Two on a Tower - Page 36/147

'A comet--that's all, Master Swithin,' repeated Hannah, in a lower voice,

fearing she had done harm in some way.

'Well, tell me, tell me!' cried Swithin. 'Is it Gambart's? Is it

Charles the Fifth's, or Halley's, or Faye's, or whose?' 'Hush!' said she, thinking St. Cleeve slightly delirious again. ''Tis God A'mighty's, of course. I haven't seed en myself, but they say he's

getting bigger every night, and that he'll be the biggest one known for

fifty years when he's full growed. There, you must not talk any more

now, or I'll go away.' Here was an amazing event, little noise as it had made in the happening.

Of all phenomena that he had longed to witness during his short

astronomical career, those appertaining to comets had excited him most.

That the magnificent comet of 1811 would not return again for thirty

centuries had been quite a permanent regret with him. And now, when the

bottomless abyss of death seemed yawning beneath his feet, one of these

much-desired apparitions, as large, apparently, as any of its tribe, had

chosen to show itself.

'O, if I could but live to see that comet through my equatorial!' he

cried.

Compared with comets, variable stars, which he had hitherto made his

study, were, from their remoteness, uninteresting. They were to the

former as the celebrities of Ujiji or Unyamwesi to the celebrities of his

own country. Members of the solar system, these dazzling and perplexing

rangers, the fascination of all astronomers, rendered themselves still

more fascinating by the sinister suspicion attaching to them of being

possibly the ultimate destroyers of the human race. In his physical

prostration St. Cleeve wept bitterly at not being hale and strong enough

to welcome with proper honour the present specimen of these desirable

visitors.

The strenuous wish to live and behold the new phenomenon, supplanting the

utter weariness of existence that he had heretofore experienced, gave him

a new vitality. The crisis passed; there was a turn for the better; and

after that he rapidly mended. The comet had in all probability saved his

life. The limitless and complex wonders of the sky resumed their old

power over his imagination; the possibilities of that unfathomable blue

ocean were endless. Finer feats than ever he would perform were to be

achieved in its investigation. What Lady Constantine had said, that for

one discovery made ten awaited making, was strikingly verified by the

sudden appearance of this splendid marvel.

The windows of St. Cleeve's bedroom faced the west, and nothing would

satisfy him but that his bed should be so pulled round as to give him a

view of the low sky, in which the as yet minute tadpole of fire was

recognizable. The mere sight of it seemed to lend him sufficient

resolution to complete his own cure forthwith. His only fear now was

lest, from some unexpected cause or other, the comet would vanish before

he could get to the observatory on Rings-Hill Speer.