11. Ahead of us in the south lay a dark water-sky, while the land on either side was veiled in mist and fog. We tried to persuade ourselves that this phenomenon might be explained otherwise than by open water. Soon, however, we heard the unambiguous sound of ice-pressure and of the beating of the surf at no great distance, and when we went to rest, in 80° 36′ N. L., it was with the feeling that we needed new strength to meet the dangers which unquestionably awaited us. We slept soundly for some hours in spite of all our anxious fears, till we were aroused by the increasing noise. We now advanced along the old sledge-track upon which we had fallen. Orel and I went first, and after we had gone a few hundred paces the truth burst upon us: we saw the sea ahead of us and no white edge beyond. Walls of forced-up ice surrounded this water, which, stirred by a heavy wind, threw up crested waves; the spray of its surf dashed itself for a distance of thirty yards over the icy shore. Forthwith ascending an iceberg, we looked over the dark waste of water, in which the icebergs, under which we had passed a month before, were now floating; the more distant of them stood out against the arch of light on the horizon, and those nearer to us shone with a dazzling brilliancy under the dark water-sky. That on which lay our depôt of provisions was floating in the midst of them; and here we were, without a boat, almost without provisions, and fifty-five miles distant from the ship! A strong current was running southwards at the rate of three or four miles an hour; fragments of ice were driving before the wind, as if they meant to delight us by their movements, and as if there were no change for the worse to a handful of men, who stood in reality before an impassable abyss. [Illustration: ARRIVAL BEFORE THE OPEN SEA.]