And everywhere the world was awake that night, and throughout Christendom sombre murmur hung keen air over the country-side like the belling of bees heather, and this murmurous tumult grew to clangour cities It tolling bells in million belfry towers and steeples, summoning the people to sleep no more, to sin no more, but to gather in their churches and pray And overhead, growing larger and brighter, earth rolled on its way night passed, rose the dazzling star

streets and houses were alight in all the cities, the shipyards glared, and whatever roads led to high country were lit and crowded all night long And in all the seas civilized lands, ships with throbbing engines, and ships with bellying sails, crowded with men and living creatures, were standing out to ocean north For already the warning master mathematician telegraphed all over the world and translated into hundred tongues The new planet and Neptune, locked in fiery embrace, were whirling headlong, ever faster and faster towards the sun Already every second this blazing mass flew hundred miles, and every second its terrific velocity increased As it flew now, indeed, it must pass hundred million of miles, wide earth and scarcely affect it But near its destined path, only slightly perturbed, spun the mighty planet Jupiter moons sweeping splendid round the sun Every moment now the attraction fiery star greatest planets grew stronger result attraction ? Inevitably Jupiter deflected from its orbit into an elliptical path, burning star, swung by his attraction wide sunward rush, would "describe curved path," and perhaps collide with, and certainly pass very close to, our earth "Earthquakes, volcanic outbreaks, cyclones, sea waves, floods, and steady rise in temperature to not what limit"--so prophesied the master mathematician

And overhead, to carry out his words, lonely and cold and livid blazed the star coming doom

To many who stared at it that night until their eyes ached it seemed visibly approaching night, too, the weather changed, frost that had gripped all Central Europe and France and England softened towards thaw

But not imagine, because spoken of people praying night and people going aboard ships and people fleeing towards mountainous country, whole world was already in terror because star As matter of fact, use and wont still ruled the world, and save talk of idle moments splendour night, nine human beings out of ten were still busy at their common occupations In all the cities the shops, save one here and there, opened and closed at their proper hours, the doctor undertaker plied their trades, the workers gathered factories, soldiers drilled, scholars studied, lovers sought one another, thieves lurked and fled, politicians planned their schemes The presses newspapers roared nights, and many priest church and not open his holy building to further what he considered foolish panic The newspapers insisted lesson year 1000--for then, too, people had anticipated the end The star was no star--mere gas--a comet; and were it star it possibly strike the earth no precedent for such thing Common-sense was sturdy everywhere, scornful, jesting, little inclined to persecute the obdurate fearful That night, at seven-fifteen by Greenwich time, the star at its nearest to Jupiter Then the world would see the turn things would take The master mathematician's grim warnings were treated by many as mere elaborate self-advertisement Common-sense at last, little heated by argument, signified its unalterable convictions by going to bed So, too, barbarism and savagery, already tired novelty, went about their nightly business, and, save for howling dog here and there, the beast world left the star unheeded

And yet, when at last the watchers European States saw the star rise, an hour later, true, but no larger than it the night before, there were still plenty awake to laugh master mathematician--to danger it had passed

But hereafter the laughter ceased The star grew--it grew with terrible steadiness hour after hour, little larger each hour, little nearer the midnight zenith, and brighter and brighter, until it had turned night into second day Had it come straight earth instead of in curved path, had it lost no velocity to Jupiter, it leapt the intervening gulf in day; but as , it took five days altogether by our planet The next night it had become third the size moon before it set to English eyes, thaw was assured It rose over America near the size moon, but blinding white to look at, and _hot_; and breath of hot wind blew now with its rising and gathering strength, and in Virginia, and Brazil, and down the St Lawrence valley, it shone intermittently through driving reek of thunder-clouds, flickering violet lightning, and hail unprecedented In Manitoba was thaw and devastating floods And upon all the mountains earth the snow and ice began to melt that night, and all the rivers coming out of high country flowed thick and turbid, and soon--in their upper reaches-- with swirling trees bodies of beasts and men They rose steadily, steadily ghostly brilliance, and came trickling over their banks at last, behind the flying population valleys

And along the coast of Argentina and up the South Atlantic the tides were higher than had ever been memory of man, storms drove the waters in many cases scores of miles inland, drowning whole cities And so great grew the heat during the night rising sun was like the coming of shadow The earthquakes began and grew until all down America Arctic Circle to Cape Horn, hillsides were sliding, fissures were opening, and houses and walls crumbling to destruction The whole side of Cotopaxi slipped out in one vast convulsion, and tumult of lava poured out so high and broad and swift and liquid that in one day it reached the sea

So the star, wan moon in its wake, marched across the Pacific, trailed the thunder-storms like the hem of robe, growing tidal wave that toiled behind it, frothing and eager, poured over island and island and swept them clear of men: until that wave came at last--in blinding light and breath of furnace, swift and terrible it came--a wall of water, fifty feet high, roaring hungrily, long coasts of Asia, and swept inland across the plains of China For space the star, hotter now and larger and brighter sun in its strength, showed with pitiless brilliance the wide and populous country; towns and villages with their pagodas and trees, roads, wide cultivated fields, millions of sleepless people staring in helpless terror incandescent sky; and then, low and growing, came the murmur flood And thus with millions of men that night--a flight nowhither, with limbs heavy with heat and breath fierce and scant, flood like wall swift and white behind And then death

China was lit glowing white, but over Japan and Java and all the islands of Eastern Asia the great star was ball of dull red fire because steam and smoke and ashes the volcanoes were spouting forth to salute its coming Above lava, hot gases and ash, and below the seething floods, whole earth swayed and rumbled earthquake shocks Soon the immemorial snows of Thibet Himalaya were melting and pouring down by ten million deepening converging channels plains of Burmah and Hindostan The tangled summits Indian jungles were aflame in thousand places, and below the hurrying waters around the stems were dark objects that still struggled feebly and reflected the blood-red tongues of fire And in rudderless confusion multitude of fled down the broad river-ways one last hope of men--the open sea

Larger grew the star, and larger, hotter, and brighter with terrible swiftness now The tropical ocean had lost its phosphorescence, whirling steam rose in ghostly wreaths black waves that plunged incessantly, speckled with storm-tossed ships

And then came wonder It seemed who in Europe watched rising star world ceased its rotation In thousand open spaces of down and upland the people who had fled thither floods falling houses and sliding slopes of hill watched rising in vain Hour followed hour through terrible suspense, star rose not Once again men set their eyes old constellations they had counted lost for ever In England hot and clear overhead, though the ground quivered perpetually, but tropics, Sirius and Capella and Aldebaran showed through veil of steam And when at last the great star rose near ten hours late, the sun rose close upon it, and centre white heart was disc of black

Over Asia it star had begun behind the movement sky, and then suddenly, as it hung over India, its light veiled All the plain of India mouth Indus mouths Ganges was shallow waste of shining water that night, out rose temples and palaces, mounds and hills, black with people Every minaret was clustering mass of people, who fell one by one turbid waters, as heat and terror overcame them The whole land seemed a-wailing, and suddenly there swept shadow across that furnace of despair, and breath of cold wind, and gathering of clouds, cooling air Men looking up, near blinded, star, saw that black disc was creeping across the light It moon, coming star earth And even as men cried to God respite, East with strange inexplicable swiftness sprang the sun And then star, sun, and moon rushed together across the heavens

So it presently European watchers star and sun rose close upon , drove headlong for space and then slower, and at last came to rest, star and sun merged into one glare of flame zenith sky The moon no longer eclipsed the star but was lost to sight brilliance sky And though those who were still alive regarded it most part dull stupidity that hunger, fatigue, heat and despair engender, there were still men perceive the meaning signs Star and earth at their nearest, had swung about one another, star had passed Already receding, swifter and swifter, last stage headlong journey downward sun

And then the clouds gathered, blotting out the vision sky, the thunder and lightning wove garment round the world; all over the earth was such downpour of rain as men had never before seen, and where the volcanoes flared red against the cloud canopy there descended torrents of mud Everywhere the waters were pouring off the land, leaving mud-silted ruins, earth littered like storm-worn beach with all that had floated, dead bodies men and brutes, its children For days the water streamed off the land, sweeping away soil and trees and houses way, and piling huge dykes and scooping out Titanic gullies over the country-side Those were the days of darkness that followed the star heat All through them, and for many weeks and months, the earthquakes continued

But the star had passed, and men, hunger-driven and gathering courage only slowly, might creep back ruined cities, buried granaries, and sodden fields Such few ships as had escaped the storms came stunned and shattered and sounding their way cautiously new marks and shoals of once familiar ports And storms subsided men perceived that everywhere the days were hotter than of yore, sun larger, moon, shrunk to third former size, took now fourscore days between its new and new

But new brotherhood that grew presently among men, saving of laws and books and machines, strange change that had come over Iceland and Greenland shores of Baffin's Bay, so sailors coming there presently found them green and gracious, and could scarce believe their eyes, this story tell Nor movement of mankind, now earth was hotter, northward and southward towards the poles earth It concerns itself only coming passing star

The Martian astronomers--for astronomers on Mars, although very different beings from men--were naturally profoundly interested things They saw them from their own standpoint "Considering the mass and temperature missile that was flung through our solar system sun," one wrote, " astonishing what little damage the earth, which it missed so narrowly, has sustained All the familiar continental markings masses seas remain intact, and indeed the only difference shrinkage white discolouration (supposed frozen water) round either pole " Which only shows how small the vastest of human catastrophes may seem at distance of few million miles