Day followed day, and my situation underwent no visible change, excepting only that the temperature became ever colder and colder, that the snow fell more constantly, and that the mist hemmed me in more closely.  Sometimes at midday the mist would lift and I saw around me the great wide stretch of desolate sea, with an ice floe floating here and there.  On one such occasion I fancied I saw land on the windward bow, a white mountainous peak rose high in air, and, not knowing where I might be, I took it to be one of the joekulls of Iceland.  But, alas! it proved to be but an immense iceberg.

In my solitude I naturally thought much of my home, now so far away, and of my dear mother and sister, and their prayers for my safety.  For their sakes I dreaded to think that I might never return to them again.

I thought, too, of Thora, and wondered many times if she was better, or if her illness had taken her away.

I had before found comfort in the thought that she was protected by the viking’s stone.  But, probably, I now needed its mystic help even more than she.

One afternoon—­I think it must have been about the twentieth day of my loneliness—­I had been asleep for some three hours, and in a kind of waking dream I saw a strange vague vision.  A number of persons, whose faces I could not rightly discern, were in a large room.  Amongst them was Thora, looking more beautiful than I had ever seen her in my life, and she stood pointing with an accusing finger at her brother Tom, at whose feet there crouched a lean dog, snarling at him.

I was awakened from my half sleep by the noise of a crackling and scraping of ice upon the schooner’s sides.  I had seen many floating pieces of ice during the past few days, but this, from the noise it made, seemed to be an unusually large piece.  I feared it might even be an iceberg, and I hastened up on deck.

I shall never forget the sight that greeted me.

The whole sky was aglow with the light of the aurora borealis—­or the Merry Dancers, as we call the phenomenon in Orkney.  A beautiful crimson curtain, fringed with flickering streamers, spanned the northern sky.  From east to west there passed a succession of trembling waves of light, many coloured, from faint rose to palest yellow and delicate green.  A heavy cloud of inky blackness hung high above, and from its upper margin rays of fiery light flashed far across the sky, casting their reflections upon the sea.

Two ghostly icebergs, floating about a mile apart, reared their snowy peaks on high, and in the channel between them—­most welcome sight of all—­there sailed a ship.

The vessel’s sails were hanging stiff about the spars and her timbers were coated with ice and snow.  I steered the schooner towards her, and we slowly approached.  When I was near enough I hailed her and waited, listening for an answer to my call.  No answer came.

A feeling of awe crept over me.  There was something strangely desolate about her.  No hand seemed to be guiding her helm.  Not a man was to be seen on her snow-covered decks.  She sailed aimlessly along, as though all on board had ceased to care when or how she reached her destination.