I found
myself, later, wandering, mentally, amid an odd chaos of fragmentary
modern theories and the old Biblical story of the world's ending. Then, for the first time, there flashed across me, the memory that the
sun, with its system of planets, was, and had been, traveling through
space at an incredible speed. Abruptly, the question rose--_Where?_ For
a very great time, I pondered this matter; but, finally, with a certain
sense of the futility of my puzzlings, I let my thoughts wander to other
things. I grew to wondering, how much longer the house would stand. Also, I queried, to myself, whether I should be doomed to stay,
bodiless, upon the earth, through the dark-time that I knew was coming. From these thoughts, I fell again to speculations upon the possible
direction of the sun's journey through space.... And so another great
while passed. Gradually, as time fled, I began to feel the chill of a great winter. Then, I remembered that, with the sun dying, the cold must be,
necessarily, extraordinarily intense. Slowly, slowly, as the aeons
slipped into eternity, the earth sank into a heavier and redder gloom. The dull flame in the firmament took on a deeper tint, very somber
and turbid. Then, at last, it was borne upon me that there was a change. The fiery,
gloomy curtain of flame that hung quaking overhead, and down away into
the Southern sky, began to thin and contract; and, in it, as one sees
the fast vibrations of a jarred harp-string, I saw once more the
sun-stream quivering, giddily, North and South. Slowly, the likeness to a sheet of fire, disappeared, and I saw,
plainly, the slowing beat of the sun-stream. Yet, even then, the speed
of its swing was inconceivably swift. And all the time, the brightness
of the fiery arc grew ever duller. Underneath, the world loomed
dimly--an indistinct, ghostly region. Overhead, the river of flame swayed slower, and even slower; until, at
last, it swung to the North and South in great, ponderous beats, that
lasted through seconds. A long space went by, and now each sway of the
great belt lasted nigh a minute; so that, after a great while, I ceased
to distinguish it as a visible movement; and the streaming fire ran in a
steady river of dull flame, across the deadly-looking sky. An indefinite period passed, and it seemed that the arc of fire became
less sharply defined. It appeared to me to grow more attenuated, and I
thought blackish streaks showed, occasionally. Presently, as I watched,
the smooth onward-flow ceased; and I was able to perceive that there
came a momentary, but regular, darkening of the world. This grew until,
once more, night descended, in short, but periodic, intervals upon the
wearying earth. Longer and longer became the nights, and the days equaled them; so
that, at last, the day and the night grew to the duration of seconds in
length, and the sun showed, once more, like an almost invisible,
coppery-red colored ball, within the glowing mistiness of its flight. Corresponding to the dark lines, showing at times in its trail, there
were now distinctly to be seen on the half-visible sun itself, great,
dark belts. Year after year flashed into the past, and the days and nights spread
into minutes. The sun had ceased to have the appearance of a tail; and
now rose and set--a tremendous globe of a glowing copper-bronze hue; in
parts ringed with blood-red bands; in others, with the dusky ones, that
I have already mentioned. These circles--both red and black--were of
varying thicknesses. For a time, I was at a loss to account for their
presence. Then it occurred to me, that it was scarcely likely that the
sun would cool evenly all over; and that these markings were due,
probably, to differences in temperature of the various areas; the red
representing those parts where the heat was still fervent, and the black
those portions which were already comparatively cool. It struck me, as a peculiar thing, that the sun should cool in evenly
defined rings; until I remembered that, possibly, they were but isolated
patches, to which the enormous rotatory speed of the sun had imparted a
belt-like appearance. The sun, itself, was very much greater than the sun
I had known in the old-world days; and, from this, I argued that it was
considerably nearer. At nights, the moon[6] still showed; but small and remote; and the
light she reflected was so dull and weak that she seemed little more
than the small, dim ghost of the olden moon, that I had known. Gradually, the days and nights lengthened out, until they equaled a
space somewhat less than one of the old-earth hours; the sun rising and
setting like a great, ruddy bronze disk, crossed with ink-black bars. About this time, I found myself, able once more, to see the gardens,
with clearness. For the world had now grown very still, and changeless. Yet, I am not correct in saying, 'gardens'; for there were no
gardens--nothing that I knew or recognized. In place thereof, I looked
out upon a vast plain, stretching away into distance. A little to my
left, there was a low range of hills. Everywhere, there was a uniform,
white covering of snow, in places rising into hummocks and ridges. It was only now, that I recognized how really great had been the
snowfall. In places it was vastly deep, as was witnessed by a great,
upleaping, wave-shaped hill, away to my right; though it is not
impossible, that this was due, in part, to some rise in the surface of
the ground. Strangely enough, the range of low hills to my
left--already mentioned--was not entirely covered with the universal
snow; instead, I could see their bare, dark sides showing in several
places. And everywhere and always there reigned an incredible
death-silence and desolation. The immutable, awful quiet of a
dying world. All this time, the days and nights were lengthening, perceptibly. Already, each day occupied, maybe, some two hours from dawn to dusk. At
night, I had been surprised to find that there were very few stars
overhead, and these small, though of an extraordinary brightness; which
I attributed to the peculiar, but clear, blackness of the nighttime. Away to the North, I could discern a nebulous sort of mistiness; not
unlike, in appearance, a small portion of the Milky Way. It might have
been an extremely remote star-cluster; or--the thought came to me
suddenly--perhaps it was the sidereal universe that I had known, and now
left far behind, forever--a small, dimly glowing mist of stars, far in
the depths of space. Still, the days and nights lengthened, slowly. Each time, the sun rose
duller than it had set. And the dark belts increased in breadth. About this time, there happened a fresh thing. The sun, earth, and sky
were suddenly darkened, and, apparently, blotted out for a brief space. I had a sense, a certain awareness (I could learn little by sight), that
the earth was enduring a very great fall of snow. Then, in an instant,
the veil that had obscured everything, vanished, and I looked out, once
more.