er deck when something happened which
dwarfed all the other experiences of their marvellous voyage into utter
insignificance.

Above and around them the constellations blazed with a splendour
inconceivable to an observer on Earth, but ahead of them gaped the vast,
black void which sailors call "the Coal Hole," and in which the most
powerful telescopes have only discovered a few faintly luminous bodies.
Suddenly, out of the midst of this infinity of darkness, there blazed a
glare of almost intolerably brilliant radiance. Instantly the forward
end of the _Astronef_ was bathed in light and heat--the light and heat
of a re-created sun, whose elements had been dark and cold for uncounted
ages.

Hundreds of tiny points of light, unknown worlds which had been dark for
myriads of years, twinkled out of the blackness. Then the fierce glare
grew dimmer. A vast mantle of luminous mist spread out with
inconceivable rapidity, and in the midst of this blazed the central
nucleus--the sun which in far-off ages to come would be the giver of
light and heat, of life and beauty to worlds unborn, to planets which
were now only little eddies of atoms whirling in that ocean of nebulous
flame.

For more than an hour the two wanderers from the far-off Earth stood
motionless and silent, gazing on the indescribable splendours of the
fearfully magnificent spectacle before them. Every mundane thought
seemed burnt out of their souls by the glory and the wonder of it. It
was almost as though they were standing in the very presence of God.
Indeed, were they not witnessing the supreme act of Omnipotence, a new
creation? Their peril, a peril such as had never threatened mortals
before, was utterly forgotten. They had even forgotten each other's
presence. For the time being they existed only to look and to wonder.

They were called at length out of their trance by the matter-of-fact
voice of Murgatroyd saying--

"My Lord, she's back to her course. Will I keep the power on full?"

"Eh! What's that?" exclaimed Redgrave, as they both turned quickly
round. "Oh, it's you, Murgatroyd. The power? Yes, keep it on full till I
have taken the bearings."

"Ay, my Lord, very good," replied the engineer.

As he left the deck Redgrave put his arm round Zaidie and drew her
gently towards him and said, "Zaidie, truly you are favoured among
women! You have seen the beginning of a new creation. You will certainly
be saved somehow after that."

"Yes, and you too