Eight minutes had passed.
“Take the glasses,” I bade Drake. “Look up at the sun spot—the big one.”
“I see it.” He had obeyed me. “What of it?”
Nine minutes.
The shaft, if I were right, had by now touched the sun. What was to follow?
“I don't get you at all,” said Drake, and lowered the glasses.
Ten minutes.
“What's happening? Look at the Cones! Look at the Emperor!” gasped Drake.
I peered down, then almost forgot to count.
The pyramidal flame that had been the mount of Cones was shrunken. The pillar of radiance had not lessened—but the mechanism that was its source had retreated whole yards within the field of its crystal base.