We had all along had good weather: till, suddenly, on the morning of the
13th April, we were overtaken by a tempest from the S.W., of such mighty
and solemn volume that the heart quailed beneath it. It lasted in its
full power only an hour, but during that time snatched two of our
sledges long distances, and compelled us to lie face-downward. We had
travelled all the sun-lit night, and were gasping with fatigue; so as
soon as the wind allowed us to huddle together our scattered things, we
crawled into the sleeping-bags, and instantly slept.

We knew that the ice was in awful upheaval around us; we heard, as our
eyelids sweetly closed, the slow booming of distant guns, and brittle
cracklings of artillery. This may have been a result of the tempest
stirring up the ocean beneath the ice. Whatever it was, we did not care:
we slept deep.

We were within ten miles of the Pole.

* * * * *

In my sleep it was as though someone suddenly shook my shoulder with
urgent '_Up! up_!' It was neither Clark nor Mew, but a dream merely: for
Clark and Mew, when I started up, I saw lying still in their
sleeping-bag.

I suppose it must have been about noon. I sat staring a minute, and my
first numb thought was somehow this: that the Countess Clodagh had
prayed me 'Be first'--for her. Wondrous little now cared I for the
Countess Clodagh in her far unreal world of warmth--precious little for
the fortune which she coveted: millions on millions of fortunes lay