This terrifying prospect was embodied in the only native who remained: a twelve-year-old child who had largely ceased to talk and who, in a way she had learnt in Crozier’s cabin and refined in the company of the other children at the orphanage, had become absent from her life.‘Some even believe she cast a Satanic spell over the previous Governor,’ said Montague, as the new Governor scanned the memorandum recommending Mathinna be sent back to what remained of her exiled people on Flinders Island.‘I am an Anglican,’ said the new Governor, throwing sand over his quickly scrawled signature, ‘and thus I am relieved of the burden of having to believe in anything.’Since so many others had left them forever, the Wybalenna natives were excited to have one child return. The arrival of Mathinna was an event. They posted lookouts on Flagstaff Hill, they rushed to the beach waving when the sloop berthed, and they began shouting when they saw the ship’s tender being lowered with a skinny black child sitting in its bow.
