For all at once it seemed to them the sky-line was drawing suddenly nearer; it seemed that the horizon was approaching at high speed.
The dark, untrodden forest mass still stretched away, away, until it vanished against the dim blue of the sky; but now, instead of that meeting-line being forty miles off, it seemed no farther than twenty, and minute by minute it indubitably was rushing toward them with a speed equal to their own.
Stern, puzzled and alarmed at this unusual sight, felt an impulse to slow, to swerve, to test the apparition in some way; but second thought convinced him it must be deception of some sort.
"Some peculiar state of the atmosphere," thought he, "or perhaps we're approaching a high ridge, on the other side of which lie clouds that cut away the farther view. Or else--no, hang it! the world seems to end right there, with no clouds to veil it--nothing, only--what?"
He saw the girl pointing in alarm. She, too, was clearly stirred by the appearance.
What to do? Stern felt indecision for the first time since he had started on this long, adventurous journey. Shut off and descend? Impossible among those forests. Swing about and return? Not to be thought of. Keep on and meet perils perhaps undreamed of? Yes--at all hazards he would keep on.
And with a tightening of the jaw he drove the Pauillac onward, ever onward--toward the empty space that yawned ahead.
"End o' the world?" thought he. "All right, the old machine is good for it, and so are we. Here goes!"