"Put your back
against the ice and your feet against the rock and lever yourself along,"
said Bill, who was already standing on firm ice at the far end in a snow
pit. We cut some fifteen steps to get out of that hole. Excited by now,
and thoroughly enjoying ourselves, we found the way ahead easier, until
the penguins' call reached us again and we stood, three crystallized
ragamuffins, above the Emperors' home. They were there all right, and we
were going to reach them, but where were all the thousands of which we
had heard?
We stood on an ice-foot which was really a dwarf cliff some twelve feet
high, and the sea-ice, with a good many ice-blocks strewn upon it, lay
below. The cliff dropped straight, with a bit of an overhang and no
snow-drift. This may have been because the sea had only frozen recently;
whatever the reason may have been it meant that we should have a lot of
difficulty in getting up again without help. It was decided that some one
must stop on the top with the Alpine rope, and clearly that one should be
I, for with short sight and fogged spectacles which I could not wear I
was much the least useful of the party for the job immediately ahead. Had
we had the sledge we could have used it as a ladder, but of course we had
left this at the beginning of the moraine miles back.
We saw the Emperors standing all together huddled under the Barrier cliff
some hundreds of yards away.
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