So many millions of new ones had come into view, that she looked in vain
for the familiar constellations. She saw only vast clusters of living
gems of every colour crowding the heavens on every side of her.
She walked slowly round the deck, gazing to right and left and above,
incapable for the moment either of thought or speech, but only of dumb
wonder, mingled with a dim sense of overwhelming awe. Presently she
craned her neck backwards and looked straight up to the zenith. A huge
silver crescent, supporting, as it were, a dim greenish-coloured body in
its arms, stretched overhead across nearly a sixth of the heavens.
Then Redgrave came to her side, took her in his arms, lifted her as if
she had been a little child, and laid her in a long, low deck-chair, so
that she could look at it without inconvenience.
The splendid crescent seemed to be growing visibly bigger, and as she
lay there in a trance of wonder and admiration she saw point after point
of dazzling white light flash out in the dark portions, and then begin
to send out rays as though they were gigantic volcanoes in full
eruption, and were pouring torrents of living fire from their blazing
craters.
"Sunrise on the Moon!" said Redgrave, who had stretched himself on
another chair beside her. "A glorious sight, isn't it? But nothing to
what we shall see to-morrow morning--only there doesn't happen to be any
morning just about here.
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