IX
WE were on a flat elevation, behind us lay an enormous limitless waste, before us its endless continuation, to the right a hollow filled with snow-drifts bounded by rising ground, while beyond, at a great distance, the blue line of the forest, into which our dogs had disappeared, showed dimly on the horizon. To the left stretched the skirts of another wood, along which we had driven until our team had been dispersed, and we ourselves were standing at the foot of a huge snowdrift, that had been blown over a small hillock covered with tall pines and firs, that seemed to reach to the sky. Sitting on the edge of the sledge, exhausted by hunger and numb with cold, I could not pay any attention to what was around me, nor did I notice when my savage appeared beside me. I neither saw how he approached, nor how he silently seated himself near me, and now at last when I noticed him he was sitting, with his long stick across his knees, and his hands hidden in the breast of his fur coat. Not a feature of his face had changed, not a muscle had moved, and his eyes had no expression beyond a dull calm submission.
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