The mist closed down. The terror of sightlessness was added to the rest.
Utter helplessness supervened. It was the final disaster. The closing down of the fog meant the last of intelligent effort. The whole outfit was left groping, blind, and conscious only of the terror of the downward rush they could no longer check. Ghostly ice hummocks rose up at them out of the darkness and buffeted like frigid legions advancing to the attack. Fissures yawned agape. The booming ice roared on, deafening, maddening. It was the struggle of brave men doomed. It was sublimely pitiful. It was a moment for the tears of angels.
Out of the west the breeze had freshened. It came in little hasty gusts, like the breath of invisible giants. The inky night seemed to lighten, and, here and there, the flash of a star shone out, while a faint, silvery sheen struggled for mastery in the stirring fog which fought so desperately to deny the eyes of the Arctic night.
A distant booming came up out of the fog. It was the softened sound of far-off thunder. There was another sound, too. It was less awesome, but no less significant. It was the steady droning of cascading waters falling in a mighty tide. It suggested the plunge into the darkness of an abyss, or even the lesser immensity of surging rapids in the course of a mountain river.
Steadily the western breeze increased. It lost its patchiness and settled to a pleasant, warming drift. Slowly the inky darkness rolled away. The peeping stars remained, or only lost their radiance in the gossamer lightness of passing mist. The silver of the aurora shone down triumphantly upon the snowless earth, and the glory of the moon lit the remoteness with its frigid smile.
On the dark monotony of an earth robbed of its winter clothing a cluster of moving figures stood out in faint relief, and presently a light flashed out like the infinitesimal blaze of a firefly in the night. It passed, and then it came again. Again it passed. And again it came. This time it lived and grew. A fire had lit, and the group of figures were crouching over it as though to protect it against the dark immensity of the world surrounding them.
The distant thunders had died away. No longer was there the ominous droning of falling waters. The utter stillness of the Arctic night was supreme.
The steady play of the western breeze came down the highway of the valley whose far-off slopes rose to unmeasured heights. To the westward the dull reflections of earthly fire lit the sky with deep, sanguinary hues, and the starlight seemed to have lost its power behind a haze of cloud. For the rest the night was lit by the aurora.