hunter, crimson beams
darted across it in swift succession, like arrows shot at the dark
target of the world. Round and round swept the varying circles of
color--now advancing--now retreating--now turning the sullen waters
beneath into a quivering mass of steely green--now beating against the
snow-covered hills till they seemed pinnacles of heaped-up pearls and
diamonds. The whole landscape was transformed,--and the shadowy cluster
of men and women on the shore paused in their toil, and turned their
pale faces towards the rippling splendor,--the heavy fishing-nets
drooping from their hands like dark webs woven by giant spiders.

"'Tis the first time we have seen the Arch of Death this year," said one
in awed accents.

"Ay, ay!" returned another, with a sigh. "And some one is bound to cross
it, whether he will or no. 'Tis a sure sign!"

"Sure!" they all agreed, in hushed voices as faint and far-off as the
breaking of the tide against the rocks on the opposite coast.

As they spoke, the fairy-like bridge in the sky parted asunder and
vanished! The brilliant aurora borealis faded by swift degrees--a few
moments, and the land was again enveloped in gloom.

It might have been midnight--yet by the clock it was but four in the
afternoon. Dreary indeed was the Altenfjord,--yet the neighboring
village of Talvag was even drearier. There, desolation reigned
supreme--it was a frozen region of bitter, shelterless cold, where the
poverty-stricken inhabitants, smitten by the physical torpor and mental
stupefaction engendered by the long, dark season, scarcely stirred out
of their miserable homes, save to gather extra fuel. This is a time in
Norway, when beyond the Arctic Circle, the old gods yet have sway--when
in spite of their persistent, sometimes fanatical, adherence to the
strictest forms of Christianity, the people almost unconsciously revert
to the superstitions of their ancestors. Gathering round the blazing
pine-logs, they recount to one another in low voices the ancient legends
of dead and gone heroes,--and listening to the yell of the storm-wind
round their huts, they still fancy they hear the wild war-cries of the
Valkyries rushing past air full gallop on their coal-black steeds, with
their long hair floating behind them.

On this particular afternoon the appearance of the "Death-Arch," as they
called that special form of the aurora, had impressed the Talvig folk
greatly. Some of them were at the doors, and, regardle