Page:In the days of the comet.djvu/265

 space, a planetary moment, the faint smudge, the slender whirl of meteor drawing nearer to this planet,--this planet like a ball, like a shaded rounded ball, floating in the void, with its little, nearly impalpable coat of cloud and air, with its dark pools of ocean, its gleaming ridges of land. And as that midge from the void touches it, the transparent gaseous outer shell clouds in an instant green, and then slowly clears again. . ..

Thereafter, for three hours or more--we know the minimum time for the Change was almost exactly three hours because all the clocks and watches kept going--everywhere, no man nor beast nor bird nor any living thing that breathes the air stirred at all but lay still. . ..

Everywhere on earth that day, in the ears of everyone who breathed, there had been the same humming in the air, the same rush of green vapours, the crepitation, the streaming down of shooting-stars. The Hindoo had stayed his morning's work in the fields to stare and marvel and fall, the blue-clothed Chinaman fell head forward athwart his mid-day bowl of rice, the Japanese merchant came out for some chaffering in his office amazed and presently lay there before his door, the evengazers of the Golden Gates were overtaken as they waited for the rising of the great star. This had happened in every city of the world, in every lonely