For a moment I pictured to myself the feelings of their prosaic British relatives, could they only have known what had become of the long-lost loved ones--a fate more shocking and more fearful than any ever conceived by the writer of fiction.

Of course, my readers will understand that much detail about the fate of these poor creatures must be suppressed for obvious reasons.
But should any existing relatives turn up, I shall be only too happy to place at their disposal all the information I possess.
Presently, I grasped the whole terrible affair, and realised it as absolute fact! My first impulse was to leap from the _corroboree_ and go and reassure the unhappy victims in person, telling them at the same time that they might count on my assistance to the last.

It was not advisable, however, to withdraw suddenly from the festivities, for fear my absence might arouse suspicion.
The only alternative that presented itself was to send a note or message of some kind to them, and so I asked Yamba to bring me a large fleshy leaf of a water-lily, and then, with one of her bone needles, I pricked, in printed English characters, "_A friend is near_; _fear not_." Handing this original letter to Yamba, I instructed her to give it to the girls and tell them to hold it up before the fire and read the perforations.
This done, I returned to the _corroboree_, still displaying a feigned enthusiasm for the proceedings, but determined upon a bold and resolute course of action.

I must say though, that at that particular moment I was not very sanguine of getting the girls away out of the power of this savage, who had doubtless won them from some of his fellows by more or less fair fighting.
I made my way over to where the chief was squatting, and gazed at him long and steadily.

I remember his appearance as though it were but yesterday that we met.