But to Bernier Island, the larder, Sir George returned, having completed a section of exploration.  He had a dread lest the gale might have ravished his stores during his absence.  Accordingly, he took only one or two of his people with him when he went, full of anxiety, to the spot where the provisions had been buried.  He did not desire to alarm the others, should affairs turn out ill, as indeed they did.

‘O God, we are all lost!’ This was the wail for Sir George’s ears, as the spade made it clear that the food-stuffs, with a trifling salvage, had been uprooted and scattered by the storm.  It was almost the pronouncing of a sentence of death upon the party, having regard to the desert country which surrounded them, and their distance from civilisation.

‘I hadn’t an hour to lose,’ Sir George realised, ’so back we hurried to the main camp and I delivered the news, counselling calmness and courage.  I added my decision that we must endeavour to make Perth in the whale boats we had with us.  It was a forlorn chance.’

The boats strained in a boisterous sea, and ultimately flung the voyagers ashore, three hundred miles, in a direct line, from Perth.  Never were men given a harder tramp than across those miles, so parched and barren that they hardly echoed the koo-ee of a native.  Yet there was no succour, no hostel, unless they could be covered.

For a little while fair progress was made, then strength declined through want of food and water.  Sir George Grey sought courage and consolation in the dog-eared New Testament which he had in his knapsack.  The hymns his mother had taught him came back into his head and heart, true comforters.  The land where she dwelt swam dim before his eyes, but his courage found strength anew.  He pushed on, with a small company, in order to send back relief for those unequal to a sally.  It was the perishing to the rescue.  A bird shot, was welcome as manna from heaven, and a muddy water-hole the sweetest of discoveries.  The dew was eagerly licked from shrubs and reeds while the sun lingered a-bed.  Lips grew black, tongues swollen, eyes wild, and the hopeless cry was:  ‘Water, or we die.’

The native guide schemed to lead Sir George from the others, begging, when discovered, ’Yes, we two may be saved if we go on; the others are so weak that they can’t walk.’  The master cocked his gun until the guide had carried him back to the party.  They moved Perth-ward, a stricken line of famished men, wondering dumbly what was to happen.  Did they really care?

If the leader had cheering and example, what were these set against this final ordeal:  a blistering thirst of three days and two nights?  Happily a water-hole, not bereft of all moisture, was found in the nick of time.  A few birds flew about it in the evening, but Sir George Grey’s hand shook so that he could take no aim.  He headed a last desperate spurt for Perth; the reaching of succour, or the arrival of death.  Which would it be?