od on the south of the High Street. But the snow
continued to fall the whole night through, and in the morning the
roads were impassable. Then it was decided to postpone the long
journey until the storm should have passed, the frost set in, and the
desolate white wastes to be crossed become hard and firm. It was now
Wednesday of the second week in October--the Gore-month--and the
people were already settling down to the long rest of the Icelandic
winter. The merchants began to sleep the livelong day in their
deserted stores in the cheapstead, and the bonders, who had come up
with the last of their stock, to drink and doze in the taverns. All
that day the snow fell in fine dust like flour, until, white as it
was, the air grew dark with it. At the late dawn of the next day the
snow was still falling, and a violent gale had then risen. Another
and another and yet another day went by, and still the snow fell and
the gale continued. For two days there was no daylight, and only at
noon through the giddy air a fiery glow burned for an hour along the
southern sky and then went out. Nothing could be seen of fell or
fiord, and nothing could be heard save the baying of the hounds at
night and the roar of the sea at all times, for the wind made no
noise in the soft snow, but drove it along in sheets like silent
ghosts.

Never before had Greeba seen anything so terrible; and still more
fearful than the great snow itself was the anxiety it brought her.
Where was Michael Sunlocks? Where was her father? There was only one
other whose condition troubled her, and she knew too well where he
was--he was lying in the dark cell of the dark house in the High
Street.

While the storm lasted all Reykjavik lay asleep, and Greeba could do
nothing. But one morning when she awoke and turned to the window, as
was her wont, to learn if the weary snow was still falling, she could
see nothing at first for the coating of ice and hoar frost that
covered the glass. But the snow had ceased, the wind had fallen, the
air was clear and the light was coming. The buildings of the town,
from the Cathedral to the hovels of the fishing quarter, looked like
snow mounds in the desert; the black waste of lava was gone; the
black beach was gone; the black jokulls were gone; the black headland
was gone that had stretched like a giant hand of many fingers into
the black fiord; but height above height, and length beyond length,
as far as from sea to sky, and from sea