Stockton Herald, South Durham and Cleveland Advertiser. — 1879-12-06 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

DOGGED BY ASSASSINS.  One cold night the party halted at a spot where, if, as seemed probable, any rain should fall, they would be in a good place to catch it; and Eyre, having seen his followers snug far the night, as he supposed, beside the break-winds of boughs that had been constructed, went out to look after the horses, which had rambled for some distance in search of fodder. They had strayed a longer distance than he had imagined, but were eventually found; and then, as he was just turning thgen back towards the direction of the camp, he was startled to hear the report of a gun. Harris fly he ran towards the camp. The boy Wylie, in a state of wild excitement, met him, and cried aloud, "Oh, massa, massa, oome here!" And thee, when he reached the spot where he had left ,1 party apparently sleeping, he found his faithful friend and ally, Baxter, in the agony of death, with the blood flowing from a wound in his left breast, treacherously murdered by the natives who had fled, taking the glans with them and most of the provisions. Eyre raised in his arms the body of the murdered man, received his last pathetic look of farewell, and in a moment more, without a word, the spirit of the man, who had served him faithfully day and night for years had gone to rest. It 19 impossible to describe the appalling position in which Eyre was now placed. He was alone in the desert, with armed murderers probably lying in wait for him, his sole companion a native lad, who, for aught he knew, might yet join the assassins; 600 miles of trackless desert before him, and 40 Its. of flower, a little tea and sugar, and four gallons of water constituting the sole stock of provisions. "Suffering and distress," says Eyre, in his graphic account of the expedition," had wellnigh overwhelmed me,and life seemed hardly worth the effort necessary to prolong it. Ages can never efface the horrors of this single night, nor would the wealth of the world ever tempt me to go through similar ones again." When the morning came the painful duty of paying the last sad offices of humanity to his faithful comrade had to be performed. But it was not possible to dig a grave in that hard rocky ground, and therefore Eyre wrapped the body in a blanket, and left it on the spot where the treacherous shot had slain him. Then be and Wylie set for ward and as hurriedly as they could pressed along their way. But ere nightfall Eyre was aware of the presence of the murderers dogging his footsteps, and he knew that, as they were armed, and carried a plentiful supply of stolen ammunition, any moment might be his last. Tbey came near enough to be heard calling with loud solicitation for Wylie to leave the traveller to himself and join them as his only hope of safety, but the boy was not to be moved by their entreaties. Eyre sought to enter into a parley with the men, but they were too cunning and too cowardly in heart to approach the intrepid man whose destrnction they were plotting. When night closed in Eyre made a feint of encamping, .but under cover of the darkness he stole away and made along night's march, then for seven days more he pressed forward, and so outstripped the miicreants, who were never heard of again, and probably died in the desert, retarded by the booty they had plundered.—From " Heroes of Britain in Peace and Wag by Edwin Hodder, for November.