THE LIFTING OF THE CURTAIN. 
213 
clutch of the island, and no slight matter should make 
me let go my hold. In the mean time there was nothing 
for it hut to wait patiently until the curtain lifted; and 
no child ever stared more eagerly at a green drop-scene 
in expectation of “the realm of dazzling splendour” 
promised in the hill, than I did at the motionless grey 
folds that hung round us. At last the hour of liberation 
came: a purer light seemed gradually to penetrate the 
atmosphere, brown turned to grey, and grey to white, 
and white to transparent blue, until the lost horizon 
entirely reappeared, except where in one direction an 
impenetrable veil of haze still hung suspended from 
the zenith to the sea. Behind that veil I knew must 
lie Jan Mayen. 
A few minutes more, and slowly, silently, in a 
manner you could take no count of, its dusky hem 
first deepened to a violet tinge, then gradually lifting, 
displayed a long line of coast—in reality but the roots 
of Beerenberg—dyed of the darkest purple; while, 
obedient to a common impulse, the clouds that wrapt 
its summit gently disengaged themselves, and left the 
mountain standing in all the magnificence of his 
6,870 feet, girdled by a single zone of pearly vapouiy 
