the Earth than the fifty miles
supposed to limit our atmosphere. In October, 1844, one of these meteors
had appeared in the sky at an altitude calculated to be at least 320
miles; and in August, 1841, another had vanished when it had reached the
height of 450 miles. A few even of those seen from the Earth must have
been several miles in diameter. The velocity with which some of them
have been calculated to move, from east to west, in a direction contrary
to that of the Earth, is astounding enough to exceed belief--about fifty
miles in a second. Our Earth does not move quite 20 miles in a second,
though it goes a thousand times quicker than the fastest locomotive.

[Illustration: THEY COULD UTTER NO WORD.]

Barbican calculated like lightning that the present object of their
alarm was only about 250 miles distant from them, and could not be
less than a mile and a quarter in diameter. It was coming on at the rate
of more than a mile a second or about 75 miles a minute. It lay right in
the path of the Projectile, and in a very few seconds indeed a terrible
collision was inevitable. The enormous rate at which it grew in size,
showed the terrible velocity at which it was approaching.

You can hardly imagine the situation of our poor travellers at the sight
of this frightful apparition. I shall certainly not attempt to describe
it. In spite of their singular courage, wonderful coolness,
extraordinary fortitude, they were now breathless, motionless, almost
helpless; their muscles were tightened to their utmost tension; their
eyes stared out of their sockets; their faces were petrified with
horror. No wonder. Their Projectile, whose course they were powerless as
children to guide, was making straight for this fiery mass, whose glare
in a few seconds had become more blinding than the open vent of a
reverberating furnace. Their own Projectile was carrying them headlong
into a bottomless abyss of fire!

Still, even in this moment of horror, their presence of mind, or at
least their consciousness, never abandoned them. Barbican had grasped
each of his friends by the hand, and all three tried as well as they
could to watch through half-closed eyelids the white-hot asteroid's
rapid approach. They could utter no word, they could breathe no prayer.
They gave themselves up for lost--in the agony of terror that partially
interrupted the ordinary functions of their brains, this was absolutely
all they could do! Hardly three minutes had