Read Off on a Comet! a Journey through Planetary Space Page 7

  CHAPTER IV. A CONVULSION OF NATURE

  Whence came it that at that very moment the horizon underwent so strangeand sudden a modification, that the eye of the most practiced marinercould not distinguish between sea and sky?

  Whence came it that the billows raged and rose to a height hithertounregistered in the records of science?

  Whence came it that the elements united in one deafening crash; that theearth groaned as though the whole framework of the globe were ruptured;that the waters roared from their innermost depths; that the airshrieked with all the fury of a cyclone?

  Whence came it that a radiance, intenser than the effulgence of theNorthern Lights, overspread the firmament, and momentarily dimmed thesplendor of the brightest stars?

  Whence came it that the Mediterranean, one instant emptied of itswaters, was the next flooded with a foaming surge?

  Whence came it that in the space of a few seconds the moon's discreached a magnitude as though it were but a tenth part of its ordinarydistance from the earth?

  Whence came it that a new blazing spheroid, hitherto unknown toastronomy, now appeared suddenly in the firmament, though it were but tolose itself immediately behind masses of accumulated cloud?

  What phenomenon was this that had produced a cataclysm so tremendous ineffect upon earth, sky, and sea?

  Was it possible that a single human being could have survived theconvulsion? and if so, could he explain its mystery?