As we began to gather our gear together to pack up for the last time, Bill said quietly, “I want to thank you two for what you have done.  I couldn’t have found two better companions—­and what is more I never shall.”

I am proud of that.

Antarctic exploration is seldom as bad as you imagine, seldom as bad as it sounds.  But this journey had beggared our language:  no words could express its horror.

We trudged on for several more hours and it grew very dark.  There was a discussion as to where Cape Evans lay.  We rounded it at last:  it must have been ten or eleven o’clock, and it was possible that some one might see us as we pulled towards the hut.  “Spread out well,” said Bill, “and they will be able to see that there are three men.”  But we pulled along the cape, over the tide-crack, up the bank to the very door of the hut without a sound.  No noise from the stable, nor the bark of a dog from the snowdrifts above us.  We halted and stood there trying to get ourselves and one another out of our frozen harnesses—­the usual long job.  The door opened—­“Good God! here is the Crozier Party,” said a voice, and disappeared.

Thus ended the worst journey in the world.

And now the reader will ask what became of the three penguins’ eggs for which three human lives had been risked three hundred times a day, and three human frames strained to the utmost extremity of human endurance.

Let us leave the Antarctic for a moment and conceive ourselves in the year 1913 in the Natural History Museum in South Kensington.  I had written to say that I would bring the eggs at this time.  Present, myself, C.-G., the sole survivor of the three, with First or Doorstep Custodian of the Sacred Eggs.  I did not take a verbatim report of his welcome; but the spirit of it may be dramatized as follows: 

FIRST CUSTODIAN.  Who are you?  What do you want?  This ain’t an egg-shop.  What call have you to come meddling with our eggs?  Do you want me to put the police on to you?  Is it the crocodile’s egg you’re after?  I don’t know nothing about ’no eggs.  You’d best speak to Mr. Brown:  it’s him that varnishes the eggs.

I resort to Mr. Brown, who ushers me into the presence of the Chief Custodian, a man of scientific aspect, with two manners:  one, affably courteous, for a Person of Importance (I guess a Naturalist Rothschild at least) with whom he is conversing, and the other, extraordinarily offensive even for an official man of science, for myself.

I announce myself with becoming modesty as the bearer of the penguins’ eggs, and proffer them.  The Chief Custodian takes them into custody without a word of thanks, and turns to the Person of Importance to discuss them.  I wait.  The temperature of my blood rises.  The conversation proceeds for what seems to me a considerable period.  Suddenly the Chief Custodian notices my presence and seems to resent it.

CHIEF CUSTODIAN.  You needn’t wait.