"
"And they saw us?"
"I think so. It was but a moment, and they were a part of the dusk."
He found her hand and held it closely. Her fingers clung to his, and he
could hear her quick breathing as he unbuttoned the flap of his
automatic holster.
"You think _they have come_?" she whispered, and a cold dread was in her
voice.
"Possibly. My people would not appear from that direction. You are not
afraid?"
"No, no, I am not afraid."
"Yet you are trembling."
"It is this strange gloom, Alan."
Never had the arctic twilight gone more completely. Not half a dozen
times had he seen the phenomenon in all his years on the tundras, where
thunder-storm and the putting out of the summer sun until twilight
thickens into the gloom of near-night is an occurrence so rare that it
is more awesome than the weirdest play of the northern lights. It seemed
to him now that what was happening was a miracle, the play of a mighty
hand opening their way to salvation. An inky wall was shutting out the
world where the glow of the midnight sun should have been. It was
spreading quickly; shadows became part of the gloom, and this gloom
crept in, thickening, drawing nearer, until the tundra was a weird
chaos, neither night nor twilight, challenging vision until eyes
strained futilely to penetrate its mystery.
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