A STARTLING NARRATIVE.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Volume II, Issue 80, 3 February 1864, Page 6

A STARTLING NARRATIVE.

We extract the following from one of the Northern journals. There was no signature attached, nor was any clue given as to its origin : The following incidents are of so remarkahle a nature that they are worthy of record. But I must premise that though not myself the hero of the tale, they were related to me by the man himself, and 1 shall in a great measure give them in his own words, without any attempt at colouring. " I was a kind of second-clas9 passenger on board a vessel bound for Sierra Leone, and though our vessel was a sort of trader, it was also very evident that she was ready for any little enterprise which might turn up. There were on board several others similarly situated with myself. We had not been out many weeks before a serious difference had arisen between the officers and crew and the passengers, and it was very evident that being so greatly in the minority, we must succumb or be in danger ; but as the one incident which befel myself is my object to relate, I do not intend to prolong details. I was

the ringleader in these squabbles, and had myself become, by my determined firmness in resisting tyranny, almost hateful to the ship's company, and partially so to my own companions, who for safety sake were now ready to submit to anything. But judge of my consternation and agony when it was confided to me by one who had privately heard of the arrangement, that there had been a proposition made to cement past differences between the two belligerent parties, but upon one condition only, namely, that I should be sacrificed; and when it was privately communicated to me, all matters were fully arranged, the day fixed, and every detail, entered into, that I was to be the sacrifice. In fact, I was to be stitched up in a hammock and deliberately thrown overboard. This was the positively fixed terms of future agreement, and it was then only within two days of the time when this miserable affair was to be carried out. Fancy then my feelings, fancy my intense agony, knowing that if I had a friend on board, 1 had but one, and that one even doubtful. But it evidently would not do for me to the least degree of difference in my conduct after hearing the circumstances, but simply to rack my ingenuity for some means of escape. I therefore set to work, and finding that the friend who had already confided the plot to me could be trusted, I worked through him ; and finding that there was no possible chance of altering the determination of my enemies, I tried what manoeuvring would do. I consulted with my friend, got him to sound one or two others, and he found two who showed a disposition to save me if possible, and without any danger to themselves. At last apian was devised. These three became apparently my most savage persecutors, and got themselves appointed to be my executioners, in virtue of being my most bitter enemies. It was then planned that I should be sewn up in a hammock the next evening, and at dead of night, most suitable for so foul a deed, be tossed overboard into the ocean. The pl»n then was that after having been seen publicly on deck during the evening, that I should retire to a hiding place, and they had ready extra blankets, old hammocks, and luggage, with plenty of heavy goods, tied up in a hammock to represent me, and safely deposited in my cabin; and at the given signsix bells, these three were to bring me out and cast me off' amidst the numerous spectators. The dark night suited my purpose, and all was ready at the appointed time, and the deed was supposed to have been done, and the three executioners were complimented upon their dexterity in doing the deed. But now came a difficulty— I had to be fed and kept a secret prisoner. However, we were then within a week of the coast, and I had but seven days of this endurance; but during that time I had some most critical moments, and was well nigh being discovered. However, the day of landing arrived, and it was part of the arrangement with my friends that I should be conveyed stealthily on shore, not discover myself, and by the first ship leave the place. I agreed to all this, my life had been spared, and at midnight, just the hour on which during that awful night I was supposed to be thrown overboard and buried in the deep, I took the boat when all hands were asleep, put myself on shore, and within three days set sail for one of the West India Islands; and from thence came, a few days afterwards, to New Zealand, where I had friends, and where I have every prospect of spending the remainder of my life in peace and quietness when the Maori warfare is over."