Page:Some account of the wars, extirpation, habits.djvu/92

84 wearisome search that followed, and which, but for M'Kay (as I gather from the newspapers of the time), would have proved an unavailing one.

Next morning four of Thomas' assigned servants, as convicts in private employ were called, started on their mission; but not so the natives, the females of whom were still as sulky as black cockatoos are sometimes said to be, and would not return to their tribe; and as the men would not go without them, about a third of their number were billited at Northdown for two or three days, poor Mrs. Parker entertaining, but most unconsciously, the very individuals who had made her a widow.

The natives had not been long at Northdown, before some of Thomas' men, who began to suspect that foul play had been done, commenced making enquiries of such of the blacks as could understand them, where they had left the gentlemen whom everyone now felt anxious to hear something about. But though it was evident enough there was some misunderstanding amongst them, there was no getting them to play false to each other, and not a word could be extracted from them that the tribe knew anything about them; but this was not believed, so some of the farm servants, taking the law into their own hands, no uncommon practice with the blacks at that time, enticed them into the most secure room of the house, locked them up, set a sentry over them, and there kept them until the boat returned to Launceston, when they were all marched down to the beach, put on board and sent off to George Town gaol, which wretched place chancing to be empty at the time, they had it all to themselves.

As said before, the search was kept up from morning to night for many days, but neither Thomas nor Parker turned up, though it was now the 9th of September, or ten days after they were missed. Then it was that M'Kay with his soldiers and one native woman arrived at Port Sorell to aid the searchers. This woman whose tribal name M'Kay forgets, was known to our people as Black Sal, and like all the women whom Robinson instructed to assist him in the subjugation of her race, her whole heart and soul were in the business in hand. Like the still living Trucanini, she was one of the most artful and energetic of the decoy ducks whom he had trained to entrap the rest.

M'Kay, with the practised eye of a bushman, had not been long on the ground without seeing that the search was an ill-managed one, prosecuted by men of slight bush experience only, who instead of finding anyone, were constantly getting lost themselves, and that unless some other means were employed to discover the missing men or their remains, the entire plan must end in failure.