On the Roof of the World 



IT seemed to be the very roof of the world, 

 all naked to the outer cold, this flat vast 

 of solitude, dimly outspread beneath the 

 Arctic night. A line of little hills, mere knobs 

 and hummocks, insignificant under the bitter 

 starlight, served to emphasize the immeasur- 

 able and shelterless flatness of the surround- 

 ing expanse. Somewhere beneath the un- 

 featured levels the sea ended and the land 

 began, but over all lay the monotony of ridged 

 ice and icy, wind-scourged snow. The wind, 

 which for weeks without a pause had torn 

 screaming across the nakedness, had now 

 dropped into calm ; and with the calm there 

 seemed to come in the unspeakable cold of 

 space. 



Suddenly a sharp noise, beginning in the 

 dimness far to the left of the Little Hills, ran 

 snapping past them and died off abruptly in 

 the distance to the right. It was the ice, 



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