The aurora flashed up brighter and then sank, flickered as if dying out, and then blazed up again, if the term can be applied to the exquisitely soft, lambent glow playing in the north; but its movements were those of leaping flame flashing up from a huge fire, growing exhausted, and then dying down till almost invisible, but only to light up the northern heavens again, from horizon almost to zenith, with its dawn-like beauty, till it grew hard to imagine that there was not something more to follow.
“One would think that some kind of pale, cold sun was about to rise over there,” said Steve at last. “Are you sure that nothing will rise?”
“Nothing but more rays, sir.”
“Cold rays,” muttered Steve, drawing his fingers in under the sleeves of his sheep-skin coat. “I say, Johannes, are you warm?”
“Yes, sir.”
“My fingers are numbed, and it’s getting hold of my toes. I’ll go down and have five minutes’ warm by the cabin fire.”
“No, sir, don’t. Take my advice. Let’s have a trot up and down the deck till your blood circulates. Exercise is the thing out here. Blood always running about through your veins, that’s the thing to keep you warm.”
“But one is so much better after a good warm!”
“For a few minutes, sir; but get yourself warm by a good run, and it will last for hours. Take my word; I know.”
“But you’ve never been frozen up here?”