APPEARANCE OF THE MURDERERS. 9 
civilized community again, he had become very ap- 
prehensive that the other natives, who belonged to 
quite a different part of Australia to himself, and 
who spoke a totally different language, would mur- 
der him as unhesitatingly as they had done the 
white man. 
We remained in camp until four o’clock, and 
were again preparing to advance, when my attention 
was called by Wylie to two white objects among the 
scrub, at no great distance from us, and I at once re- 
cognized the native boys, covered with their blankets 
only, and advancing towards us. From Wylie’s 
account of their proposal to go back towards Fow- 
ler’s Bay, I fully hoped that they had taken that 
direction, and left us to pursue our way to the Sound 
unmolested. I was therefore surprised, and some- 
what alarmed, at finding them so near us. With 
my rifle and pistols I felt myself sufficiently a 
match for them in an open country, or by daylight. 
Yet I knew that as long as they followed like blood- 
hounds on our tracks our lives would be in their 
power at any moment that they chose to take them, 
whilst we were passing through a scrubby country, 
or by night. Whatever their intention might be, I 
knew, that if we travelled in the same direction with 
them, our lives could only be safe by their destruc- 
tion. Although they had taken fully one- third of 
the whole stock of our provisions, their appetites 
were so ravenous, and their habits so improvident, 
that this would soon be consumed, and then they 
