“I said, ‘Yes, father,’ very sharply, for I was horribly ashamed of having been frightened at the flight of wild fowl; but I didn’t know any better, and it was very dark, like to-night; and it is startling to hear such sounds when you don’t know what they are.”
“Yes, very,” said Steve consciously.
“Why, if the lad Watty had been on deck, I don’t know what kind of creature he would have thought it was. Hark!” he whispered, for Skene uttered another low whine. “Here they are again, sir. This frost has started them in a hurry. Yes; geese this time.”
For from out of the black darkness ahead came a long-drawn, weird, clanging noise, growing louder and louder till it swept over their heads and into the distance, hushed, as it were, by the whir and whistle of the heavy pinions beating the air.
“The captain was right,” said Johannes after they had listened for a time. “There is nothing like laying in a store when you have the chance. We shall have to go far enough now to pick up a few birds for some months to come.”
The wild-geese flight passed over, and the walk up and down the deck was resumed; and now Steve noted that the aurora was growing paler, with the effect of making the stars shine out more brightly. Then all at once the strange glow sank down lower and lower, and then disappeared as the glow cast upon a cloud of mist disappears when the electric light is turned aside.
“Yes, it comes and goes like that,” said Johannes; “and I have never known yet, sir, any one who could explain it to make it seem clear and reasonable to me. But it is very good.”
“Good! What does it do?”
“Gives us light through the long, black winter, sir, when we’re glad of anything that brightens the sky where there is no sun. Hark! That’s not birds.”
Skene had heard it, and he emitted a deep growl now at the long, low noise faintly heard, apparently from the valley by the glacier.