midday
'' _ For a long black hour of horror they were driven over the thundering seas and through a frigid whirlwind of snow sharp as flakes of steel ... `` Seeing Ootah turn slightly toward Annadoah , Maisanguaq sprang at his throat . Their arms closed about one another ... The floe rocked beneath them -- they slipped to and fro on the ice ... About them the frightful darkness roared ; they felt the heaving sea under them . And while they struggled in their brief death-to-death fight , the floe was tossed steadily onward . _ '' The long night began to lift its sable pall , and at midday , for a brief period , a pale glow appeared above the eastern horizon . In this brief spell of daily increasing twilight the desolate region took on a grey-blue hue ; the natives , as they appeared outside their shelters , looked like greyish spectres . Ootah felt the grim grey desolation color his soul . He had regained his strength , and his wounds had healed with the remarkable rapidity that nature effects in people who lead a primitive life ; only the hurt in his heart remained .