No Opportunity Had Occurred To Bring Their Intentions Into Operation Until The Evening In Question, When The Scrubby Nature Of The Country, The Wildness Of The Night, The Overseer's Sound Sleeping, And My Own Protracted Absence, At A Distance With The Horses, Had All Conspired To Favour Them.

I have no doubt, that they first extinguished the fires, and then possessing themselves of the fire-arms, proceeded

To plunder the baggage and select such things as they required. In doing this they must have come across the ammunition, and loaded the guns preparatory to their departure, but this might have been without any premeditated intention of making use of them in the way they did. At this unhappy juncture it would seem that the overseer must have awoke, and advanced towards them to see what was the matter, or to put a stop to their proceedings, when they fired on him, to save themselves from being caught in their act of plunder. That either of the two should have contemplated the committal of a wilful, barbarous, cold-blooded murder, I cannot bring myself to believe - no object was to be attained by it; and the fact of the overseer having been pierced through the breast, and many yards in advance of where he had been sleeping, in a direction towards the sleeping-place of the natives, clearly indicated that it was not until he had arisen from his sleep, and had been closely pressing upon them, that they had fired the fatal shot.

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