I longed to have torn off the folds of cloth and satisfied the awful doubts under which I laboured.

But before I had recovered from the consternation into which I had been thrown, the fatal packages were hoisted aloft, and once more swung over my head.

The natives now gathered round me tumultuously, and laboured to convince me that what I had just seen were the heads of three Happar warriors, who had been slain in battle.

This glaring falsehood added to my alarm, and it was not until I reflected that I had observed the packages swinging from their elevation before Toby's disappearance, that I could at all recover my composure.
But although this horrible apprehension had been dispelled, I had discovered enough to fill me, in my present state of mind, with the most bitter reflections.

It was plain that I had seen the last relic of some unfortunate wretch, who must have been massacred on the beach by the savages, in one of those perilous trading adventures which I have before described.
It was not, however, alone the murder of the stranger that overcame me with gloom.