CHAPTER IX
"THE GLORY OF THE STARS"
That evening, Jack, the astronomical weather-prophet (as he laughingly called himself) took advantage of the magnificence of the stars, undimmed by the moon, which was still below the horizon, to bring out his big telescope.
Eight bells had gone and the starboard watch were below until midnight. The greater number of them, preferring the fresh night air to that of the stuffy foc's'le, had brought their blankets up on to the foc's'le head. Here they lay about in attitudes peculiar to sailors, and in which only sailors could sleep.
Only one man lay at full length, flat on his back, his pipe between his lips, as he puffed steadily, a vacant look in his open eyes as he rested his brain as well as his body. This was Red Bill. Near him lay the cockney, curled up like a dog and snoring tunefully, his pipe on the deck by his cheek, where it had fallen from his mouth. A sailor always lights his pipe to go to sleep with, and generally falls asleep smoking. A habit which is supposed to be very dangerous to landlubbers, but which, so far as I have heard, never caused an accident at sea.
Paddy sat jammed between two bollards, his chin sunk upon his chest, in a position which looked the reverse of comfortable, and yet he was sleeping peacefully.
Up in the bows reclined Jack, with the cowboy and Curly. These last two were taking turns to peer through the telescope, whilst Jack discoursed upon the wonders of the heavens.
"Now, just you look at that fellow there, Broncho," said the rover, pointing along the cowboy's line of sight. "That's the planet Saturn."
"You don't say!"
"Yes, have you got him? Now, do you see his rings?"
"Which I do for shore. Whatever be them rings, Jack, an' why does this here Saturn trail round with 'em. I notes he's the on'y star with them appendages."
"They're supposed to be rings of gas or vapour. It's been said that our world once had rings like that, and that they burst and all fell upon the earth at once, which produced the flood."
"Say, but that's kinder strange. However scientific sports onravels them mysteries an' rounds up them facts shore has me bogged. Mebbe Providence devastates this here Saturn with floods right now. If them rings is rain-clouds they're bulky a whole lot, an' liable to swamp this Saturn planet if they plays a steady game; an' if I were an inhabitant thar I'd be hittin' quite a gait for the high spots, or pawin' in my war-bags for the price of a birch-bark."
"Of course, you know the signs of the zodiac, Curly," went on the amateur astronomer.
"No, not all. Spout 'em out, Jack, and show 'em to us."
"Why, don't you remember the rhyme:
The Ram, the Bull, the Heavenly Twins,
And next the Crab, the Lion shines;
The Virgin and the Scales,
The Scorpion, Archer, and He-Goat,
The Man that holds the water-pot,
And Fish with glittering tails."
"Whar's the Bull you mentions?" exclaimed the cowpuncher eagerly. "I jest itches to throw a rope over him."
"Well, do you see that V with a big red star?"
"Red star—why, shore, I savvys that V since I were a kiddy."
"That's the head of the Bull, and that rose-red star is Aldebaran, the eye of the Bull. That's a star you'll find useful some day, Curly, when you're captain of a ship and want to take night sights."
"Why ever do they call him 'Aldebaran'?" asked Broncho.
"It's Arabic, meaning 'the follower,' because it follows the Pleiades."
"I know the Pleiades," said Curly, pointing aloft proudly.
"Many a night I saw the Pleiads,
Rising through the mellow shade,
Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies
Tangled in a silver braid,"
quoted Jack.
"The Pleiades," he went on, "were the seven daughters of Atlas, and are in some mysterious way connected with the flood. The ancient Egyptians celebrated a festival in November at the culmination of the Pleiades, which they directly connected with the flood.
"The same thing seems to have occurred amongst the Hindoos, the Persians, the Druids, and in the South Seas. The Japanese Feast of Lanterns is also supposed to commemorate this event, whilst the ancient inhabitants of Mexico had a tradition that the world had been destroyed at the midnight culmination of the Pleiades. This is all mysteriously borne out by the fact that Taurus, the Bull, whom you have just looked at, shows only his head and shoulders; he is supposed to be swimming."
"That's shore interesting as an idee," commented Broncho. "But do you-alls regyard this here flood superstition you recounts as a likely play?"
"It's only a theory, Broncho, with maybe nothing in it."
"Theeries is theeries, an' facts is facts. I meets a gent once way down to Tombstone, who allows he's the bigges' full-blooded wolf in Arizona. He's shore a tough citizen a whole lot, carries a six-gun with the stock full o' notches an' the trigger tied back. Wall, this here Tombstone sport, which his name is P'ison Dick (an' he's shore p'isonous as a t'rantler) cherishes the theery, an' gives it out premiscuous as a hoss-back opinion, that a 45-calibre bullet ain't able to worry him none; if he accoomilates one he allows he assimilates it into his system, an' don't take no more account tharof. That's his theery, an' as mebbe you-alls shrewdly surmises, it bogs down in the dust before facts—an' it's this way; he's been a-loafin' around Tombstone mebbe hard on the hocks of a year, an' the camp's shore full to bustin' with his goin's on; and I ain't wonderin', for there ain't a moon goes by without Tombstone's shy a citizen an' mebbe a greaser or two, all corpses o' this P'ison Dick's layin' out.
"Wall, it's 'bout sundown, one day in the early fall, when a stranger comes lopin' into camp on a played-out pinto pony, which he halts up before the 'Gold Nugget,' old Konkey Bell's saloon, an' proceeds to dismount tharfrom like as if he's some wearied an' bone-tired. I notes this through the door, from where I'm buckin' a faro game, an' likewise takes in a pair o' big black eyes an' a smooth face. 'It's a boy,' I remyarks casual to myself as I coppers my bet, an' the next minit I sees this here black-eyed foreigner up agen the bar, a-swallowin' a drink 'longside o' P'ison Dick. It ain't manners none to take a drink alone that-away, an' is liable to make a gent too conspicuous to be healthy; but seein' he's a stranger and without many rings on his horns, it passes. P'ison Dick scowls, but says nothin'; then poco tiempo tells the bar-keep to set 'em up again.
"The bar-keep slams down a glass before the stranger, who pushes it away some careless, an' allows he's done finished lubricatin'.
"P'ison Dick's eyes kinder narrowed like a snake's.
"'I'm askin' you to hev' a drink, stranger,' he says, colder'n ice in hell.
"You-alls may surmise the rest of us is some taciturn, not to say mute a whole lot, an' some foxy longhorns is already takin' cover.
"The stranger smiles kinder queer at Dick—jest a mouth twist, his eyes lookin' a heap grim; an' he stands thar for mebbe the length of a drink o' whisky, then snaps out in a sorter shaky screech, 'To hell with yer drink!' an' before you can turn a kyard over, he ups an' has the glass bruck on P'ison Dick's crimson beak.
"By this move he has Dick some disgruntled an' gains more time to draw; then, bang! go the gatlin's a'most together, an' Dick's theery cuts adrift from him without strainin' itself none. He's dead meat that sudden, he don't even have time to emit a groan.
"The stranger's hit too, plumb through the lung, an' pretty soon cashes in likewise; but, where the game comes queer is this way. That 'ere black-eyed party whom I allowed was a boy is a woman, an' a mighty pretty one at that, though her sperit peters out 'fore we is able to corral any reasons for the game she plays; an' as I pulls my freight next sun-up I never does accoomilate no knowledge tharof. Anyway, P'ison Dick gets his medicine an' lights out that sudden for the heavenly pastures I reckons the angels, or more likely it's them fork-tailed miscreant collectors, is some surprised to see him bulgin' in an' defilin' the scenery o' their sperit-ranche."
"Well," observed Jack slowly, "astronomy's a science which gives a wide fling to the imagination, and without those theories you despise is liable to lose a great deal of interest. But let's look at Orion, the finest constellation in the heavens. He's the greatest hunter the world has ever known—Nimrod, who, with his dogs, has been placed up in the heavens to hunt the Bull.
"D'you see that reddish star? That's Betelgeuse—Arabic beyt al agoos, 'the old man's house.' Betelgeuse is a sun like our own, but a cooling one, and represents the left shoulder of Orion, Bellatrix, supposed to be a lucky star for women, being the right shoulder. Those three bright stars in a line are the hunter's belt, whilst below is Rigel—Arabic rigl, 'a foot'—being Orion's left foot.
"That big star of a delicate green is Sirius, the blazing dog-star, Orion's great hunting dog."
"So!" drawled Broncho with a slow smile. "Smell-dawg or tree-dawg?"[1]
"Sirius," went on Jack, taking no notice of Broncho's facetiousness, "is the brightest star in the heavens, though not the biggest. Canopus, though only half as bright, is immeasurably bigger; but if it were as near to us as Sirius I expect it would shine in the sky with as great a brilliance as our sun.
"Now, at the least computation, Sirius is fifty billion miles off, or five hundred and thirty-seven thousand times as far from the earth as the sun; and since light diminishes as the square of the distance increases, the sun, if as far off as Sirius, would give us two hundred and eighty-eight thousand million times less light than it does now.
"The character of Sirius' spectrum shows that, surface for surface, its brightness is far greater than the sun's, and as Sirius is some twenty times the size of the sun, Sirius is reckoned to shine some seventy times as bright as the sun. This is putting the calculation at its smallest. Good authorities put Sirius at twice that distance off, and calculate the star's brilliancy as two hundred and eighty-eight times greater than the sun's.[7] Now, when you come to contemplate Canopus——"
"Hold on, son! Hold your horses there!" burst out Broncho, drawing a long breath. "Sirius is a size too large for this child. My brain's dizzy an' wobblin' with them Sirius calc'lations o' yours, an' if you turns your wolf loose on this Canopus star, compared to which you allows Sirius is merely a puny picaninny, you'll shore have me that locoed an' brain-strained, tryin' to size up them measurements o' yours, I'd be liable to dislocate my mental tissues an' stampede away into a lunatic complete."
"Well, you needn't worry; astronomers are beaten by Canopus."
"If you-alls aims to surprise me by that statement, you don't succeed. I bet a stack o' blues them astronomy sharps goes locoed or beds down in their coffins 'fore they has time to round up the tally o' Canopus," declared the cowpuncher.
"He's so far off," continued Jack impressively, "that if they used up all the oughts in the world, they couldn't get his distance down on paper."
"Tell us some more about Sirius," said Curly, his eyes bulging with Jack's stupendous statements.
"Well, there is another queer thing about Sirius. He's got a big companion-star fussing round him, which gives such a dim light it can only be seen by the very biggest of astronomical telescopes. There is no reason why there should not be many invisible as well as visible stars in the firmament. As Bessel said, 'No reason exists for considering luminosity an essential property of stars.'
"Just imagine, then, that it is quite possible that the heavens are not only full of those bright globes we see night after night, but besides them a multitude of dim, ghostlike stars, unseen by us, but there all the same, are pacing along their allotted paths like the rest."
"Are these invisible, unlighted stars allowed by scientists, Jack?" asked Curly, in a subdued voice of awe.
"Hinted at, hinted at," returned the rover carelessly. "But I'll tell you something more wonderful to think of than that—the systems of double, treble, and quadruple suns. Now, our solar system is at the bottom rung of the social ladder in the heavenly world. We just have a plain white sun, which we revolve round with regular seasons and fixed day and night; but take a system that revolves round a double star, and thus has two suns, and say these suns differ in colour,—as is often the case, for every star has a colour of its own—Sirius is a pale green, Aldebaran rose-red, Betelgeuse orange-red, Rigel a blue-white, Capella a pearly white, and so on.
"Suppose, then, one of these suns is red and the other blue. Imagine, if you can, the combinations of colour that ensue, not to mention the variations in day and night and in the seasons.
"At one time both suns will be high in the heavens at once, one shedding rays of red, the other rays of blue; and as they set in different corners of the horizon, two gorgeously coloured sunsets simply overwhelm the sky with beautiful colour-effects.
"At another time, perhaps, one sun will be above the horizon for half the round of the clock, the other taking the other half—no night during that period, simply so many hours of red and so many hours of blue light, and perhaps the sunrise of the one coincides with the sunset of the other. Ye gods! What a prospect! But how much further does a quadruple system carry us—four suns glaring down upon one; no nights at all now (the people in those systems no doubt have reached a stage in the evolution of the body—if, indeed, they have bodies at all—when sleep is no longer required), just days of every hue, of every grade of colour—pale blue days, brilliant red days, gorgeous yellow days, violet days, green days——"
"Good night, Jack," broke in the cowpuncher softly. "I guess I'll quit. You're one too many for me; you have me beat to a stan'still. My head'll burst if I accoomilates any more astronomy. It takes up too much space in my brain-cells an' don' settle down none, but jest rampages 'round stampedin' my intellec's out into the cold, till I wonders, has I a headpiece at all or has it blowed off like a rawcket?"
This broke up the astronomy party, and the three rolled into their blankets; but Curly, when he was turned out at one bell, complained of a dream in which the devil, with a face of variegated colours, had been grinning at him through Saturn's rings, whilst the grim shades of ghost stars pranced before him in all manner of fantastic shapes, headed by the monstrous fiery apparition of Sirius, whose flames, spread out in great tentacles—a twisty, creepy, crawly mass of claw-ended arms—sought to drag the terrified dreamer out of his blankets.