge by killing all white people who dare sleep over the burial ground where I was buried." Mad Dog screamed and jumped onto the back of one of the members of his gang.
"Take the money and run!" cried Mad Dog. The members of the bushranger gang jumped up in fear and ran, except for Mad Dog because he had leapt onto the backside of one of the members of his gang. Some of them carried sacks of gold, jade, and silver while they ran. One of the bushrangers opened the window of the house, and they all leapt out of the window. They jumped onto their horses, which were tied onto trees. They untied their horses from the trees and rode away. Elisa, Tram, and Banjo got out of their hiding places, which were behind trees and congratulated Hans. "What a performance!" cried Tram, giving Hans a high five. "I wish I could act as well as you."
"What I did was not easy, and took me a lot of practice," replied Hans, deeply proud of his acting abilities. "Acting is not as easy as it appears, but it is easy for someone who lies a lot." "Stop with the chit chat," said an impatient Banjo, pointing his finger at the door of the house. "Let's go inside the house! My stomach is hungry and angry." The group went into the abandoned house and ate supper there. Hans was overjoyed to find that there was still some wine left on the blanket. "This is surely wine that is fit for an aspiring restaurateur," said Hans, as he poured the wine into his goblet and drank it, without even thinking of offering Elisa and Banjo some. Banjo turned to Elisa and tried to explain Hans' behavior to her. "He's a bit of a heavy drinker, but he means well," he said to Elisa. "He's always respected me despite my short stature." Banjo did not know if this was true, but Hans was mostly very kind to him. Mostly.
At least compared to the other bushrangers Banjo knew. Hans could have been feigning kindness, for Hans was a good actor and manipulator. Hans never went out of his way to do Banjo harm, but he never went out of his way to help Banjo either. Mad Dog and his gang often bullied Banjo, but Hans never did anything to stop them. The group slept on blankets that were spread out upon the floor because there weren't any beds in the house. That night, while the group was sleeping, Mad Dog Morgan and his team of bushrangers returned to the house.
The bushrangers got off their horses and walked up to the house. They taped, and glued sticks of dynamite to the walls of the house and attached a timer to the sticks of dynamite. One of the bushrangers was confused. "Why are we doing this, Mad Dog?" he asked, scratching his head. "We can't kill a ghost." "We can't kill a ghost, but we can still get revenge on it," whispered Mad Dog. "This house was built over a grave site. Maybe if we destroy this house, then the evil that frightened us away will leave. Besides if I can't stay in this house then neither can anyone else!" Mad Dog and his gang got back onto their horses and rode away from the house.
Fortunately, someone was hiding behind a tree trunk watching everything unfold. The man saw everything and decided to intervene. He ran over to the sticks of dynamite and tried to move them. He could not because they were glued to the cottage walls. He stood there scratching his head and wondering how to disarm the sticks of dynamite. He had no idea regarding how to disarm the dynamite, so he knocked on the door of the cottage as hard as he could. He looked at the timer that was attached to the dynamite and saw that there were only two minutes to save the day.
Nobody heard the knocking, so he yelled, "Get out of there!", but still no one heard him. He tried breaking down the wooden door, but the door would not budge. He thought of another idea to get the group out. It involved a bit of magic. Elisa awoke when she heard the sound of a smashed plate. She jolted awoke and pointed at something that was hovering in the air. The others awoke upon hearing the sound of Elisa screaming. They all saw plates and cutlery floating in the air. "Whoa!" exclaimed Tram, pointing at the pots and silverware that hovered in the air. "This is awesome! I've never seen a real ghost before. Maybe we can befriend it?" "You ought to be afraid, you fool!" shouted Hans, grabbing Tram's hand. "We have to leave this place!" The group ran out the door and to the nearest stream.
Elisa realized that someone was missing. It was the Black Swan! "How could I forget her?" Elisa thought to herself, putting her hand over her face in shame. Immediately she turned and ran back to the house to search for her swan. Banjo ran after her, hoping to stop her. "Banjo, you idiot!" roared Hans with anger, but he did not run after Banjo. "Do you want to die?" Tram also tried running back to the house, but Hans managed to restrain her. Hans jumped on Tram and tackled her to the ground. Tram struggled to keep still, even after she had been tackled to the ground by Hans. Elisa ran back into the house and saw the swan sleeping on top of a picnic blanket. She wanted so much to yell to the swan, which was also her sister, but she couldn't, so she didn't. She clapped her hands together to wake the swan up.
The swan woke up with a fright, and she grabbed it with both of her hands. Banjo tapped Elisa on her shoulder and pushed her out of the house. It was rude for him to do this, but to him, he had no choice. They continued to run deeper into the woods, but they stopped when they heard the sound of an explosion. They turned around and saw that the house to blown to smithereens. "Good lord!" said Banjo to himself. "The ghost must really be mad at us for some reason. I wonder why." Banjo turned and saw Elisa kissing her wild swan on the forehead, and stroking its back.
"What were you thinking?" he roared in confusion. "Why would you risk your life for some black swan? I doubt you care for me as much as you care for your swan." Tears streamed down Elisa's face when she heard what he said, and Banjo realized that he went too far. "I'm sorry for shouting at you," he said sincerely. "I know you love that swan, but I don't know why. I honestly think the swan's quite cute though." Elisa smiled at him and squeezed his hand tightly. Elisa and Banjo made their way back to the stream to join the others. Hans was a bit angry when they returned. "What were you two thinking?" he shouted at them. "I don't think that's important right now," said Tram pointing to a man standing behind them. "You all should pay attention to the man standing behind you."
Sure enough, there was a man standing behind them. He looked like a man in his 30's, and he had a foul smell that was like the smell of a rotting corpse. His clothes and even his shoes looked moldy. The man waved at them, saying, "Hello, you fellows! Do you have any liquor?" Elisa reacted to this by breaking off a tree branch and swinging it at him, but Banjo grabbed her arm. "Slow down!" he whispered to her. "Is everybody alright?" said the man. "Some people planted dynamite outside your house. I didn't know how to defuse the dynamite, nor could I catch the perpetrators."
"Were you the one who woke us up?" asked Banjo. "If you were the one who woke us up, then you must be some sort of magician." "A good magician never reveals his secrets," said the mysterious man cryptically while nodding. "Are you a magician, then?" asked Hans. "I did not say that I'm a magician," said the mysterious man. "You are the one who is saying so."
Elisa saw that Banjo had a wineskin bottle tied to his waist, so Elisa untied the wineskin bottle from Banjo's waist. "What are you doing?" Banjo asked her. She handed the mysterious man that wineskin bottle, which was filled with water. "We asked if you were a magician, and you didn't seem to be interested in answering it," remarked Banjo to the mysterious man. "Show us another miracle." After thinking for a moment the man bent over and grabbed one of Tram's shoes. He pulled the shoe off her foot. "What are you doing, you creep?" said a nervous Tram. The man pointed at the shoe, which looked like a flip-flop. A lot of Vietnamese people wear flip-flops. "I can make this shoe defy gravity," he claimed. "This I have to see," exclaimed an excited Tram. Everyone expected to see something marvelous, but instead they saw something mundane. The mysterious magician simply threw the shoe up into the air. The shoe landed quite some distance away from the group. "What was that?" complained a disappointed Banjo. "I told you that I could make Tram's shoe defy gravity and that was what I just did," explained the mysterious magician. "Wow," snarled Tram, who clapped sarcastically, got up and went to get her shoe back. "This is the greatest magic trick I have ever seen!" Tram knew that the mysterious man must have been a great magician, but she was very disappointed because he didn't want to do a demonstration regarding his magic.