Page:Robert William Cole - The Struggle for Empire; A Story of the Year 2236 (1900).djvu/167

Rh ated; but the grinding, crushing, and splitting still continued. Mountains melted and were converted into incandescent vapour; whole countries were torn off and went bounding against one another, crashing and smashing, until they, too, were vaporized. There was a chaos of rocks, mountains, stones, and dust shaking, clashing, and rebounding. A cloud of vapour hung around and grew until it reached Jupiter, throwing a fierce heat and light all over the planet, and even lighting up the distant earth and Neptune. And so in a moment the two great fleets had been wiped out; not a ship escaped to tell the tale.

The damage done to Jupiter was immense. For hours a perfect tempest of half-melted rocks, jagged hills, and lumps of liquid metal fell on to it, committing frightful havoc. The great cloud of luminous vapour slowly rotated round it, withering the foliage of the trees, drying up the rivers, and scorching the face of