Again Perry
shook his head.
"Let us wait and see, David," he replied, "and in the meantime
suppose we do a bit of exploring up and down the coast--we may find
a native who can enlighten us."
As we walked along the beach Perry gazed long and earnestly across
the water. Evidently he was wrestling with a mighty problem.
"David," he said abruptly, "do you perceive anything unusual about
the horizon?"
As I looked I began to appreciate the reason for the strangeness of
the landscape that had haunted me from the first with an illusive
suggestion of the bizarre and unnatural--THERE WAS NO HORIZON!
As far as the eye could reach out the sea continued and upon its
bosom floated tiny islands, those in the distance reduced to mere
specks; but ever beyond them was the sea, until the impression became
quite real that one was LOOKING UP at the most distant point that
the eyes could fathom--the distance was lost in the distance. That
was all--there was no clear-cut horizontal line marking the dip of
the globe below the line of vision.
"A great light is commencing to break on me," continued Perry,
taking out his watch. "I believe that I have partially solved the
riddle. It is now two o'clock. When we emerged from the prospector
the sun was directly above us. Where is it now?"
I glanced up to find the great orb still motionless in the center
of the heaven. And such a sun! I had scarcely noticed it before.
Fully thrice the size of the sun I had known throughout my life,
and apparently so near that the sight of it carried the conviction
that one might almost reach up and touch it.
Pages:
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39