Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/191

Rh cook-boy, who motioned to her to roll under the house, which was built on piles raised above the ground. Then he assisted her to his kitchen, or some little outbuilding, where was his native wife, and both the women took refuge in the rafters, whilst he locked the door and stood outside on guard. The natives missed her body, and, looking through the window of this outhouse, saw the women's skirts hanging down; but the cook outside and his wife inside both kept calling out that they were only natives, and that the police and the whites were already coming; so the natives decamped in haste, and Miss Coe, on hands and knees, escaped through the bush—that is, the thick undergrowth—and eventually reached the Mission building, where she found refuge with the Sisters; but whether this was at the Bishop's Mission or another I do not know.

A native, escaping, met a German planter and gave him the news; he immediately galloped to Herbertshöhe, and in a short time the Judge—the Governor being ill—at the head of twenty armed whites, was hastening to the spot. When they got there they found Frau Wolff's dead body pierced with many spear wounds, and the head and face hacked by tomahawks, lying in a pool of blood, and near it the dead bodies of her six months' old baby and its native nurse-girl. Just then returned Herr Wolff, who was, of course, distraught at the sight which met his view. According to the account written to me, the Germans, capturing one of the tribe, made him lead them to where the others were, and exterminated the whole lot of them, killing more than two hundred; but the two principal culprits, one of whom was the chief, or both were chiefs, I think, escaped. Afterwards Dr. Hahl, the Governor, offered the natives peace if they would deliver up these chiefs,