Sir George passed his empty gun to the Englishman handiest, with the direction 'Please re-load it.' He had tried to do that himself, but his cramped position made it difficult to ram home the powder and ball. For his own gun, he snatched an unshot one which the man was struggling to release from its cover. In the hurry, piece and cover got entangled, but, with a wrench, Sir George tore the two apart. His plan of campaign was settled; he advanced to the rock where the light-coloured native had head-quarters. In bold initiative, there remained the only hope for Sir George and his following, against imminent massacre. Would it be a moral victory, won by a simple advance on the rock, or would it be necessary to strike? He had hesitated, as yet, to shoot straight; and he trusted still to avoid that extreme measure. Three strides in the open, and three spears had him square and fair, a rent archery target. The first struck his watch, denting it, the second caught the fleshy part of his arm, the third tore into his thigh. The Aborigines were skilled spear-men, and proving it by Sir George's impalement, they shouted triumph. The shook of the weapons drove him to his knees, but what stung him was the crow of the blacks. 'That,' he said, 'produced in me a heated anger, and I was in the fight as I had not been till then. Stung by their mockery, I pulled myself together and was on my feet again in a trice. A spear was still sticking in my thigh, and blood flowed freely from the wound. I dragged out the spear, covered the wound with my haversack, so that neither enemy nor friend might be aware of it, and once more advanced.' The chief grew alarmed at this steady investment of himself, and showed it by brandishing a club, as if to convey, 'Just you come nearer and this will drum on your head.' Sir George's faculties were so keenly edged that he noted, in this bravado, a common link of mankind, high and low, civilised and barbarian. As long as the chieftain had been sure of his skin, he flung spears and sang valiantly; but when alarm entered him, those deadly measures were replaced by a mighty show. On the surface there was vast play of battle, but inwardly quaking. And Sir George marched forward, his right hand gripping the gun hard, his lip quivering, his eye burning. The injured physical man was triumphant over the peace-loving soul, and anyhow there must now be a lesson. Of all those lines of thought Sir George was not, perhaps, conscious in his peril, yet, fetching back, he could trace them as they had worked. Seeking a solution by measures not violent, he had been given sore spears, whereon his finger tightened at the trigger, and he was a wound automaton; fixed, stern, a fate on feet, bearing down upon the chief in the shelter of the rock.