noon
It is a great favorite of the old women , and will keep the air from your tender skin , if it does n't relieve the soreness of the inflamed membranes . '' So saying , he rubbed in the warm , soft fat with his hands , covering the skin above the bronchial tubes and the soft parts of the throat with the penetrating unguent , then fastening a turn of his list gun-cover around his throat , he replaced the covering , and taking his cap , went out into the night air , and seeking the lookout , glanced eagerly out over the waste of ice . The night was clear and cold , with only an occasional puff of wind from the westward ; but the temperature was falling fast , and the snow-crust broke under the foot with a sound ominous of biting cold . All around was ice , and even if the light-houses along that coast were lighted in winter , it is doubtful if the party were near enough to land to see any except that of Point Escumenac , which at noon bore north-west and about fifteen miles away . Since that time , the drift of the pack , at nightfall evidently making eastward , or rather north-east , had probably increased the distance to nearly forty miles . La Salle surveyed the wild scene around him -- the pillars hewn from vast masses of eternal ice by the shock of fearful collision , the slow action of the sun , the corrosion of the waves , and the melting kisses of the rain , and thus fashioned into fantastic mockeries of fane , monument , tower , and spire , even by daylight were strangely wonderful , but under the mystic night and the weird light of the stars , seemed like icy statues , in whose chill bosoms were incarnated the genii of desolation and death . `` Ay !