And the streets and houses were alight in all the cities, the shipyards

glared, and whatever roads led to high country were lit and crowded all

night long. And in all the seas about the civilised lands, ships with

throbbing engines, and ships with bellying sails, crowded with men and

living creatures, were standing out to ocean and the north. For already

the warning of the master mathematician had been telegraphed all over

the world, and translated into a hundred tongues. The new planet and

Neptune, locked in a fiery embrace, were whirling headlong, ever faster

and faster towards the sun. Already every second this blazing mass flew

a hundred miles, and every second its terrific velocity increased. As it

flew now, indeed, it must pass a hundred million of miles wide of the

earth and scarcely affect it. But near its destined path, as yet only

slightly perturbed, spun the mighty planet Jupiter and his moons

sweeping splendid round the sun. Every moment now the attraction between

the fiery star and the greatest of the planets grew stronger. And the

result of that attraction? Inevitably Jupiter would be deflected from

its orbit into an elliptical path, and the burning star, swung by his

attraction wide of its sunward rush, would "describe a curved path" and

perhaps collide with, and certainly pass very close to, our earth.

Earthquakes, volcanic outbreaks, cyclones, sea waves, floods, and a

steady rise in temperature to I know not what limit"--so prophesied the

master mathematician.

And overhead, to carry out his words, lonely and cold and livid, blazed

the star of the coming doom.

Tales of Space and Time