des
during a terrific storm! Black pines, the growth of centuries, pointing
their bent heads in different parts of the solitude like crosses in a
churchyard, have been uprooted, rent, and hurled aside by the blasts!

Yet the two travellers face this furious tempest, which has plucked up
trees, and pounded the frozen masses into splinters, with the roar of
thunder.

They face it, without for one single instant deviating from the straight
line hitherto followed by them.

Who then are these two beings who advance thus calmly amidst the storms
and convulsions of nature?

Is it by chance, or design, or destiny, that the seven nails in the sole
of the man's shoe form a cross--thus:

*
* * *
*
*
*

Everywhere he leaves this impress behind him.

On the smooth and polished snow, these footmarks seem imprinted by a foot
of brass on a marble floor.

Night without twilight has soon succeeded day--a night of foreboding
gloom.

The brilliant reflection of the snow renders the white steppes still
visible beneath the azure darkness of the sky; and the pale stars glimmer
on the obscure and frozen dome.

Solemn silence reigns.

But, towards the Straits, a faint light appears.

At first, a gentle, bluish light, such as precedes moonrise; it increases
in brightness, and assumes a ruddy hue.

Darkness thickens in every other direction; the white wilds of the desert
are now scarcely visible under the black vault of the firmament.

Strange and confused noises are heard amidst this obscurity.

They sound like the flight of large night--birds--now flapping
now-heavily skimming over the steppes-now descending.

But no cry is heard.

This silent terror heralds the approach of one of those imposing
phenomena that awe alike the most ferocious and the most harmless, of
animated beings. An Aurora Borealis (magnificent sight!) common in the
polar regions, suddenly beams forth.

A half circle of dazzling whiteness becomes visible in the horizon.
Immense columns of light stream forth from this dazzling centre, rising
to a great height, illuminating earth, sea, and sky. Then a brilliant
reflection, like the blaze of a conflagration, steals over the snow of
the desert, purples the summits of the mountains of ice, and imparts a
dark red hue to the black rocks of both continents.

After attaining this magnificent brilliancy, the Northern Lights fade
away gr