His flag had been seen by the fishermen, and they pushed out in their
boat through the frozen ice till they got him and his faithful dogs
all safely aboard.
One man had seen him the night before just as it was getting dark, and
had spread the news down the coast, so that all the time, though he
did not know it, anxious eyes were watching him.
The only difficulty was to get a boat through the mass of broken
ice-floes and drifting ice, which covered the heaving surface of the
sea between him and the shore, but pluck and strong arms did it.
In the end his rescuers brought him safely ashore, where every man,
woman and child in the settlement was on the beach to welcome him with
cheers and--many of them--with tears of joy.
Doctor Grenfell says that during the whole of this terrible experience
he did not once feel fear. He felt that he would probably lie down and
sleep his last sleep on that ice-floe; the thought did not disturb him
very much.
At the same time, he did feel something of that regret which comes to
all people when dying, and that was the remembrance of how much time
he had wasted (even he!) when he had life and opportunities for doing
good for other people, and how he had let his opportunities slide by
without doing so much as he might have done.
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