But at that instant there came a vast trembling under our feet, and the next I was lying upon the snow, while the air about me was being rent by a sound so awful as to batter into my brain the thought that we had struck the Antarctic Continent and split it in two! I was nearly right, only that, when a second later I opened my eyes, I saw that the split was the Pacemaker’s, and that I was lying within six inches of its edge. Just across, perhaps ten yards away, lay Edith Gale. More than two hundred feet below was the sea, and at that instant I saw the Billowcrest being lifted up and up by the mightiest, slowest wave that ever sea was heir to. It seemed to me that she would never stop, and I remember thinking dimly that if she kept on coming I could get aboard. Then at last she fell back and the sea swallowed her. Again I could count time, and I was sure she was on her way to the bottom when she reappeared, swinging and rolling, but apparently undamaged. I saw black figures on her begin to move; then I looked across once more to Edith Gale, who was slowly drifting farther from me. She was sitting upright, half dazed as it seemed. I called across to her. She assured me that she was not in the least injured—only a bit shaken up and confused. Then I saw she had been correct in the position of the launch. [Illustration: SKETCH FROM MR. CHASE’S NOTE-BOOK. ] “Go to the boat,” I said. “If they are not lost, they can take you to the ship, and then try to get me. I can see the ship from here. It seems safe.” “Keep away from that edge!” she called back. “And why don’t you use the telephone?” I had forgotten it entirely. Even as she spoke it began ringing, and holding it to my ear I distinguished the eager “hello” of Chauncey Gale. “Hello!” I called, “all right up here! How’s the ship?” “Wet, but safe. How’s Johnnie?” “Safe. We were separated when the shake-up came and the berg broke between us. She’s on the side where the launch is.” Gale would always be Gale. “No danger of your fighting then about whose fault it was.” I heard him now give an order to put off two boats for us, at once, in case the launch had been destroyed. I called this across to Edith Gale, who immediately set out for the landing place, after bidding me not to be uneasy, and to be careful about taking cold. She added that I was sure to be taken off, soon, though by what special means she had acquired this information I have yet to learn. She disappeared down the snow stairway, and I was alone.