And as this wonderful white light poured over the pine-clad hills and flashed on the ice-clad mountains, and the nearer trees were fringed with silvery glow, and as I watched all this, entranced, I perceived that this splendour was by degrees dying from the sky. The brilliant lights were fading slowly, and in their place the full moon wheeled up, the stars became visible, and it was an ordinary moonlight scene; but so bright, so brilliant, that for a while I was unable to decide which was the more wonderful display, this calm and peaceful scene, or that which had but now faded from the heavens leaving no trace behind.
I had not stirred for quite half-an-hour, and Patch had stood by me, motionless, all the time. Strangely—or so it was to me—he did not appear to have noticed any of these lights and sights. He was perfectly impassive.
I had thought during the height of this spectacle that I heard cracklings and other noises like electric discharges; but now that all was motionless about me and no aurora visible, I still heard these sounds, and decided that they were caused by the intense frost splitting trees and splintering their bark and branches.
I was about to turn towards home—home! fancy speaking of that dreadful place I stayed in as home!—when I heard a sound far to the east, beyond some hills, which struck me as most strange. It was exactly like the discharge of a double-barrelled gun.
I noticed that Patch pricked up his ears at it, and looked suddenly alert.
I listened intently for some minutes, then I heard that sound again!
It was the frost at work, I reckoned, and yet there was something about the report that excited me. I waited, listening for some time, but as I did not hear the sound again, Patch and I wandered back to fire and food.
However, these peculiar sounds frequently recurred to me. There was a strange persistency in my thoughts about them. I wondered if it was possible that some people were stopping over the hills, or could it be merely the snapping of the frost. I concluded that this latter was the solution, and fell asleep believing so.