The bay in which we thus found ourselves arrested was afterwards called after Professor Allman. It is an indent in the western coast-line of Kane’s Sea, immediately north of Hayes Sound. It is five miles wide, and at its head we could see a large glacier pouring in two streams round a snow-covered hill, and fronting the bay in a line of icy cliff. Snow lay deep on the mountains on either side, and it still snowed constantly; decks and rigging were covered; a more wintry prospect could hardly be conceived. It was already beginning to grow dark in the evenings, and lamps and candles were again in use between decks. But for a certain disappointment in being checked when we had made up our minds to return, few on board our ships were unwilling to face another winter. Here, two hundred miles further south, it would be a very different affair from the last. Release from the ice next season could be looked forward to as a certainty, and even with a stock of coal lessened by the exigencies of a second winter it would still be possible to escape from Smith’s Sound. If the ships could be got into shelter near the deserted Eskimo hunting-grounds of Norman Lockyer Island, we should probably get plenty of game. Almost all our invalids were again in good health, and when spring came the smooth floes would make the exploration of Hayes’ Sound a pleasure trip. Moreover, if a second winter was unavoidable, there was another reason—a somewhat ignoble one perhaps—why it would not be unwelcome. The advance of pay liberally granted by the Admiralty before sailing was not yet defrayed, and if we reached England this year almost all the men would still be in debt to the Crown, and sailors naturally prefer to land with a little money in their pockets. [Illustration: ALLMAN BAY.] We were not fated, however, to spend another season in the ice. Some motion in the floes occurred on 6th September, and the opportunity was not let slip. The remains of the coal were once more drawn upon to light the engine fires, and the ships were soon pushing through the thin floe towards some water-spaces near Norman Lockyer Island. The “Discovery” led the way, for the shape of her bow enabled her to glide up on the ice till her weight broke down through it, and she thus advanced with a sort of pitching movement. Next day the whole south was dark with storm clouds. If the wind came, it would soon clear the channel. It did come, but only as a gentle breeze; its work was done before it reached us, and the gateway of Smith’s Sound lay open. The swell coming from the south told of a long stretch of open water. Our leader might at last come down from his post in the “crow’s nest,” his almost sleepless vigil was over, for his two ships were once more safe in the “North Water.”