eturn in a few days, starving, and
apparently repentant. Better for Eyre had they gone altogether. Amid such
discouraging surroundings did Eyre commence his last struggle with the
cliffs of the Great Bight.

The party had been tantalised by threatening clouds, which never broke in
rain. When on the third day they gathered once more, black and lowering.
Baxter urged Eyre to camp that night instead of pushing on, as rain
seemed certain, and the rock holes by which they were then passing were
well adapted to catch the slightest shower. Eyre consented, against his
better judgment. It was necessary to watch the horses lest they should
ramble too far, and Eyre kept the first watch. The night was cold, the
wind blowing a gale and driving the flying scud across the face of the
moon. The horses wandered off in different directions in the scrub,
giving the tired man much trouble to keep them together. About half-past
ten he drove them near the camp intending shortly to call the overseer to
relieve him.

Suddenly the dead stillness of the night and the wilderness was broken by
the report of a gun. Eyre was not at first alarmed, thinking it was a
signal of Baxter's to indicate the position of their camp. He called, but
received no answer. Hastening in the direction of the shot, he was met by
Wylie, the King George's Sound native, running towards him in great alarm
crying out: "Oh, massa, massa, come here!" and then losing speech from
terror. Eyre was soon at the camp, and one glance was enough to see that
his purpose must now be pursued grimly alone. Baxter, fatally wounded,
was stretched upon the ground, bleeding and choking in his last agony. As
Eyre raised his faithful companion in his arms he expired.

"At the dead hour of night, in the wildest and most inhospitable waste of
Australia, with the fierce wind raging in unison with the scene of
violence before me, I was left with a single native, whose fidelity I
could not rely on, and who, for aught I knew might be in league with the
other two, who, perhaps were even now lurking about to take my life, as
they had done that of the overseer."

On examining the camp, Eyre found that the two boys had carried off both
double-barrelled guns, all the baked bread and other stores, and a keg of
water. All they had left behind was a rifle, with the barrel choked by a
ball jammed in it, four gallons of water, forty pounds of flour, and a
little tea and sugar.

When he had time to think