While they were attending to the dogs, the storm abated, and was followed by a magnificent aurora borealis.  It rose in the north, a sort of semi-arch of light; and then across the heavens, in almost every direction, darted columns of a luminous character.  The light was as bright as that of the moon in its full.  There were jets of lurid red light in some places, which disappeared and came again; while there being a dead calm after the storm, the adventurers heard a kind of rustling sound in the distance, faint and almost imperceptible, and yet believed to be the rush of the air in the sphere of the phenomenon.  A few minutes more and all had disappeared.

After a hearty meal, the wanderers launched into the usual topics of conversation in those regions.  Sakalar was not a boaster, but the young men from Nijnei-Kolimsk were possessed of the usual characteristics of hunters and fishermen.  They told with considerable vigor and effect long stories of their adventures, most exaggerated—­and when not impossible, most improbable—­of bears killed in hand to hand combat, of hundreds of deer slain in the crossing of a river, and of multitudinous heaps of fish drawn in one cast of a seine:  and then, wrapped in their thick clothes and every one’s feet to the fire, the whole party soon slept.  Ivan and Kolina, however, held whispered converse together for a little while, but fatigue soon overcame even them.

The next day they advanced still farther toward the pole, and on the evening of the third camped within a few yards of the great Frozen Sea.  There it lay before them, scarcely distinguishable from the land.  As they looked upon it from a lofty eminence, it was hard to believe that that was a sea before them.  There was snow on the sea and snow on the land:  there were mountains on both, and huge drifts, and here and there vast polinas—­a space of soft, watery ice, which resembled the lakes of Siberia.  All was bitter, cold, sterile, bleak, and chilling to the eye, which vainly sought a relief.  The prospect of a journey over this desolate plain, intersected in every direction by ridges of mountain icebergs, full of crevices, with soft salt ice here and there, was dolorous indeed; and yet the heart of Ivan quaked not.  He had now what he sought in view; he knew there was land beyond, and riches, and fame.

A rude tent, with snow piled round the edge to keep it firm, was erected.  It needed to be strongly pitched, for in these regions the blast is more quick and sudden than in any place perhaps in the known world, pouring down along the fields of ice with terrible force direct from the unknown caverns of the northern pole.  Within the tent, which was of double reindeer-skin, a fire was lit; while behind a huge rock, and under cover of the sledges, lay the dogs.  As usual, after a hearty meal, and hot tea—­drunk perfectly scalding—­the party retired to rest.  About midnight all were awoke by a sense of oppression and stifling heat.  Sakalar rose,