'Before leaving,' Barne wrote in his report, 'I impressed on the
men, as strongly as I could, the importance of keeping together, as
it was impossible to distinguish any object at a greater distance
than ten yards on account of the drifting snow.' But after they
had struggled a very short distance, Hare, who
[Page 65]
had been at the rear of the party, was reported to be missing,
and soon afterwards Evans 'stepped back on a patch of bare smooth
ice, fell, and shot out of sight immediately.'

Then Barne, having cautioned his men to remain where they were,
sat down and deliberately started to slide in Evans's track. In
a moment the slope grew steeper, and he was going at such a pace
that all power to check himself had gone. In the mad rush he had
time to wonder vaguely what would come next, and then his flight was
arrested, and he stood up to find Evans within a few feet of him.
They had scarcely exchanged greetings when the figure of Quartley
came hurtling down upon them from the gloom, for he had started on
the same track, and had been swept down in the same breathless
and alarming manner. To return by the way they had come down was
impossible, and so they decided to descend, but within four paces
of the spot at which they had been brought to rest, they found
that the slope ended suddenly in a steep precipice, beyond which
nothing but clouds of snow could be seen. For some time after this
they sat huddled together, forlornly hoping that the blinding drift
would cease, but at last they felt that whatever happened they
must keep on the move, and groping their way to the right they
realized that the sea was at their feet, and that they had been
saved from it by a patch of snow almost on the cornice of the cliff.
Presently a short break in the storm enabled them to see Castle