“Tom! Tom! the blacks are coming down on us, all armed, as hard as they can run. Shut the door! for Heaven’s sake shut the door!” Tom banged it to, and put his shoulder against it, while the keeper was pulling up the bar, and Carden and I were getting the lock-cases off our fire-arms. Unfortunately the door was made roughly of green wood, and had shrunk, leaving gaps between the slabs. In the mean time about thirty blacks hurled a volley of spears that made the walls ring again; and then advancing boldly up, one of them thrust a double-jagged spear through the door, slap into Tom’s throat. My back was turned towards him, being busy putting a fresh cap on my carbine. I heard his cry, and, turning, saw him fall into the arms of the hut-keeper. I thrust the barrel of my piece through a hole against a black devil, and fired at the same moment that my man did. The two dropped; the rest retreated, but turned back, and caught up their dead friends. Carden flung open the door again, and gave them the contents of his other barrel. My black put the hut-keeper’s musket into my hand; I gave them a charge of buckshot. Three more fell, and the rest, dropping their friends, disappeared across the river. All this was the work of a moment. We then turned our attention to the stock-keeper. The spear had entered at the chin, and come out on the other side three or four inches. There was not a great flow of blood, but he was evidently bleeding inwardly. He was perfectly collected, and said he was quite sure he should die. We cut the end of the spear short off, but did not dare to take it out. The hut-keeper got on a horse, leading another, and rode for a doctor who lived one hundred and fifty miles off; he never stopped except to give the horses a feed two or three times in the whole distance, but when he reached his journey’s end, the doctor was out. In the mean time poor Tom made his will, disposing of a few head of cattle, mare and foal, and also signed a sort of dying testament to the effect that he had never wronged any of the blacks in any way. The weather was very hot, mortification came on, and he died in agony two days after receiving his wound. The outrage was reported to the Commissioner, but no notice was taken of it although we were paying a tax for Border Police at the time. Not many years have elapsed since we fought for our lives—since I read the burial service over the poor murdered Stockman. A handsome verandah’d villa now stands in the place of the slab hut; yellow corn waves over the Irishman’s grave, and while cattle and sheep abound, as well white men, women, and children, there is not a wild black within two hundred miles. THE BIRTH OF MORNING.