A third door, more darkness.
But no, not complete darkness. Off to the right was an oblong of pale light.
Toward this they moved with caution.
The oblong of light formed an open doorway. The space beyond that door was more mysterious than anything they had yet seen. There were no lamps anywhere, but pale light was about them everywhere. A vast pale dome, like the sky, hung above them.
“Why! It is the sky!” whispered the girl. “See! There is the moon! And there the stars, pale stars!”
This seemed true. Surely there was the moon, and there the stars; yet Curlie was puzzled. The moon seemed too high, the stars too bright. What could it all mean? His head was in a whirl.
More was yet to come. As they stood there motionless, gazing upward, the entire firmament, the moon, the planets and the stars began to move.
“Oh!” breathed the girl.
They did not move rapidly, this moon, these stars. There was something dignified and terrible about the slow and leisurely manner in which they traversed the great dome above.
For fully three minutes not a sound was uttered. But when the moon vanished beneath the horizon and a million stars shone with added brightness, the girl seized Curlie’s hand to drag him into the outer darkness.