At night, the moon presented, with much greater
truth, a comet-like aspect; a pale, and singularly clear, fast traveling
shape of fire, trailing streaks of cold flame. The stars showed now,
merely as fine hairs of fire against the dark.
Once, I turned from the window, and glanced at Pepper. In the flash of
a day, I saw that he slept, quietly, and I moved once more to
my watching.
The sun was now bursting up from the Eastern horizon, like a stupendous
rocket, seeming to occupy no more than a second or two in hurling from
East to West. I could no longer perceive the passage of clouds across
the sky, which seemed to have darkened somewhat. The brief nights,
appeared to have lost the proper darkness of night; so that the hair-like
fire of the flying stars, showed but dimly. As the speed increased, the
sun began to sway very slowly in the sky, from South to North, and then,
slowly again, from North to South.
So, amid a strange confusion of mind, the hours passed.
All this while had Pepper slept.
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