1911] THE SENSE OF DESTINY 6i 
crevasse was probably about lOO 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 
