od of time passed, I shall never
know. It seemed to me, waiting there, that eternities came and went,
stealthily; and still I watched. I could see only the glow of the sun's
edge, at times; for now, it had commenced to come and go--lighting up a
while, and again becoming extinguished.

All at once, during one of these periods of life, a sudden flame cut
across the night--a quick glare that lit up the dead earth, shortly;
giving me a glimpse of its flat lonesomeness. The light appeared to come
from the sun--shooting out from somewhere near its center, diagonally. A
moment, I gazed, startled. Then the leaping flame sank, and the gloom
fell again. But now it was not so dark; and the sun was belted by a thin
line of vivid, white light. I stared, intently. Had a volcano broken out
on the sun? Yet, I negatived the thought, as soon as formed. I felt that
the light had been far too intensely white, and large, for such a cause.

Another idea there was, that suggested itself to me. It was, that one
of the inner planets had fallen into the sun--becoming incandescent,
under that impact. This theory appealed to me, as being more plausible,
and accounting more satisfactorily for the extraordinary size and
brilliance of the blaze, that had lit up the dead world, so
unexpectedly.

Full of interest and emotion, I stared, across the darkness, at that
line of white fire, cutting the night. One thing it told to me,
unmistakably: the sun was yet rotating at an enormous speed.[11] Thus, I
knew that the years were still fleeting at an incalculable rate; though
so far as the earth was concerned, life, and light, and time, were
things belonging to a period lost in the long gone ages.

After that one burst of flame, the light had shown, only as an
encircling band of bright fire. Now, however, as I watched, it began
slowly to sink into a ruddy tint, and, later, to a dark, copper-red
color; much as the sun had done. Presently, it sank to a deeper hue;
and, in a still further space of time, it began to fluctuate; having
periods of glowing, and anon, dying. Thus, after a great while, it
disappeared.

Long before this, the smoldering edge of the sun had deadened into
blackness. And so, in that supremely future time, the world, dark and
intensely silent, rode on its gloomy orbit around the ponderous mass of
the dead sun.

My thoughts, at this period, can be scarcely described. At first, they
were chaotic and wanting in coherence. But, later, as