On the following day, however, Marshall was attacked by paralysis of the stomach and renewed dysentery, and as a blizzard was blowing we decided to lie in our bags and wait. These misfortunes were particularly distressing, for it was absolutely necessary to push on if we were to catch the _Nimrod_. According to orders, the ship might very possibly leave on March 1 if the Sound was not clear of ice, and we had already arrived at February 26 in a year which unhappily was not Leap Year. On the 26th we did manage to do twenty-four miles, but although Marshall never complained, he suffered severely, and as his dysentery was getting worse and worse, I decided, on the afternoon of the 27th, to leave him in the care of Adams, and to push ahead with Wild. My hope was that we should pick up a relief party at the ship, and so we hurried on with no sleep and with the briefest stoppages for meals, until we had been marching for nearly twenty-four hours. By this time our food was finished, and naturally we were very tired, but although we kept on flashing the heliograph in the hope of attracting attention from Observation Hill, where I thought a party would be' on the look-out, there was no return flash. Still, there was nothing to do except to push ahead, and once we thought that we saw a party coming over to meet us, but to our sorrow the "party" turned out to be a group of penguins at the ice edge. At 2.30 P.M. we sighted open water ahead, but the weather had suddenly become so thick that it was impossible to see far, and our arrival at the ice edge was quite sudden and unexpected. The ice was swaying up and down so warningly that to continue on that course was to run grave risk of being carried out, so we decided to follow another route, seven miles round by the other side of Castle Rock. [Illustration: Return journey of the Southern Party: at the Bluff Depot. (_See page 159_)] At last, after what seemed a never-ending struggle, we reached Castle Rock, from whence we could see that there was open water all round the north. Indeed, it was a different home-coming from the one we had anticipated. Often on the Barrier and up on the plateau our thoughts had turned to the day when we should return to winter quarters, but never had we imagined that we should have to fight our way to the back door, so to speak, in such a cheerless fashion. At 7.45 P.M. we reached the top of Ski Slope, and from there both the hut and the bay could be seen. But no sign of the ship could we find, and no trace of life could be seen at the hut. With our minds full of gloomy possibilities, we hurried on to the hut, and discovered that every one had gone away.