Clear through the darkened lenses I could see the sun spot, high up on the northern-most limb of the sun.

An unimaginable cyclone of incandescent gases; an unthinkably huge dynamo pouring its floods of electro-magnetism upon all the circling planets; that solar crater which we now know was, when at its maximum, all of one hundred and fifty thousand miles across; the great sun spot of the summer of 1919--the most enormous ever recorded by astronomical science.
Five minutes had gone by.
Common sense whispered to me.

There was no use keeping my eyes fixed to the glasses.

Even if that thought were true--even if that pillar of radiance were a MESSENGER, an earth-hurled bolt flying to the sun through atmosphere and outer space with the speed of light, even if it were this stupendous creation of these Things, still between eight and nine minutes must elapse before it could reach the orb; and as many minutes must go by before the image of whatever its impact might produce upon the sun could pass back over the bridge of light spanning the ninety millions of miles between it and us.
And after all did not that hypothesis belong to the utterly impossible?
Even were it so--what was it that the Metal Monster expected to follow?
This radiant shaft, colossal as it was to us, was infinitesimal compared to the target at which it was aimed.
What possible effect could that spear have upon the solar forces?
And yet--and yet--a gnat's bite can drive an elephant mad.

And Nature's balance is delicate; and what great happenings may follow the slightest disturbance of her infinitely sensitive, her complex, equilibrium?
It might be--it might be-- Eight minutes had passed.
"Take the glasses," I bade Drake.