Page:The Earl of Mayo.djvu/207

Rh taken to the usual place of execution on Viper Island, and hanged.

The man was a highlander from beyond our North-Western Frontier, who had taken service in the Punjab Mounted Police, and had been condemned at Pesháwar for slaying his blood-feud enemy on British soil. The Court took a merciful view of the case and sentenced him to transportation for life at the Andamans. In his dying confession, years afterwards, he stated that although he had not struck the blow, he had conspired to do the murder. But the slaying of a hereditary foe in cold blood was no crime in his eyes, and ever since his conviction in 1869, he said he had made up his mind to revenge himself by killing 'some European of high rank.' He therefore established his character as a silent, doggedly well-behaved man; and in due time was set at large as a barber among the ticket-of-leave convicts at Hopetown.

During three years he waited sullenly for some worthy prey. On the morning of the 8th February, when he heard the royal salute, he felt that his time had come, and sharpened a knife. He resolved to kill both the Superintendent and the Viceroy. All through the day the close surveillance gave him no chance of getting to the islands which Lord Mayo visited. Evening came, and his victim landed unexpectedly at his very door. He slipped into the woods, crept up Mount Harriet through the jungle side by side with the Viceroy; then dogged the party down