During the winter the party killed twenty-nine walruses and three dozen bears. Once, when only a fortnight's meat was left, and things began to look serious, no less than eight bears were killed in two weeks. At the end of April the birds returned, and in June the ice was cleared away by a gale and walruses were seen swimming on the water in hundreds. Never did a wintering party meet with better fortune, and never was one better managed. On the 21st of June they started from Cape Flora in four boats, six men each in three of them, seven in the other, to reach the open sea, leaving in the house six bottles of champagne in case any person might look in, besides a few other things, and blocking up the door to keep out the bears. Before the boats reached the ice they crossed eighty miles of water, and then six weeks' hard labour began, zigzagging through channels, hauling over hummocky floes, sailing through pools, halting for days on a floe with no water in sight, but never doubting that a clearance would come. On leaving the ice they steered for Novaya Zemlya, at first in a gentle breeze, which rapidly increased to a gale in a heavy thunderstorm, so that the boats, with their sails of tablecloth and shirt-tail, had to be carefully handled as they scudded before it at such a pace that within twenty-four hours of leaving the ice they were drawn up all safe on the beach at the entrance of Matyushin Shar. Next morning the Dutch exploring schooner, _Willem Barents_, was descried coming out of the strait, and before the schooner was reached by the boats there came round the point the _Hope_, which Sir Allen Young, of the _Pandora_, had brought out as a rescue ship for them. They had been driven by the gale to the very spot on the very day they could be best relieved.