After we had stood on the snow-decked bridge for ten minutes, shivering and kicking about to keep our blood from freezing, we saw on a floe some distance westward a light like that of a torch. It flickered, rose and fell, as if carried by some moving object. We went forward to find if anybody was missing--for we could only explain the thing by imagining a man carrying a lantern. Everybody was found to be on board, and then the excitement ran high. Soon all hands were on deck and all seemed to think that the light was being moved towards us. Is it a human being? Is it perhaps some one from an unknown south polar race of people? For some minutes no one ventured out on the pack to meet the strange messenger. We were, indeed, not sufficiently dressed for this mission. Few had had breakfast; all were without mittens and hats, some without coats, and others without trousers. If it were a diplomatic visitor we were certainly in an uncomfortable and undignified uniform with which to receive him. Amundsen, who was the biggest, the strongest, the bravest, and generally the best dressed man for sudden emergencies, slipped into his _annorak_, jumped on his _ski_ and skated rapidly over the gloomy blackness of the pack to the light. He lingered about the spot a bit, and then returned without company and without the light, looking somewhat sheepish. It proved to be a mass of phosphorescent snow which had been newly charged by sea algæ, and was occasionally raised and brushed by the pressure of the ice. May 18.--During the few hours of midday dawn we made an excursion to a favourite iceberg to view the last signs of the departing day. It was a weird jaunt. I shall always remember the peculiar impression it produced upon me. When we started almost all the party were outside, standing about in groups of three or four, discussing the prospects of the long winter night and the short glory of the scene about. A thing sadder by far than the fleeing sun was the illness of our companion, Lieutenant Danco, which was emphasised to us now by his absence from all the groups, his malady confining him to the ship. We knew at this time that he would never again see a sunrise, and we felt that perhaps others might follow him. “Who will be here to greet the returning sun?” was often asked.