Off on a Comet

<p><SPAN name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"></SPAN></p> <h2> CHAPTER IV. A CONVULSION OF NATURE </h2> <p>Whence came it that at that very moment the horizon underwent so strange and sudden a modification, that the eye of the most practiced mariner could not distinguish between sea and sky?</p> <p>Whence came it that the billows raged and rose to a height hitherto unregistered in the records of science?</p> <p>Whence came it that the elements united in one deafening crash; that the earth groaned as though the whole framework of the globe were ruptured; that the waters roared from their innermost depths; that the air shrieked with all the fury of a cyclone?</p> <p>Whence came it that a radiance, intenser than the effulgence of the Northern Lights, overspread the firmament, and momentarily dimmed the splendor of the brightest stars?</p> <p>Whence came it that the Mediterranean, one instant emptied of its waters, was the next flooded with a foaming surge?</p> <p>Whence came it that in the space of a few seconds the moon's disc reached a magnitude as though it were but a tenth part of its ordinary distance from the earth?</p> <p>Whence came it that a new blazing spheroid, hitherto unknown to astronomy, now appeared suddenly in the firmament, though it were but to lose itself immediately behind masses of accumulated cloud?</p> <p>What phenomenon was this that had produced a cataclysm so tremendous in effect upon earth, sky, and sea?</p> <p>Was it possible that a single human being could have survived the convulsion? and if so, could he explain its mystery?</p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />