Staggering to my feet, I glared about me, taking in the picture with all its ghastly details, the Pole and its flags, the cairn, the Kawa, every block and halyard of which was etched on this field of flame. How insignificant it all seemed. The world had finished its trick; it was as a tiny bead, cast away by the Creator, a cinder in the eye of God! Suddenly the flames turned incandescently white, rushed toward me and, on an overwhelming wave of siren wailing, I was swept away, billions of miles beyond the Pole-star, to Eternity.... * * * * * Ikik was rubbing my forehead with a cool tundra sponge and her face above me was that of an angel. "Did you see?" she asked. "It was beautiful." The Eskimos were discussing the display critically. "Too green," said Makuik. "No good. Cold come." Peering through the darkness I saw the dim outline of the Kawa. The Pole stood intact. Nothing was harmed, nothing singed. The astounding truth burst upon me, astounding and important to me though nothing to these ages-old Aryans. We had been in the exact center of the aurora borealis. Another milestone for American science! FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 20: William Henry Thomas, cook, valet and foremast-hand who refused to leave the Islands, where he now rules with the title of Filbert the First, under an individual mandate conferred by the Paris Conference. See "Cruise of the Kawa," Chap. 9, p. 133. W.E.T.] [Footnote 21: For an interesting account of Eskimo games see the essay by Dr. R. Petersen. "In Lintinwinger i Kippenskabssel-skabet i Christiania," delivered April 3, 1920. W.E.T.] [Footnote 22: I tried to eat one of these fur-bearing sandwiches in 1898 and nearly died laughing. T.] Chapter VIII _The Arctic Night. The temptation of Traprock. The pros and cons of falling. We solve an age-old riddle. Our Polar Christmas. The love-philtre. Abandonment._ Chapter VIII "Eighty-six below," announced Captain Triplett the next morning, "an' a fine, starry night." Old Ezra was right. Night had fallen while we slept. The long Arctic blackness had followed our twilight sleep, and we were now in the grip of its intense cold. How strangely fate works her miracles! But for my first glimpse of Ikik and our subsequent meeting, we should inevitably have perished, clad as we were in our light linen-mesh and flannels. But the Eskimos had foreseen our peril and supplied us with roomy garments from their own abundant store. No gift in their possession was withheld by these warm-hearted people. Gauntlets, socks, boots and great hooded oomiaks were pressed upon us in which, as soon as we had become accustomed to their overpowering odor, we were extremely comfortable and were able to go about during the less severe weather without danger of being frozen unawares, a very real risk for the novice.[23] Makuik was insistent that both parties join in sharing the protection of his sub-surface home.