The wind was steadily driving me now towards the open sea, where, short of a miracle, I could expect nothing but death. Still I had only this hope--that my pan would probably be opposite another village, called Goose Cove, at daylight, and might possibly be seen from there. I knew that the _komatiks_ would be starting at daybreak over the hills for a parade of Orangemen about twenty miles away. I might, therefore, be seen as they climbed the hills, though the cove does not open seaward. So I lay down and went to sleep again. I woke some time later with a sudden thought in my mind that I must have a flag to signal with. So I set to work at once in the dark to disarticulate the legs of my dead dogs, which were now frozen stiff, and seemed to offer the only chance of forming a pole to carry a flag. Cold as it was, I determined to sacrifice my shirt for that purpose with the first streak of daylight. It took a long time in the dark to get the legs off, and when I had patiently marled them together with old harness rope they formed the heaviest and crookedest flag-post it has ever been my lot to see. Still it had the advantage of not being so cold to hold, because the skin on the paws made it unnecessary to hold the frozen meat with my bare hands. What had awakened me this time, I found, was that the pan had swung around and the shelter made by my dogs’ bodies was on the wrong side, for, though there was a very light air, the evaporation it caused from my wet clothes made quite a difference. I had had no food since six o’clock the morning before, when I had porridge and bread and butter. I had, however, a rubber band on instead of one of my garters, and I chewed that for twenty-four hours. It saved me from thirst and hunger, oddly enough. I did not drink from the ice of my pan, for it was salt-water snow and ice. Moreover, in the night the salt water had lapped up over the edges, for the pan was on a level with the sea. From time to time I heard the cracking and grinding of the newly formed “slob,” and it seemed that my little floe must inevitably soon go to pieces. At last the sun really did rise, and the time came for the sacrifice of my shirt. I stripped, and, much to my surprise and pleasure, did not find it was half so cold as I had anticipated. I now reformed my dog-skins, with the raw side out, so that they made a kind of coat, quite rivalling Joseph’s. But with the rising of the sun the frost came out of the joints of my dogs’ legs, and the friction--caused, I suppose, by waving it--made my flag-pole almost tie itself in knots. Still, I could raise it three or four feet above my head, which seemed very important.