Pressing onward steadily, though with decreasing speed, from hour to hour he hoped against hope to meet some sailor comrade from the ship—either hunters seeking game or officers taking their daily exercise. Time and again a black speck on the floe took the mocking semblance of a man to his longing eyes, only to fade into an inanimate shape. Time and again, as he stumbled or staggered, it seemed as though he would fail, so feeble had the body become and so forceless his will-power. Could he reach the ship? Would help come in time for the dying men behind? Most fearful of all, was the Alert still there? Exposed to the full force of the Arctic Ocean, had she suffered shipwreck or was she unharmed? If safe, why did no one come?
At last he was at Cape Sheridan, and oh! happiness, there against the southern sky were outlined the bare spars and the covered deck of the long-sought Alert. She was but a few miles away, yet in his enfeebled state she seemed to recede rather than to advance as he dragged himself along.
But everything has its end, and in six of his weariest hours Parr reached the ship, strangely enough without being seen. Striding silently across the deck, nodding only to the officer on watch, he nervously knocked on the panels of Captain Nares's cabin. The door swung open at once and for a few seconds the captain stared vaguely at his subordinate. So solemn was Parr's look, so soiled his garb, so weary his expression, and so travel-stained was his person that Sir George at first failed to recognize him.
Meanwhile matters had steadily gone from bad to worse with Markham and his men. On the day following Parr's departure, Gunner George Porter, who had been sick seven weeks with suspected scurvy, was taken with retching, with recurring spasms and stertorous breathing, which ended in his death. Regard for the safety of the living did not permit of carrying him farther, and he was buried on the floe, in a deep snow-drift near the camp. At the head of his grave was placed a cross improvised from the oar of a boat and a sledge batten.
The day following the death of Porter only five of the fourteen men were able to enter the sledge harness, so that Commander Markham had to make the needful sixth sledgeman to move the party forward. The next day two other men failed utterly, immediately before the arrival of the relief party from the Alert—promptly despatched as a result of Parr's heroic journey. Before reaching the ship there remained only three of Markham's original fifteen men who were not dragged on the relief sledges, unable to walk.
Heroic as was the dauntless spirit that spurred Parr to the journey which saved the lives of several of his field comrades, it was well matched by his indomitable will and by his powers of physical endurance. By the route traversed Parr marched over forty miles, which under any conditions would have been a remarkable achievement, without extended break or rest, over the rough surface of the Great Frozen Sea, whose broken, disjointed ice-masses present difficulties of travel to an almost incredible degree.
Not only was Parr's march practically unbroken, but it was made in less than twenty-three hours, a somewhat shorter time than was taken by Dr. Moss and Lieutenant May with a fresh dog team "on a forced march" for the relief of the party.
Parr's conduct after his most heroic actions was thoroughly modest and unassuming. In the field and later at home his life appears to have been an exemplification of his sledge motto during the northern journeys, of Faire sans dire (To do and not to talk).
In recalling the past and glorious deeds of British seamen in arctic work during the past century, looking to the future one may ask with Drayton:
"O, when again shall Englishmen
With such acts fill a pen?"