Look alive and get yourselves ready." In less than half-an-hour the rescue party were equipped and on their way over the floes.

They were six in all--one of the freshest among the crew having volunteered to join those already mentioned.
It was a very dark night, and bitterly cold; but they took nothing with them except the clothes on their backs, a supply of provisions for their lost comrades, their sleeping-bags, and a small leather tent.

The captain also took care to carry with them a flask of brandy.
The colossal bergs, which stretched like well-known land-marks over the sea, were their guides at first; but after travelling ten hours without halting, they had passed the greater number of those with which they were familiar, and entered upon an unknown region.

Here it became necessary to use the utmost caution.

They knew that the lost men must be within twenty miles of them, but they had no means of knowing the exact spot, and any footprints that had been made were now obliterated.
In these circumstances Captain Guy had to depend very much on his own sagacity.
Clambering to the top of a hummock, he observed a long stretch of level floe to the northward.
"I think it likely," he remarked to Saunders, who had accompanied him, "that they may have gone in that direction.