Soon afterwards Brocklehurst turned out to see if the position had changed, and reported that the floe seemed to be within a few hundred yards of the fast ice, and was still moving in that direction. Then Armytage got up, and half an hour later saw that the floe was only about two hundred yards off fast ice.
"I ran back," he reported, "as fast as I could, deciding that there was a prospect of an attempt to get ashore proving successful, and gave the other two men a shout.
They struck camp and loaded up within a few minutes, while I went back to the edge of the floe at the spot towards which chance had first directed my steps. Just as the sledge got up to me I felt the floe bump the fast ice. Not more than six feet of the edge touched, but we were just at that spot, and we rushed over the bridge thus formed. We had only just got over when the floe moved away again, and this time it went north to the open sea. The only place at which it touched the fast ice was that to which I had gone when I left the tent, and had I happened to go to any other spot we would not have escaped."
After this Providential deliverance from a perilous situation, the party made their way back to Butter Point and camped about 3 A.M.; and when they got up some hours later open water was to be seen where they had been drifting on the floe, and also the Nimrod was sighted some miles out.
The heliograph was flashed to the vessel, and in the afternoon the party—having left a depot of provisions and oil at Butter Point in case the northern travellers should arrive there—were safe on board again.
Towards' the end of January fine weather was very rare, for the season was advanced, and consequently the fast ice remaining in the Sound began to break up quickly and took the form of pack trending northwards.
The waiting for the other parties to come in was unpleasant for the remaining members of the shore-party and for those on board the ship, because the time was approaching when the Nimrod must either leave for the north or be frozen in for the winter. And still both the Southern and the Northern Parties tarried.
Instructions had been left that if the Northern Party had not returned by February 1, a search was to be made along the western coast in a northerly direction. This party by that time was three weeks overdue, and so Captain Evans proceeded north with the Nimrod on the 1st, and began closely to examine the coast. This search was both dangerous and difficult, for Captain Evans had to keep near to the coast, in order to guard against the chance of missing any signal, and the sea was obstructed by pack-ice. The work, however, was done most thoroughly in the face of what Captain Evans afterwards described as "small navigational difficulties."
CHAPTER XXXIV
INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE NORTHERN PARTY
The Northern Party, which consisted of Professor David, Douglas Mawson, and Alistair Mackay, was under the command of the Professor, and the tale of their adventures will be related by himself. But before the party set out upon this important expedition I gave final instructions to them, an extract from which is given.