Suddenly, as I watched, the lower edge of the star vanished—­cut by a straight, dark line.  A minute—­or a century—­passed, and it dipped lower, until the half of it had disappeared from sight.  Far away out on the great plain, I saw a monstrous shadow blotting it out, and advancing swiftly.  Only a third of the star was visible now.  Then, like a flash, the solution of this extraordinary phenomenon revealed itself to me.  The star was sinking behind the enormous mass of the dead sun.  Or rather, the sun—­obedient to its attraction—­was rising toward it,[12] with the earth following in its trail.  As these thoughts expanded in my mind, the star vanished; being completely hidden by the tremendous bulk of the sun.  Over the earth there fell, once more, the brooding night.

With the darkness, came an intolerable feeling of loneliness and dread.  For the first time, I thought of the Pit, and its inmates.  After that, there rose in my memory the still more terrible Thing, that had haunted the shores of the Sea of Sleep, and lurked in the shadows of this old building.  Where were they?  I wondered—­and shivered with miserable thoughts.  For a time, fear held me, and I prayed, wildly and incoherently, for some ray of light with which to dispel the cold blackness that enveloped the world.

How long I waited, it is impossible to say—­certainly for a very great period.  Then, all at once, I saw a loom of light shine out ahead.  Gradually, it became more distinct.  Suddenly, a ray of vivid green, flashed across the darkness.  At the same moment, I saw a thin line of livid flame, far in the night.  An instant, it seemed, and it had grown into a great clot of fire; beneath which, the world lay bathed in a blaze of emerald green light.  Steadily it grew, until, presently, the whole of the green star had come into sight again.  But now, it could be scarcely called a star; for it had increased to vast proportions, being incomparably greater than the sun had been in the olden time.

“Then, as I stared, I became aware that I could see the edge of the lifeless sun, glowing like a great crescent-moon.  Slowly, its lighted surface, broadened out to me, until half of its diameter was visible; and the star began to drop away on my right.  Time passed, and the earth moved on, slowly traversing the tremendous face of the dead sun.” [13]

Gradually, as the earth traveled forward, the star fell still more to the right; until, at last, it shone on the back of the house, sending a flood of broken rays, in through the skeleton-like walls.  Glancing upward, I saw that much of the ceiling had vanished, enabling me to see that the upper storeys were even more decayed.  The roof had, evidently, gone entirely; and I could see the green effulgence of the Starlight shining in, slantingly.

XIX

THE END OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM

From the abutment, where once had been the windows, through which I had watched that first, fatal dawn, I could see that the sun was hugely greater, than it had been, when first the Star lit the world.  So great was it, that its lower edge seemed almost to touch the far horizon.  Even as I watched, I imagined that it drew closer.  The radiance of green that lit the frozen earth, grew steadily brighter.