I caught again the dazzling flashing.
But whether Drake HAD seen the spot widen, change--to this day I do not know.
To me it seemed unchanged--and yet--perhaps it was not.

It may be that under that finger of force, that spear of light, that wound in the side of our sun HAD opened further-- That the sun had winced! I do not to this day know.

But whether it had or not--still shone the intolerably brilliant light.

And miracle enough that was for me.
Twenty minutes--subconsciously I had gone on counting--twenty minutes-- About the cratered girdle of the upthrust shields a glimmering mistiness was gathering; a translucent mist, beryl pale and beryl clear.

In a heart-beat it had thickened into a vast and vaporous ring through whose swarms of corpuscles the sun's reflected image upon each disk shone clear--as though seen through clouds of transparent atoms of aquamarine.
Again the filaments of the Keeper moved--feebly.