Something more than patience and punctual performance of duty is displayed in such things as those of which I have been speaking; it is love of, and a living interest in, one’s work.  From what I saw and heard every day, I was certain that these necessary incentives were present; although, as far as most of the men were concerned, our object was still the protracted one of drifting for years in the Arctic ice.  The extension of the plan —­ the far more imminent battle with the ice-floes of the South —­ was still undreamt of by the majority of the ship’s company.  I considered it necessary to keep it to myself for a little while yet —­ until our departure from the port we were now making for:  Funchal, Madeira.  It may possibly appear to many people that I was running a pretty big risk in thus putting off till the last moment the duty of informing my comrades of the very considerable detour we were to make.  Suppose some, or perhaps all, of them had objected!  It must be admitted that it was a big risk, but there were so many risks that had to be taken at that time.

However, as I got to know each man during these first few weeks of our long voyage, I soon arrived at the conviction that there was nobody on board the Fram who would try to put difficulties in the way.  On the contrary, I had more and more reason to hope that they would all receive the news with joy when they heard it; for then their whole prospect would be so different.  Everything had gone with surprising ease up to this time; in future it would go even better.

It was not without a certain longing that I looked forward to our arrival at Madeira:  it would be grand to be able to speak out!  No doubt the others who knew of the plan were equally eager.  Secrets are neither amusing nor easy to carry about —­ least of all on board a ship, where one has to live at such close quarters as we had.  We were chatting together every day, of course, and the uninitiated could not be deterred from leading the conversation round to the ugly difficulties that would embitter our lives and hinder our progress when rounding the Horn.  It was likely enough that we should manage to bring the dogs safely through the tropics once, but whether we should succeed in doing so twice was more doubtful; and so on to infinity.  It is easier to imagine than to describe how awkward all this was, and how cunningly one had to choose one’s words to avoid saying too much.  Among inexperienced men there would have been no great difficulty, but it must be remembered that on the Fram pretty nearly every second man had spent years of his life in Polar voyages:  a single slight hint to them would have been enough to expose the whole plan.  That neither those on board nor anyone else discovered it prematurely can only be explained by its being so obvious.