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flaming death. Neptune it was, had been struck, fairly and
squarely, by the strange planet from outer space and the heat of
the concussion had incontinently turned two solid globes into one
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!"
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