And it is here that the Arctic night is most impressive, where its true spirit is revealed, where its wonders are unloosed to sport and play with the mind's vague imaginings. The heavens above and the earth beneath reveal only an endless and fathomless quiet. There is nowhere around me evidence of life or motion. I stand alone in the midst of the mighty hills. Their tall crests climb upward, and are lost in the gray vault of the skies. The dark cliffs, standing against their slopes of white, are the steps of a vast amphitheatre. The mind, finding no rest on their bald summits, wanders into space. The moon, weary with long vigil, sinks to her repose. The Pleiades no longer breathe their sweet influences. Cassiopea and Andromeda and Orion and all the infinite host of unnumbered constellations, fail to infuse one spark of joy into this dead atmosphere. They have lost all their tenderness, and are cold and pulseless. The eye leaves them and returns to earth, and the trembling ear awaits something that will break the oppressive stillness. But no foot-fall of living thing reaches it; no wild beast howls through the solitude. There is no cry of bird to enliven the scene; no tree, among whose branches the winds can sigh and moan. The pulsations of my own heart are alone heard in the great void; and as the blood courses through the sensitive organization of the ear, I am oppressed as with discordant sounds. Silence has ceased to be negative. It has become endowed with positive attributes. I seem to hear and see and feel it. It stands forth as a frightful spectre, filling the mind with the overpowering consciousness of universal death,--proclaiming the end of all things, and heralding the everlasting future. Its presence is unendurable. I spring from the rock upon which I have been seated, I plant my feet heavily in the snow to banish its awful presence,--and the sound rolls through the night and drives away the phantom. I have seen no expression on the face of Nature so filled with terror as The Silence of the Arctic Night. CHAPTER XVIII. PROLONGED ABSENCE OF MR. SONNTAG.--PREPARING TO LOOK FOR HIM.--ARRIVAL OF ESQUIMAUX.--THEY REPORT SONNTAG DEAD.--ARRIVAL OF HANS.--CONDITION OF THE DOGS.--HANS'S STORY OF THE JOURNEY.