A strange light was coming to the world; there were triple shadows on the ground, and the stout man shifted uneasily.
"Don't like this, Baggin," he said fretfully, "it's hateful—never did like these wonders of the sky, they make me nervous. It's awful. Look out there, out west behind you. It's black, black—it's like the end of the world!"
"Cut it out!" said his unimaginative companion.
Then of a sudden the black shadow in the west leaped across the sky, and the world went grey-black. Where the sun had been was a hoop of fire, a bubbling, boiling circle of golden light, and the circling horizon was a dado of bright yellow. It was as though the sun had set at its zenith, and the sunset glows were shown, east, west, north, and south.
"My God, this is awful!"
The stout man covered his face with one hand and clung tightly with the other to Baggin. He was oblivious to everything, save a gripping fear of the unknown that clawed at his heart.
Baggin himself paled, and set his jaw grimly. For the moment he was blind and deaf to the hustling, murmuring crowd about him; he only knew that he stood in the darkness at high noon, and that something was happening which he could not compress within the limits of his understanding.
Three minutes the eclipse lasted; then, as suddenly as it began, it ended.
A blazing, blinding wave of light flooded the world, and the stars that had studded the sky went out.
"Yes—yes, I know I'm a fool." Grayson's face was bathed in perspiration. "It's—it's my temperament. But never again! It's an experience."