e wind;
and then again seeming to be phantom things playing hide-and-seek among
the stars; sometimes like wicked spirits of the night, bent on mischief;
sometimes like tongues of flame from some great fire in some great world
beyond the earth, making one almost afraid that the heavens will break
out presently in a roaring blaze, and rain a shower of living coals and
ashes on his head.

"And O, how grand the colors are sometimes! The great arch of light that
spans the sky is often bright with all the colors of the
rainbow,--changing every instant. And from these flickering belts of
light the fiery streams fly up with lightning speed,--green, and orange,
and blue, and purple, and bright crimson,--all mingling here and there
and everywhere above, while down beneath comes out in bold relief before
the eye the broad, white plain of ice and snow upon the ocean, the great
icebergs that lie here and there upon it, the tall white mountains of
the land, and the dark islands in the sea; and then the flood of light
dies away, and the dark islands in the sea, and the tall white
mountains, and the icebergs, and the white plain around, all vanish from
the sight, and the mind retains only an impression that the icebergs,
with all these bright hues reflected on them from above, had come from
space and darkness, like the meteors, then to vanish, and leave the
darkness more profound.

"And thus the auroral light and color keep pulsating in the air, up and
down, up and down; and thus the icebergs seem to come and go; and the
very stars above seem to be rushing out with a bold bright glare, and
going back again as quickly, singed and withered, as it were, into puny
sparks, and, utterly disheartened with the effort to keep their places
in the face of such a flood of brightness, are at length resolved no
more to try to twinkle, twinkle through the night.

"And that is all I can tell you about the aurora borealis, for that is
all I know about it."

"O, isn't he a great one?" whispered William to Fred, who sat close
beside him on the locker,--"isn't he, indeed?--to say he can't describe
an aurora borealis, when he has blood, thunder, fire, and all creation
on his tongue."

"But," went on the Captain, "in spite of this auroral light and the
moonlight, the winter was dreary enough. At first we wanted to sleep all
the time; and we had much trouble to keep ourselves from giving way to
this desire. If we had done so, it would have made us very