Mackay and I hung on to the rope in case it should part at the toggle, but when Mawson called out for the alpine rope to be passed down to him I left Mackay and hurried back to the sledge to get it. Just, however, as I was trying to disengage a coil of rope, Mawson called out that he felt he was going, so I returned to help Mackay in his effort to keep a strain on Mawson's harness rope. Then Mawson said that he was all right, and the rope having suddenly cut back through the lid of the crevasse was probably the reason why he had felt that he was falling. I now held on to the harness rope while Mackay got the alpine rope, and made a bow-line at the end in which Mawson could put his foot. In the meantime Mawson, who was down about eight feet below the level of the snowy lid, secured some ice crystals from the side of the crevasse and threw them up for subsequent examination. The alpine rope having been lowered, we eventually hoisted him up little by little to the under surface of the snow-lid, but as his harness rope had cut back a narrow groove in this snow-lid several feet from where the snow gave way under him, he found his head and shoulders pressing against the under side of the snow-lid and had difficulty in breaking through this in order to get out his head. At last the top of his head appeared, and presently he got safely out on the near side of the crevasse, a deliverance for which we were all supremely thankful. After this too-exciting episode we were extra-cautious in crossing crevasses, but the ice was simply seamed with them. Twice when our sledge was being dragged up ice-pressure ridges it rolled over sideways with one runner in a crevasse, and once the whole sledge all but disappeared into a crevasse, the snow-lid of which partly collapsed under its weight. Had it gone down completely we should certainly have been dragged down with it, as it weighed nearly one-third of a ton. It was clear to us that these numerous crevasses which we had reached were caused not by the Drygalski but by the Nansen Glacier. On the 20th we held a council of war, the question being whether we should continue in the direction of the Mount Nansen Glacier, or whether we should retreat and try to find some other way to the plateau. Mackay was in favour of hauling ahead over the glacier, while Mawson and I favoured retreat, and at last we decided to retreat once more. CHAPTER XXXIX UPWARDS AND ONWARDS So far as the possibility of reaching the Magnetic Pole was concerned, our fortunes seemed to have reached a low ebb. It was already December 20, and we knew that we had to be back at our depot on the Drygalski Glacier not later than February 1 or 2, if there was to be a reasonable chance of our being picked up by the Nimrod. That meant that we had to travel at least 480 to 500 miles before we could hope to get to the Magnetic Pole and back to our depot, and there remained only six weeks to accomplish this journey.