For several hours the rain fell and the gale howled. Then the sky swiftly
cleared, and with the clearing there rose a great cry of amaze from stem
to stern of the _Wolverine_. For far toward the western horizon
appeared such a prodigy as the eye of no man aboard that ship had ever
beheld. From a belt of marvellous, glowing gold, rich and splendid
streamers of light spiralled up into the blackness of the heavens.

In all the colours of the spectrum they rose and fell; blazing orange,
silken, wonderful, translucent blues, and shimmering reds. Below, a broad
band of paler hue, like sheet lightning fixed to rigidity, wavered and
rippled. All the auroras of the northland blended in one could but have
paled away before the splendour of that terrific celestial apparition.

On board the cruiser all hands stood petrified, bound in a stricture of
speechless wonder. After the first cry, silence lay leaden over the ship.
It was broken by a scream of terror from forward. The quartermaster who
had been at the wheel came clambering down the ladder and ran along the
deck, his fingers splayed and stiffened before him in the intensity of
his panic.

"The needle! The compass!" he shrieked.

Barnett ran to the wheel house with Trendon at his heels. The others
followed. The needle was swaying like a cobra's head. And as a cobra's
head spits venom, it spat forth a thin, steel-blue stream of lucent fire.
Then so swiftly it whirled that the sparks scattered from it in a tiny
shower. It stopped, quivered, and curved itself upward until it rattled
like a fairy drum upon the glass shield. Barnett looked at Trendon.