They Knew That They Never Could Succeed In Their Plans Openly, And That To Do So By Stealth Effectually And Safely, It Would First Be Necessary To Secure All The Fire-Arms, That They Might Incur No Risk From Our Being Alarmed Before Their Purpose Was Completed.

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. Such appeared to me to be the most plausible and rational explanation of this melancholy affair - I would willingly believe it to be the true one.

Wylie and I moved on in the evening, with the horses for two miles, and again pitched our camp among the sand-drifts, at a place where the natives were in the habit of digging wells for water, and where we procured it at a very moderate depth below the surface. Pigeons were here in great numbers, and Wylie tried several times with the rifle to shoot them, but only killed one, the grooved barrel not being adapted for throwing shot with effect.

At midnight we arose and moved onwards, following along the beach. I intended to have made a long stage, as I no longer had any fears about not finding water; but at nine miles one of the horses knocked up, and could proceed no farther, I was compelled, therefore, to turn in among the sand-drifts, and halt at five in the morning of the 7th. We were again fortunate in procuring water by digging only two feet under the sand-hills, which were here very high, and were a continuation of those in which we had first found water on the 3rd.

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