With such thoughts rapidly passing through my mind, I turned to search
for my double-barelled gun, which I had left covered with an oilskin at
the head of my own break wind. It was gone, as was also the
double-barelled gun that had belonged to the overseer. These were the
only weapons at the time that were in serviceable condition, for though
there were a brace of pistols they had been packed away, as there were no
cartridges for them, and my rifle was useless, from having a ball
sticking fast in the breech, and which we had in vain endeavoured to
extract. A few days' previous to our leaving the last water, the overseer
had attempted to wash out the rifle not knowing it was loaded, and the
consequence was, that the powder became wetted and partly washed away, so
that we could neither fire it off, nor get out the ball; I was,
therefore, temporarily defenceless, and quite at the mercy of the
natives, had they at this time come upon me. Having hastily ripped open
the bag in which the pistols had been sewn up, I got them out, together
with my powder flask, and a bag containing a little shot and some large
balls. The rifle I found where it had been left, but the ramrod had been
taken out by the boys to load my double-barelled gun with, its own ramrod
being too short for that purpose; I found it, however, together with
several loose cartridges, lying about near the place where the boys had
slept, so that it was evident they had deliberately loaded the fire-arms
before they tried to move away with the things they had stolen; one
barrel only of my gun had been previously loaded, and I believe neither
barrels in that of the overseer.

After obtaining possession of all the remaining arms, useless as they
were at the moment, with some ammunition, I made no further examination
then, but hurried away from the fearful scene, accompanied by the King
George's Sound native, to search for the horses, knowing that if they got