The Elbert County tribune., 1910-05-20

of water. so feet high. roaring hungrily. upon
the long coasts of Asia, and swept inland across
the plains of China. For space the star, hot
ter and larger and brighter than the sun
in Its strength. showed with ptiless brllliance
the wide and populous country; towns and VII
lagos with their pagodas and trees, roads, wide
cultivated fields millions of sleepless people
staring in helpless terror at the incandescent
sky; and then. low and growing, came the muir
mur of the food And thus it with millions
OF men that night-a breath fierce and scant.
and the flood like a wall swift and white behind.
And then death.
and Java and all the islands of eastern Asia the
great star a ball of dull red fire because of
the steam and smoke and ashes the volcanoes
spouting forth to salute its coming. Above
the lava. hot gases and ash, and below
the seething floods and the whole earth swayed,
and rumbled with the earthquake shocks.
Larger grew the star and larger, hotter and
brighter with terrible swiftness now. The
tropical ocean had lost its phosphorescence and
the whrling steam rose in ghostly wreaths from
the black waves that plunged necessarily.
specked with storm tossed ships.
And then a wonder. 1t seemed to
those who in Europe watched for the rising
of the star that the world must have ceased
its rotation. In a thousand open spaces of down
and upland the people who had fed thither from
the floods and the falling houses and sliding
slopes of hill watched for that rising in vain.
Hour followed hour through terrible suspense
and the star rose not Once again men set their
eyes upon the old consultations they had count
ed lost to them forever. In England 1t was hot
and clear overhead though the ground quivered
perpetually; but In the tropics Sirius and Ca
pella and A1debaran showed through veil Of
steam.
Over Asia 1t was the star had begun to fall
behind the movement of the sky and then sud.
denly, as 1t hung India. its light had been
veiled All the plain of India from the mouth
of the Indus to the mouths OF the Ganges was
a shallow waste of shining water that night out
of which rose temples and palaces, mounds and
hills. black with people. Every minnret was
a clustering mass of people, who fell one by
one into the turbid waters as heat and terror
overcame them. The whole land seemed
awaiting and suddenly there swept a shadow
across that furnace of despair and breath of
cold wind and a gathering of clouds out of the
cooling air. Men looking up. near blinded at
the star, that black disk was creeping
across the light. 1t was the moon coming be.
tween the star and the earth. And even as
men cried to God at this respite, out of the
east with strange, inexp1icable swiftness
sprang the sun. And then star. sun and moon
rushed together across the heavens.
So 1t was that presently, to the European
watchers. star and sun rose close upon each
other, drove headlong for a space and then
slower. and at last came to rest. star and sun
merged into one glare of flame at the zenith
of the sky. The moon longer eclipsed the
star, but was lost to sight in the brilliance of
the sky And though those who were still alive
regarded 1t for the most part with that dull stu
pidity that hunger, fatigue, heat and despair
engender. there were still men who could per-
ceive the yueaning of these signs Star and
earth had been at their nearest had swung
about another and the star had passed
Already it was receding. swifter and swifter in
the last stage of its headlong journey downward
into the sun.
And then the clouds gathered. blotting ont
the vision of the sky; the thunder and lightning
wove garment around the world; all over the
earth was such downpour of rain as men had
never seen before; and where the volcanoes
fared red against the cloud canopy there de-
scended torrents of mud Everywhere the wa.
ters were pouring off the land leaving mud
silted ruins and the earth Uttered like storm
worn beach with all that had foated and tbe
dead bodies of the men and brutes its children
But the star had passed and men, hunger
driven and gathering courage only SLOWLY might
creep back to their ruined cities, buried gran.
aries and sodden fields. Such few ships as had
escaped the storms Of that time came stunned
and shattered and sounding their way can.
uously through the new marks and shoals OF
once familiar ports And as the storms subsi.
ded men perceived that everywhere the days
were hotter than of yore and the sun larger and
the moon, shrunk to third of its former size
took fourscore days between its new and new
The Martian astronomers-for there are as.
tronomers on Mars. although they are different
beings from men-were naturally profoundly in.
terested by these things. They saw them from
their own standpoint, of course. considering
the mass and temperature of the missile that
was flung through solar system into the
SUM-" one wrote. sit is astonishing what little
damage the earth. which it missed so NARROWLY
has sustained. All the familiar continental
markings and the masses of the seas remain
intact and indeed the only difference seems tn
be shrinkage of the white discoloration fsun
posed to be frozen water) round either pole"
Which only shows how small the yastest OF bu
man catastrophes may seem at distance of a
few million miles.
Copyright. 1910. by W. e. Chapman,