This was virtually the termination of their voyage. On the following day (September 4th) a council was held on board the admiral’s ship, when it was decided that, “in order not to fail in their duty,” [152]—which means that it was little more than a matter of form,—they should on the following day make one more endeavour to get through the ice; and if they did not succeed, that then they should not attempt it any further, seeing that the time was passing rapidly, and the winter, with its dreadful cold and long nights, was on the point of setting in. “For,” adds Linschoten, [153] “it is now sufficiently clear and manifest that it does not please the Lord God to permit us this time to proceed further on our voyage of discovery, so that it is not fitting that we should wilfully tempt Him any longer and run with our heads against the wall.” It cannot be denied that Nai and his companions were beset with great difficulties, and that any further attempts might have been extremely hazardous. The crews too of the vessels were now louder in their murmurs, and complained that their commanders desired their deaths, inasmuch as being surrounded by the ice, they ran the chance of remaining locked up during the whole winter; [154] added to which, the loss of two men, who were killed by a bear on the 6th of September, [155] was not at all unlikely to augment the panic, and to cause insubordination among the survivors. Finding the sea to continue quite full of ice, a council was again held on the 8th September on board the admiral’s ship, in order to determine finally whether they should proceed or return, whereon a great debate took place. [156] Most of them were of opinion that they should at once return. To this however, the Amsterdammers were opposed, their opinion being that some of them should volunteer to remain there with two of the vessels during the winter, and take their chance of the wintering, besides seeing whether they could not manage to get through, or else trying whether they might not be able to make their way to the west of Vaigats, and so round by the north of Novaya Zemlya. But it was replied, that the time for doing so was past, and that moreover it did not accord with their instructions. Nevertheless, if they wished it, they could do it of their own authority, and then see how they might afterwards answer for their conduct. [157] On the following day the indefatigable Barents “went on shoare on the south side of the States Iland, and layd a stone on the brinke of the water, to proue whether there were a tide, and went round about the iland to shoote at a hare; and returning”—as he says in the only writing undoubtedly of his original composition which has been preserved to us—“I found the stone as I left it, and the water neither higher nor lower; which prooueth, as afore, that there is no flood nor ebbe.” [158]