vast mass of incandescence. Round the world that day, two hours before

the dawn, went the pallid great white star, fading only as it sank

westward and the sun mounted above it. Everywhere men marvelled at it,

but of all those who saw it none could have marvelled more than those

sailors, habitual watchers of the stars, who far away at sea had heard

nothing of its advent and saw it now rise like a pigmy moon and climb

zenithward and hang overhead and sink westward with the passing of the

night.

And when next it rose over Europe everywhere were crowds of watchers on

hilly slopes, on house-roofs, in open spaces, staring eastward for the

rising of the great new star. It rose with a white glow in front of it,

like the glare of a white fire, and those who had seen it come into

existence the night before cried out at the sight of it. "It is larger,"

they cried. "It is brighter!" And, indeed the moon a quarter full and

sinking in the west was in its apparent size beyond comparison, but

scarcely in all its breadth had it as much brightness now as the little

circle of the strange new star.

It is brighter!" cried the people clustering in the streets. But in the

dim observatories the watchers held their breath and peered at one

another. "It is nearer," they said. "Nearer!"

And voice after voice repeated, "It is nearer," and the clicking

telegraph took that up, and it trembled along telephone wires, and in a

thousand cities grimy compositors fingered the type. "It is nearer." Men

Tales of Space and Time