“The star was followed night after night with constantly increasing concern.“
While this discussion was going on, the terrible object which was darting toward our sun remained for some time invisible in every telescope but the great one of the Himalayas. In a few weeks, however, growing brighter as it came nearer the sun, it could be seen in smaller and smaller telescopes, and at last was clearly made out by every watcher of the heavens. Two months before its occurrence the time of the catastrophe was predicted to a minute by the Himalayan astronomers. It would be in the afternoon of December 12th, after the sun had set in Europe, and while it was still shining on all but the northeastern portion of the American continent and on most of the Pacific Ocean. The sun would have set to regions as far east as Labrador, and would be about an hour high on the middle portions of the Atlantic coast. The star was followed night after night with constantly increasing concern. As each evening approached, men indulged in a vain hope that the black star might prove a phantom–some ghost of the sky which would disappear never again to be seen. But this impression was always dispelled when night came on, and the telescope was pointed. The idea of an illusion vanished entirely when the object became visible to the naked eye, and was seen night after night without any telescope at all.
Every night it was a very little brighter than the night before. Yet there was nothing in the object itself that would excite alarm. Even in the most superstitious age of the world people might never have noticed it, or, if they had, would only have wondered how the star happened to be there when it had not before been seen. Now, however, the very slowness of the increase inflicted a slow torture upon the whole human race, like that experienced by a Chinese prisoner whose shaved head is made to feel the slow dropping of water. What is hardly noticeable at first gets farther and farther beyond the limit of endurance. The slowness with which the light of the star increased only lengthened the torture. Men could scarcely pursue their daily vocations. Notes went to protest on a scale that threatened universal bankruptcy. When December approached it was seen that the fall toward the sun was becoming more rapid, and that the increase in brightness was going on at a greater and still greater rate. Formerly the star had been seen only at night. Now the weird object, constantly growing larger, could be seen in full daylight, like some dragon in the sky.
As December approached the thoughts and sentiments of their remote ancestors, which had been absent for untold ages, were revived in the minds of men. They had long worshipped the invisible, beneficent, and all-pervading Power which informed the universe and breathed into its atoms the breath of life. Now this power became a remorseless Judge, about to punish the men of the present for the sins of ancestors during all time.
December forced its way in, and now the days were counted. Eleven days–ten–to-morrow nine only will elapse before the fate of the world will be decided. It required nerve to face the star; men shut their eyes to it, as if the unseen were nonexistent. Those who dared to point the telescope saw it look as large as the moon to the naked eye. But the mild and serene aspect of our satellite was not there–only a fierce glow, as that of the eye of a beast of prey.
Seven days–six days–five days–fiercer glowed the eye which in waking hours belonged to a being breathing naught but vengeance. Even in sleep men still in imagination saw the eye and felt such terrors as might be inspired by the chase of malignant and pitiless demons of the bottomless pit. They lived over again the lives of their ancestors who had been chased by wild beasts.
Three days–two days–reason began to leave its seat. The insane rushed madly about, but the guardians of the peace heeded them not. In the streets men glared into each other’s eyes, but no word was necessary to express the thought.