any way to take out the breech, or to extract the ball, I determined to melt it out, and for that purpose took the barrel off the stock, and put the breech in the fire, holding the muzzle in my hand.  Whilst thus engaged, the rifle went off, the ball whizzing close past my head; the fire, it seems, had dried the powder, which had been wetted, not washed out; and when the barrel was sufficiently heated, the piece had gone off, to the imminent danger of my life, from the incautious way in which I held it.  The gun, however, was again serviceable; and after carefully loading it, I felt a degree of confidence and security I had before been a stranger to.

At eight o’clock we were ready to proceed; there remained but to perform the last sad offices of humanity towards him, whose career had been cut short in so untimely a manner.  This duty was rendered even more than ordinarily painful, by the nature of the country, where we happened to have been encamped.  One vast unbroken surface of sheet rock extended for miles in every direction, and rendered it impossible to make a grave.  We were some miles away from the sea-shore, and even had we been nearer, could not have got down the cliffs to bury the corpse in the sand.  I could only, therefore, wrap a blanket around the body of the overseer, and leaving it enshrouded where he fell, escape from the melancholy scene, accompanied by Wylie, under the influence of feelings which neither time nor circumstances will ever obliterate.  Though years have now passed away since the enactment of this tragedy, the dreadful horrors of that time and scene, are recalled before me with frightful vividness, and make me shudder even now, when I think of them.  A life time was crowded into those few short hours, and death alone may blot out the impressions they produced.

For some time we travelled slowly and silently onwards.  Wylie preceding, leading one of the horses, myself following behind and driving the others after him, through a country consisting still of the same alternations of scrub and open intervals as before.  The day became very warm, and at eleven, after travelling ten miles to the west, I determined to halt until the cool of the evening.  After baking some bread and getting our dinners, I questioned Wylie as to what he knew of the sad occurrence of yesterday.  He positively denied all knowledge of it—­said he had been asleep, and was awoke by the report of the gun, and that upon seeing the overseer lying on the ground he ran off to meet me.  He admitted, however, that, after the unsuccessful attempt to leave us, and proceed alone to King George’s Sound, the elder of the other two natives had proposed to him again to quit the party, and try to go back to Fowler’s Bay, to the provisions buried there.  But he had heard or knew nothing, he said, of either robbery or murder being first contemplated.