WHAT MUST WE DO ? 
367 
try to Tcacli lier before the tide should rise higli enough 
to cover the beach and drown all who should not be able 
to swim hack. We had travelled up and down that beach 
both by day and night, and knew Avell enough that there 
would be no use in trying to climb up those steeps — - 
almost perpendicular walls — when the water should wash 
us from our feet: our only hope would then be in the 
untiring arm of the practised swimmer. 
It was something of more than ordinary importance 
upon which we were now called upon to decide; and I am 
free to acknowledge, as I look back upon that darkening 
night, that we might have acted with far more prudence 
than we did. Still, when the doctor (?) cried out, “Let us 
run for it ! there is yet time,” I stopped to think no longer, 
but, dropping my gun on the beach and telling one of 
the men to come on with it as fast as possible, started otF 
on a full run and was followed by the entire party. 
And such a run as it was ! I never engaged in any 
thing approaching it before; I hope never to be engaged 
in any thing similar again. “It vos fear-/aZ,” as Hart- 
man subsequently expressed it. 
The lingering twilight of the almost endless arctic day 
was slowly giving place to the tardy night. The atmo- 
sphere was just cool enough to keep one from getting 
heated even by running for life, and the unpleasant 
“ bootjack-mixturc’* that was constantly crossing our 
path more than once threw us down at the imminent risk 
of breaking some limb or even a neck. I could hear the 
increasing surge of the flood-tide as it rolled toward us, 
and the decreasing noise of my companions as they hur- 
ried after me : I was evidently distancing them slowly 
