Lost Lenore: The Adventures of a Rolling StoneReid, Mayne
General
Lost Lenore: The Adventures of a Rolling Stone
Reid, Mayne
Adventure stories; Dime novels; Fiction
He had not fled, however, until assured that our defeat was certain: for
I saw him inside the stockade, firing his revolver, shortly before I
came away myself.
I did not stay to speak to him: for the troopers were closely pursuing
us; and cutting down with their swords any man they could overtake.
A majority of the routed diggers fled towards a tract of ground, that
had been what the miners call, "worked-out."
This ground was so perforated with holes, that the troopers were unable
to gallop their horses over it. Fortunate for the fugitives that these
abandoned diggings lay so near the stockade--otherwise the slaughter
would have been much greater than it was--in all probability amounting
to half the number of the men who had been gathered there.
The pursuit was not continued very far. The troopers soon lost all
traces of those they were galloping after. Some of the diggers
succeeded in reaching the bush, while others concealed themselves in the
shafts of the worked-out claims; and, after a time, the soldiers were
recalled to exult over their easy victory.
The regular soldiers of Her Majesty's army took some prisoners in the
stockade; but so far as I saw, or could afterwards ascertain, the
mounted policemen of the Colonial Government, made no attempt to capture
a single digger. They showed no quarter; but cut down, and in some
instances horribly mutilated, all with whom they came in contact.
Many of the routed diggers remained concealed in the bush, and other
places of refuge, all that day; but, perceiving no necessity for this,
as soon as the pursuit was over, I returned to my tent. In the
afternoon, when quiet had to a certain extent been restored, I walked
over to view the scene of strife, and take a look at the unclaimed
corpses. Twenty-eight miners had been shot dead upon the spot; but many
more were missing--of whose fate nothing was ever afterwards known. A
few probably fell, or were thrown, into some of the deep holes, through
which the pursuit had been carried.
Some of the dead had acquaintances and friends about Ballarat, who
afterwards removed their bodies, for the purpose of burial.
I saw several corpses that had been collected in one place, and were
waiting for recognition. Amongst them was that of a young Austrian,
whom I had known. His body had been pierced with five gun shot wounds--
any one of which would have proved fatal.
There was one corpse so mutilated and disfigured with sabre cuts, that
the features could not be recognised by any with whom, when alive, the
man had been acquainted. It was that of a miner who had a family in
Ballarat. His body was afterwards identified by his wife, but only
through some articles that were found in the pockets of his coat.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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