t was
impossible to see for a distance of half the length of the ship, and for
all that they could see of the land it might as well have been a hundred
miles distant.

This state of things lasted without intermission for the ensuing four
days and kept the travellers close prisoners on board their ship. This,
however, they in nowise regretted; indeed this short breathing space was
positively welcome to them, for they had plenty of work to do; and, shut
up warm and snug on board the _Flying Fish_, with all her saloons,
cabins, and corridors brilliantly illuminated by the electric light,
they busied themselves in carefully preparing and curing the many unique
specimens of natural history and the various choice skins and furs they
had already accumulated.

But on the morning of the fifth day they found that another change of
weather had taken place, and, on going out on deck, a glorious spectacle
greeted their delighted eyes. The snowfall had ceased, the sky was once
more cloudless, and the deep sapphire blue was studded with countless
myriads of scintillating stars that gleamed with the cold sharp lustre
which is seen only in periods of very severe frost. But it was not the
brilliant starlight, beautiful though that was, which drew ejaculations
of wonder and delight from the lips of the entranced beholders; it was
another and a rarer sight which excited their admiration. As they
looked, the sky immediately overhead, and for a distance of some twenty
degrees all round from the zenith, became tinged with the softest and
most delicate rose-colour, bordering which there suddenly appeared a
broad circle of flashing rays of light, blood-red at the inner rim of
the circle, and merging from thence through the richest purple into
brilliant blue, and from thence, through green of every conceivable
tint, into a clear dazzling yellow at the points of the rays. These
superbly-tinted rays were animated by a constant motion; now withdrawing
themselves into the main body of the circle as into a sheath, and anon
darting out again until they almost reached the horizon; and so
delicately transparent were they that, notwithstanding their brilliant
colour, the stars were distinctly perceptible through them. This
magnificent spectacle continued for a full hour with ever-increasing
brilliancy, suffusing sea and land with a quivering glow of prismatic
light, and imparting an aspect of magic, unearthly, indescribable beauty
to the scene.