On the American shore, the footprints are small and light, thus betraying
the passage of a woman.

She has been hastening up the rocky peak, whence the drifts of Siberia
are visible.

On the latter ground, footprints larger and deeper betoken the passing of
a man. He also was on his way to the Straits.

It would seem that this man and woman had arrived here from opposite
directions, in hope of catching a glimpse of one another, across the arm
of the sea dividing the two worlds--the Old and the New.

More strange still! the man and the woman have crossed the solitudes
during a terrific storm! Black pines, the growth of centuries, pointing
their bent heads in different parts of the solitude like crosses in a
churchyard, have been uprooted, rent, and hurled aside by the blasts!

Yet the two travellers face this furious tempest, which has plucked up
trees, and pounded the frozen masses into splinters, with the roar of
thunder.

They face it, without for one single instant deviating from the straight
line hitherto followed by them.

Who then are these two beings who advance thus calmly amidst the storms
and convulsions of nature?

Is it by chance, or design, or destiny, that the seven nails in the sole