One of the two horses was killed, and its scanty flesh, cut into strips, was dried in the sun and smoke.  This, the most repellant, sapless food to be found in the world, had been their diet for some time.  Douglas was the first to die.  The survivors were still strong enough to give him burial.  In a few days Taylor followed him and was interred by his side.  The blacks threatened them continually, though at times they would lay down their arms and bring pieces of fish and turtle into the camp; but this only the better to spy out their weakness.  Carpenter was the next to succumb, and on the 1st of December they were doomed to drink their bitterest cup to the dregs.  They had killed the remaining horse, but the monsoonal rains descended, and in the steamy atmosphere the meat turned putrid.  Torn with anxiety, Carron was dejectedly mounting the look-out to the flagstaff when he caught sight of a vessel beating into the Bay.  The sudden change from despair to relief was overwhelming.  Kennedy must have reached Port Albany, and had doubtless sent the Bramble to rescue them.  With eager, tremulous hands he hoisted a pre-arranged signal to warn them against the blacks.  Darkness fell and they kept a fire burning, and fired off rockets, and when daylight came and a boat was lowered from the schooner, they felt no misgivings.  Time passed, and Carron again ascended the look-out.  What he saw nearly blasted his eyesight.  The schooner was standing out to sea; he was just in time to see her round the point and disappear.

They strove to persuade themselves that it was not the Bramble, a relief schooner that was supposed to cruise along the coast.  But it assuredly had been the Bramble, and her men had not seen the signals against the gloomy background of scrub and hills.  They knew nothing of Kennedy’s death, nor of Carron’s plight.  The agony of this disappointment must have been more bitter than death.  Mitchell was the next to die, and the survivors were too weak to give him burial.  Then Niblett and Wall departed, but on the last day of the year relief came to the remaining two.

Some natives suddenly brought Carron a dirty note, to say that help was coming, and he saw by their gestures that there was a vessel in the bay.  He scribbled a note in reply, but they refused to take it, and began to crowd into the camp and handle their weapons.  They were not going to be baulked of their prey.  At the very moment when they were poising their spears, the relief party arrived.  Four brave men —­ Captain Dobson of the Ariel, Dr. Vallack, Barrett a sailor, and the eager Jacky-Jacky —­ had forced their way through mangroves and hostile threatening natives to snatch them from their doom.

Nothing could be carried away but the two famished men, and they were helped down to the boat without coming into active hostilities.  Thus ended the most disastrous expedition in Australian annals.  Kennedy’s body was never recovered, nor was the fate of the men at Shelburne Bay revealed.  The bodies at Weymouth Bay were re-buried on Albany Island, and a tablet was erected in memory of Kennedy, in St. James’s Church, Sydney.