THE PEOPLE OF THE COMET
lights, like myriads of fire flies, a shower of infinitesimal fire-points. And I took it to be optical because I had exactly the same feeling in my eyes that I have when I look at the sun. In fact it pained me; so that I shut them.
“When I opened them the fire points were gone. Except the odor, there was not a thing unusual; the moon was lighting the mountain-rim to the eastward; the stars were the same; and below I could see the town lights in the valley. It was almost midnight, and most of the people of our village had retired for the night. I returned to my manuscript. I was alone.
“I had just time to sit down when it happened—like an earthquake, exactly—a sort of muffled roar, then a jerk as if the Universe were putting on the brakes, and a twisting and a grinding. It was so violent that my chair was wrenched sidewise and spinning; and I was thrown to my feet. The table shunted across against the wall; and the books in the shelves shot out over the floor. For a moment I thought that the mountain was breaking to pieces. The peak of an earthquake is the last thing in the expression of helplessness.
"I rushed to the door. It was good to be outside. The air was fresh; and the peculiar snakelike stagnation was gone. It was not my first earthquake, and of course, I was not terrified. Nevertheless it was sweet and fresh in the open air; and as I was a bit overcome I remained outside for a few minutes. Then I started back to my study, intending to go from there to the observatory; when I heard a noise behind me.
“It was a peculiar sound—like some one breathing, at first—then it was like a woman’s voice, dulcet, musical, sad. It was below the parapet where they had leveled off the mountain’s tip when they built the observatory. Then I heard the voice of a man, reassuring and full of solicitude. They were directly below me, and inasmuch as it was nearly midnight T could not, but wonder.
“Then the thought came to me that it might be none of my business. Lovers have a way of climbing mountains; and I have no doubt that there is much more fervor in courtship on a summit than at the bottom; else why these continual climbings? I returned to the study.
“I had just picked up a sheet of my manuseript when the door opened, and some one stepped into the room. There was no knocking. I looked up.
“Two people were standing at the door, a man and a maiden; and I may as well say, right here, that they were the most wonderful and perfect specimens that I have ever seen. The man was not more than twenty-seven years of age; the girl was possible eighteen or nineteen years old. The maiden was leaning on the man; and both were almost naked. At least, it seemed so when I first beheld them, for their dress was totally impossible when compared to the conventional covering of today.
“The man was covered with mantle or tunic of beautiful purple feathers—a down as soft as that that comes from under the breast of the eider duck; his arms were bare, and likewise his legs—a splendid strapping man of almost unearthly strength and beauty—such a being as might come to a poet in the midst of a classic dream; a youth who, but for his eyes, might have stood as a model for our conception of physical perfection.
“It was his eyes that first caught me and made me rise from my chair—for they were a deep glowing mahogany—the most remarkable eyes I had ever looked into, intelligent, fall-souled, superhuman. He must have been six feet two inches high, a man who, even as he stood, would have weighed well over two hundred pounds.
“He was supporting a maiden as beautiful as he, himself, was perfect—a girl of golden hair and nymphlike grace—but full-breasted, like the beauties that the Greeks put upon Olympus. Like the man, she was clothed in feathers, only they were longer and of a deeper hue of purple—a robe that reached from her knees up to the fall swell of her bosom ; but dropped down below the left breast, leaving it bare—a splendid creature of rare exquisite beauty and unhesitating innocence. Though her costume would not have done for a city street, it did not, in her case, seem at all immodest. Her little feet were encased in sandals wrought in silver and gold, and bound about her limbs by thongs of silklike leather.
“Surely no man had over seen such a pair—and upon a mountain! I stepped forward. The maiden looked first at me and then at her companion; her eyes were wonderful—not mahogany but blue—blue as the tropic sea; they were full of light, the indefinable flare of passion and tenderness. There was query in her expression—as if she were beholding something that she could not understand. She clung to her lover, drawing herself behind the protection of his arm, and regarding me as if I were a creature drawn from another world, instead of a dried-up astronomer; and as if the furnishings of the study were each and every one an engine of destruction. Her fear was that of a child, her trust in her companion that of a maiden.
“The man held up his hand, pointing. There was something tragic about his action—something that I could not understand. Surely they were man and maiden! I could see that much; but, I could not understand their motive. I stepped forward.
"I beg pardon—but—excuse me—is there something that you wish—some-hing that I—’
“I stopped, for I saw at once, from the incredulous and puzzled look upon their faces that they did not understand me. Whoever they were, they did not understand English. That was certain. So I tried again in French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and finally in Arabic. From my earliest youth I have made the study of language an avocation; and you know I am almost as good a philologist as I am an astronomer. After I had essayed the same attempt in the sixth language I stopped. They were both, apparently, of Caucasian extraction; and I knew from the expression upon their faces that they had heard me. Certainly they were normal; and not defective. I do not know who was the more puzzled. For a moment we all stood still.
“Now the moon was rising to the eastward—the full moon—and its light was flooding through the window; on the eastern mountains we could see its mellow disk poised like a burnished plate. The man stepped up beside me. He caught me by the shoulder, and again he pointed; this time he spoke, in a voice full of power and magnetism—a splendid, virile voice, surcharged, as it were, with authority and intuitive personality. He pointed to the ground outside.
" 'Roos ?'
“Roos. The word was a strange one; but somehow it had a familiar ring. I had spoken in several languages; and now I was being addressed in a tongue that I could not understand. I had essayed my question in several forms; I had one remaining—Sanscrit—and the word Roos, so far as I knew, was not of the old mother tongue. I could only answer as I pointed to the ground.
“ 'Earth.'
“But the word had no significance; he was more puzzled than ever. For some moments he watched the moon, until the ring of the disk had left the crest of the mountains and had floated up into the star-salted sky. The girl rested in the fold of his arm, waiting. She, too, watched the moon. There was something uncanny in their presence; for they were both of them as beautiful as the gods of old Hellas. They spoke together; and the man pointed at the orb. The girl
