24 
PROBABLE FATE 
ing for a protracted period, without any thing to 
relieve their thirst. Their difficulties and distress 
would gradually but certainly increase upon them, 
and they would then, in all likelihood, throw away 
their guns or their provisions, and be left in the 
desert unarmed, without food or water, and without 
skill or energy to direct them successfully to search 
for either. A dreadful and lingering death would 
in all probability terminate the scene, aggravated in 
all its horrors by the consciousness that they had 
brought it entirely upon themselves. Painfully as 
I had felt the loss of my unfortunate overseer, and 
shocked as I was at the ruthless deed having been 
committed by these two boys, yet I could not help 
feeling for their sad condition, the miseries and 
sufferings they would have to encounter, and the 
probable fate that awaited them. 
The youngest of the two had been with me for 
four years, the eldest for two years and a half, and 
both had accompanied me in all my travels during 
these respective periods. Now that the first and 
strong impressions naturally resulting from a shock 
so sudden and violent as that produced by the 
occurrences of the 29th April, had yielded, in some 
measure, to calmer reflections, I was able maturely 
to weigh the whole of what had taken place, and 
to indulge in some considerations in extenuation of 
their offence. The two boys knew themselves to be 
as far from King George’s Sound, as they had 
already travelled from Fowler’s Bay. They were 
