Book 3 The Land of the Long Shadow Chapter 31

"They have the night, who had, like us, the day-- 
We, whom day binds, shall have the night as they-- 
We, from the fetters of the light unbound, 
Healed of our wound of living, shall sleep sound!"
 SWINBURNE.

Night on the Altenfjord,--the long, long, changeless night of winter. The sharp snow-covered crests of the mountains rose in white appeal against the darkness of the sky,--the wild north wind tore through the leafless branches of the pine-forests, bringing with it driving pellets of stinging hail. Joyless and songless, the whole landscape lay as though frozen into sculptured stone. The Sun slept,--and the Fjord, black with brooding shadows, seemed silently to ask--where? Where was the great king of Light?--the glorious god of the golden hair and ruddy countenance?--the glittering warrior with the flaming shield and spear invincible? Where had he found his rest? By what strange enchantment had he fallen into so deep and long a drowsiness. The wind that had rioted across the mountains, rooting up great trees in its shrieking career northwards, grew hushed as it approached the Altenfjord--there a weird stillness reigned, broken only by the sullen and monotonous plash of the invisible waves upon the scarcely visible shore.

A few tiny, twinkling lights showed the irregular outline of Bosekop, and now and then one or two fishing-boats with sable sails and small colored lamps at mast and prow would flit across the inky water like dark messengers from another world bound on some mournful errand. Human figures, more shadowy than real, were to be seen occasionally moving on the pier, and to the left of the little town, as the eye grew accustomed to the moveless gloom, a group of persons, like ghosts in a dream, could be dimly perceived, working busily at the mending of nets.