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After staying some time, and having my pockets emptied of the tobacco which was in them, I left and strolled on to the river. As I drew near its margin I heard a slight splash, as of a turtle startled by my step, and throwing itself into the water; but all was quiet when I reached it; no cry of duck or other waterfowl broke the stillness of the night; and the stream itself, fifty or sixty feet in depth, flowed on silently. The banks were very steep, and the surface of the water was some four yards beneath the level where I stood. There were no trees growing anywhere near; but the dead trunks of several left by former floods projected above the water, or rested against the banks, where, in the dim light, they resembled so many huge antediluvian reptiles. The opposite side of the river, which was 100 yards wide, was an island formed by an ana[ssss1] branch, which left the main stream four miles above the paddock, and joined it again just below it. As I stood looking down on the dark waters, and up and down the reach, and observed that the blacks' fires were less than fifty yards off, I could not help thinking how easily their enemies, if still in the neighbourhood, could, under cover of the river banks, steal unawares upon them. I little thought that in the deep shade beneath the very spot I was then standing on, in the water at my feet, and with their heads concealed behind one of the tree trunks on the margin, already lay hidden the murderous band who, twice baffled, had stolen back for their revenge.