Glancing hastily around the camp I found it deserted by the two younger
native boys, whilst the scattered fragments of our baggage, which I left
carefully piled under the oilskin, lay thrown about in wild disorder, and
at once revealed the cause of the harrowing scene before me.

Upon raising the body of my faithful, but illfated follower, I found that
he was beyond all human aid; he had been shot through the left breast
with a ball, the last convulsions of death were upon him, and he expired
almost immediately after our arrival. The frightful, the appalling truth
now burst upon me, that I was alone in the desert. He who had faithfully
served me for many years, who had followed my fortunes in adversity and
in prosperity, who had accompanied me in all my wanderings, and whose
attachment to me had been his sole inducement to remain with me in this
last, and to him alas, fatal journey, was now no more. For an instant, I
was almost tempted to wish that it had been my own fate instead of his.
The horrors of my situation glared upon me in such startling reality, as
for an instant almost to paralyse the mind. At the dead hour of night, in
the wildest and most inhospitable wastes of Australia, with the fierce
wind raging in unison with the scene of violence before me, I was left,
with a single native, whose fidelity I could not rely upon, and who for
aught I knew might be in league with the other two, who perhaps were even
now, lurking about with the view of taking away my life as they had done
that of the overseer. Three days had passed away since we left the last
water, and it was very doubtful when we might find any more. Six hundred
miles of country had to be traversed, before I could hope to obtain the
slightest aid or assistance of any kind, whilst I knew not that a single
drop of water or an ounce of flour had been left by these murderers, from
a stock that had previously been so small.