“It is a burning coal, red and glowing. Its face is like a double crescent, and it is a formidable rival to the sun in size. It comes retrograde with the constellation Orion rising. Its illuminated hair floats over one half of the zenith, and is not quite on a straight line opposite the sun. It pulsates as though it had been agitated by the wind, and is curved like a threatening saber.
“To-day, it will pass through the plane of the earth’s orbit, and when it meets the influence of the new moon, it will be in sore affliction with Venus. In this condition it comes under the influence of Mars. It will then disperse that planet’s cohesive strength and there will be war in the earth’s interior between uncontrolled water and fire.
“All the planets in our system afflict and oppose each other so that the waters of the sea and the winds of heaven will be lashed into furious activity.”
“What means this sudden clangor of bells?” asked Yermah, now fully aroused to the commotion in the courtyard outside.
“It is a solemn convocation to call the affrighted people together to watch and pray, while the sign hangs suspended behind the dying sun,” answered Akaza, hurrying after him. “Many times of late the orb of day has gone to rest in a bed of blood, but to-night the red glow comes from another quarter. The scourge is upon us, Yermah, and the hour of thy trial is at hand.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
YERMAH BECOMES ONE OF THE WHITE STAR BROTHERHOOD
Yermah did not hear him. He had caught a glimpse of the comet hanging low over the Golden Gate—a double crescent of fire joined together. Its tail bent out over Tlamco, and curved downward like a great broad-sword. It throbbed and panted like a living thing, sinister and awful, as Venus twinkled between its two horns, an evening star of horrible aspect.
A tremor, ominous and indefinable, seized the populace, hushed and awed by the dreadful apparition. It was a premonition, followed instantly by a low, rumbling sound, an angry roar of waters, and then the earth shook under them like a leaf in the wind. A mad rush for the streets, an instinctive huddling together, a breathless wait for a second impact!
A heavy, long boom, like a roll of distant artillery, and a wave mountain high, but crested in the center like a spine, rose up between them and the Golden Gate, and, for a moment, shut out from view the grinning, mocking comet.
The ground surged up and down under their feet in simultaneous waves. Trees bent over and touched their tops together, houses rocked and swayed, and all that was breakable in them went down with a crash.