The alleged fire occurred about a fortnight after
our discovery of the double tunnel. My mind was then full of
suspicions concerning Syx, because I thought that a man who would fool
people with one hand was not likely to deal fairly with the other.
"It was a glorious night, with a full moon, whose face was so clear in
the limpid air that, having found a snug place at the foot of a
yellow-pine-tree, where the ground was carpeted with odoriferous
needles, I lay on my back and renewed my early acquaintance with the
romantically named mountains and 'seas' of the Lunar globe. With my
binocular I could trace those long white streaks which radiate from
the crater ring, called 'Tycho,' and run hundreds of miles in all
directions over the moon. As I gazed at these singular objects I
recalled the various theories which astronomers, puzzled by their
enigmatical aspect, have offered to a more or less confiding public
concerning them.
"In the midst of my meditation and moon gazing I was startled by
hearing the engine in the Syx works suddenly begin to run. Immediately
a queer light, shaped like the beam of a ship's searchlight, but
reddish in color, rose high in the moonlit heavens above the mill.
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