“You take a glimpse too,” scraped Krag, proffering the glass to Nightspore.

Nightspore turned his back and began to pace up an down.  Krag laughed sardonically, and returned the lens to his pocket.  “Well, Maskull, are you satisfied?”

“Arcturus, then, is a double sun.  And is that third point the planet Tormance?”

“Our future home, Maskull.”

Maskull continued to ponder.  “You inquire if I am satisfied.  I don’t know, Krag.  It’s miraculous, and that’s all I can say about it....  But I’m satisfied of one thing.  There must be very wonderful astronomers at Starkness and if you invite me to your observatory I will surely come.”

“I do invite you.  We set off from there.”

“And you, Nightspore?” demanded Maskull.

“The journey has to be made,” answered his friend in indistinct tones, “though I don’t see what will come of it.”

Krag shot a penetrating glance at him.  “More remarkable adventures than this would need to be arranged before we could excite Nightspore.”

“Yet he is coming.”

“But not con amore.  He is coming merely to bear you company.”

Maskull again sought the heavy, sombre star, gleaming in solitary might, in the south-eastern heavens, and, as he gazed, his heart swelled with grand and painful longings, for which, however, he was unable to account to his own intellect.  He felt that his destiny was in some way bound up with this gigantic, far-distant sun.  But still he did not dare to admit to himself Krag’s seriousness.

He heard his parting remarks in deep abstraction, and only after the lapse of several minutes, when, alone with Nightspore, did he realise that they referred to such mundane matters as travelling routes and times of trains.

“Does Krag travel north with us, Nightspore?  I didn’t catch that.”

“No.  We go on first, and he joins us at Starkness on the evening of the day after tomorrow.”

Maskull remained thoughtful.  “What am I to think of that man?”

“For your information,” replied Nightspore wearily, “I have never known him to lie.”

Chapter 3

STARKNESS

A couple of days later, at two o’clock in the afternoon, Maskull and Nightspore arrived at Starkness Observatory, having covered the seven miles from Haillar Station on foot.  The road, very wild and lonely, ran for the greater part of the way near the edge of rather lofty cliffs, within sight of the North Sea.  The sun shone, but a brisk east wind was blowing and the air was salt and cold.  The dark green waves were flecked with white.  Throughout the walk, they were accompanied by the plaintive, beautiful crying of the gulls.

The observatory presented itself to their eyes as a self-contained little community, without neighbours, and perched on the extreme end of the land.  There were three buildings:  a small, stone-built dwelling house, a low workshop, and, about two hundred yards farther north, a square tower of granite masonry, seventy feet in height.