There was a long pause, and the stranger knew that one of the Americans was making dumb-show signals of warning. They were nodding at him, he felt sure, so he bowed and asked politely:
"No savvy," said the fat man, "no hablo Espagnol."
The stranger shrugged his shoulders, and turned again to the contemplation of the plain below.
"He doesn't speak English," said the fat man, "none of these beggars do."
His friend made no reply, but after a silence of a few minutes he said quietly and in English:
But the stranger was not to be trapped by a simple trick like that, and continued his stolid regard of the landscape; besides he had seen the balloons parked on the outskirts of the town, and knew that intrepid scientists would make the ascent to gather data.
He took another look at the sun. The disc was half-way across its surface, and the west was grey and blue, and the little clouds that flecked the sky were iridescent. Crowds still poured up the hill, and the slope was now covered with people. He had to stand up, and in doing so, he found himself side by side with the fat man.
A strange light was coming to the world; there were triple shadows on the ground, and the stout man shifted uneasily.
"Don't like this, Baggin," he said fretfully, "it's hateful--never did like these wonders of the sky, they make me nervous. It's awful. Look out there, out west behind you. It's black, black--it's like the end of the world!"
"Cut it out!" said his unimaginative companion.
Then of a sudden the black shadow in the west leaped across the sky, and the world went grey-black. Where the sun had been was a hoop of fire, a bubbling, boiling circle of golden light, and the circling horizon was a dado of bright yellow. It was as though the sun had set at its zenith, and the sunset glows were shown, east, west, north, and south.
The stout man covered his face with one hand and clung tightly with the other to Baggin. He was oblivious to everything, save a gripping fear of the unknown that clawed at his heart.
Baggin himself paled, and set his jaw grimly. For the moment he was blind and deaf to the hustling, murmuring crowd about him; he only knew that he stood in the darkness at high noon, and that something was happening which he could not compress within the limits of his understanding.