LAID DOWN TO SLEEP! Of course in the morning no little stir took place.
Tonquin was accused, but stoutly denied the charge. So satisfied,
however, was the owner of the house of the guilt of the real culprit,
that had he not made his escape, he would have been executed red hand--as
the border wardens used to say--by the man, the sanctity of whose
roof-tree he had thus profaned. Tonquin afterwards declared that he NEVER
SLEPT FOR NEARLY A FORTNIGHT, being dogged from place to place by the
footsteps of the avengers of blood. He escaped, however, with his life,
though worn almost to a shadow by constant anxiety. When I saw him some
years afterwards, I thought him the finest looking native I had ever
seen, but he was apparently, as those who knew him best reported him to
be, insane. If not the memory of his crime, and the consequent remorse
which it entailed upon him, perhaps the fugitive life he was compelled to
lead in order to avoid the wrath of human retribution, had been used to
make manifest the anger of Heaven for this breach of one of those first
great laws of human society, which are almost as much instincts of our
nature as revelations from the Creator to the creatures of his will!

SUPERSTITIONS.

The natives have a superstitious horror of approaching the graves of the
dead, of whom they never like to speak, and when induced to do so, always
whisper. A settler, residing in a dangerous part of the colony, had two
soldiers stationed with him as a guard: upon one occasion five natives
rushed in at a moment when the soldiers were unprepared for their
reception, and a terrible struggle ensued: the soldiers, however,
managed, while on the ground, to shoot two of them, and bayonetted the
remaining three. The five were afterwards buried before the door, nor
could a more perfect safeguard have been devised; no thought even of
revenge for their comrades would afterwards induce any of the tribe to