Page:Scott's Last Expedition, Volume 2.djvu/99

crevasse was probably about 100 feet deep, and did not narrow as it went down.

It was a wonderful piece of presence of mind that Birdie in such a position could direct us how to get him up—by a way which, as far as we know, he invented on the spur of the moment, a way which we have used since on the Beardmore.

In front of us we could see another ridge, and we did not know how many lay beyond that. Things looked pretty bad. Bill took a long lead on the Alpine rope and we got down our present difficulty all right. From this moment our luck changed and everything went for us to the end. This method of the leader being on a long trace in front we all agreed to be very useful. When we went out on the sea ice the whole experience was over in a few days and Hut Point was always in sight—and there was daylight. I always had the feeling that the whole series of events had been brought about by an extraordinary run of accidents, and after a certain stage it was quite beyond our power to guide the course of events. When, on the way to C. Crozier, the moon suddenly came out of the cloud to show us a great crevasse which would have taken us all with our sledge without any difficulty, I felt that we were not to go under on this trip after such a deliverance. When we had lost our tent—and there was a very great balance of probability, to me, that we should never find it again,—and were lying out the blizzard in our bags, I believe we were face to face with a long fight against cold which we could not have survived. I cannot put down in writing