40 NEIGHBOURS UNKNOWN 



bear, each utterly unconscious of the other, 

 dared to stir, in a flash the still silver radiance 

 of the aurora broke up and flamed into a riot 

 of dancing colour. Parallel rays like the 

 pipes of a Titanic organ, reaching almost from 

 the horizon to the zenith, hurtled madly 

 from side to side, now elongating, now shorten- 

 ing abruptly, now seeming to clash against 

 one another, but always in an ordered madness 

 of right lines. Unearthly green, palpitating 

 into rose, and thinnest sapphire, and flame- 

 colour, and ineffably tender violet, the dance 

 of these cohorts of the magnetic rays went 

 on, across the stupendous arc of sky, till 

 the man, afraid of freezing in his unnatural 

 stillness, shrank back down the ridge, and 

 began twisting his body, noiselessly but 

 violently, to set his blood in motion ; and the 

 bear, trusting to the confusion of shifting 

 lights, slipped himself over the ridge and into 

 a convenient crevice. Under the full but 

 bewildering glare of that celestial illumina- 

 tion, he had gained a good ten feet upon his 

 human rival. The man's eyes reappeared 

 just then at the crest of his ridge. Their 

 piercing glance lingered, as if with suspicion, 

 upon the crevice wherein the bear had 

 flattened himself. Was there something un- 

 duly solid in that purple shadow in the 



