Between 3 and 4 P.M. we were released from the floes which had held us enclosed, and at 5.30 P.M. we steamed off in a S.E. direction through steadily improving ice. The ice now became noticeably thin and brittle, so that we were able to force the smaller floes. From 5.30 P.M. till midnight we advanced about 16 miles; the engine was used as compound during the last watch.
After midnight on August 13th we steered S.W., then S. and S.E., the ice continuing to grow slacker. At 3 o’clock we sighted a dark expanse of water to the S.S.E., and at 3.45 we steered through the last ice-floes out into open water.[2]
We were free! Behind us lay three years of work and hardships, with their burden of sad thought during the long nights, before us life and reunion with all those who were dear to us. Just a few more days! A chaos of contending feelings came over each and every one. For some time it seemed as if we could hardly realize what we saw, as if the deep blue, lapping water at the bow were an illusion, a dream. We were still a good way above the eightieth degree of latitude, and it is only in very favorable summers that ice-free water stretches so far north. Were we, perhaps, in a large, open pool? Had we still a great belt of ice to clear?
No, it was real! The free, unbounded sea was around us on every side; and we felt, with a sense of rapture, how the Fram gently pitched with the first feeble swells.
We paid the final honors to our vanquished antagonist by firing a thundering salute as a farewell. One more gaze at the last faint outlines of hummocks and floes, and the mist concealed them from our view.
We now shaped our course by the compass S.S.E., as the fog was still so dense that no observation could be taken. Our plan was at first to steer towards Red Bay, get our landfall, and thence to follow the west coast of Spitzbergen southward till we found a suitable anchoring-place, where we could take in water, shift the coal from the hold into the bunkers, and, in fact, make the Fram quite ship-shape for our homeward trip.
At 7 A.M., when the fog lifted slightly, we sighted a sail on to port, and shaped our course for her, in order to speak to her and try to get some news of Dr. Nansen and Johansen. In an hour or so we were quite near her. She was lying to, and did not seem to have sighted us until we were close on her. The mate then ran down to announce that a monster ship was bearing down upon them in the fog. Soon the deck was crowded with people, and just as the captain put his head out the Fram passed close up on the weather-side of the vessel, and we greeted her in passing with a thundering broadside from our starboard cannon. We then turned round astern of her, and fired another salute to leeward, after which “hostilities” were discontinued. No doubt it was a rather demonstrative way of making ourselves known to our countrymen, who were lying there so peacefully, drifting in the morning mist, and probably thinking more of seals and whales than of the Fram. But we trust that Captain Botolfsen and his crew will forgive us our overflowing joy at this our first meeting with human beings after three long years.
The vessel was the galliot Söstrene (The Sisters), of Tromsö. The first question which was shouted to him as we passed alongside was this: “Have Nansen and Johansen arrived?” We had hoped to receive a roaring “Yes,” and were ready to greet the answer with a thundering “Hurrah” and salute; but the answer we got was short and sad “No.”
Captain Botolfsen and some of his crew came on board to us, and had to go through a regular cross-fire of questions of every conceivable kind. Such an examination they had certainly never been subjected to, and probably never will be again.
Among the many items of news which we received was one to the effect that the Swedish aeronaut, Engineer Andrée, had arrived at Danes Island, intending to proceed thence by balloon to discover the North Pole.