Lloyd occasionally resorted in their little canoes, at night, with a view to make up the deficiency of their scanty allowance of food, by the oysters that they could easily get there.

This, Mr.Bondley took it into his head to regard as a trespass, and while an old man belonging to Col.

Lloyd was engaged in catching a few of the many millions of oysters that lined the bottom of that creek, to satisfy his hunger, the villainous Mr.Bondley, lying in ambush, without the slightest ceremony, discharged the contents of his musket into the back and shoulders of the poor old man.

As good fortune would have it, the shot did not prove mortal, and Mr.Bondley came over, the next day, to see Col.

Lloyd--whether to pay him for his property, or to justify himself for what he had done, I know not; but this I _can_ say, the cruel and dastardly transaction was speedily hushed up; there was very little said about it at all, and nothing was publicly done which looked like the application of the principle of justice to the man whom _chance_, only, saved from being an actual murderer.