But the next day proved to be so glorious, bright, and sunny that Steve could not realise the fact that the winter would be upon them soon. There were tiny flowers in sunny corners, the sea and sky were of a brilliant blue, and the birds that were sailing round and round, and, chasing each other, made the rocks echo with their joyous cries. "This place is so sheltered that we ought not to feel the winter so very much," he said to himself; and he walked up to where the Norsemen were seated rebinding the lashing about their lance heads, examining the grommetting round the harpoons, and planing up a fresh shaft for a lance whose handle had been cracked in an encounter with a huge walrus, which gave one vigorous flap and broke away, the lance handle snapping as if it had been a match, at the same time preparing one for Johannes' weapon broken by the bear. "Morning," he said; and the fair, big, grave-looking fellows returned his salute with a smile. "Going to be fine weather?" he asked. "Yes, sir, fine and clear for some days yet. I don't think we shall have any snow." "I should hope not," said Steve, smiling. "I say, Johannes, didn't we have a bit of a frost this morning?" "Yes, sir, a slight one." "You don't think that's a sign of the winter coming, do you?" "Yes, sir; and very soon." "What nonsense!" cried Steve. "Why, we often have sharp frosts at home in April and May, and they don't mean that winter is coming. Why do you think it is coming so soon?" The big Norseman smiled. "Because, sir, it is not coming; it has already come." "Come?" "Yes," said Johannes, raising his hand, and pointing to the dazzling peaks of ice and the glistening snow coming quite low down on the slopes, leading gradually to the lake-like shores of the fiord; "there it is, sir." "Oh, but ice and snow have been there all the summer." "What we call the summer, sir; but it seems to me that the winter is always here. It rises a little when the sun comes back and a part of the snow melts; but if we climb up into the mountains a little way, it freezes every night, and the winter is always there. And now the sun rises a little less high every day, and there is real night which grows longer as the days grow shorter." "Yes, I noticed that the days grew shorter," said Steve, as he looked up at the realm of eternal winter with aching eyes. "Much, sir; and if we measured we should soon see that the snow up yonder was creeping down toward us week by week." Steve was silent for a few minutes, as he tried to familiarise himself with these wonderful facts about nature in the arctic circle. "I say, Johannes," he said at last, "what about the ice down at the opening of the fiord--will it give way this year?" "No, sir," said the man quietly. "Then for certain we shall not be able to get out?" "For certain you will not be able to get out, sir." "Then there is no doubt about it whatever; we shall have to spend the winter here, frozen up?"