The Moon now appeared to the travellers as she does to us
towards the beginning of her Second Quarter, that is as a bright
crescent instead of a hemisphere. On one side, glaring dazzling light;
on the other, cavernous pitchy darkness. The line separating both was
broken into a thousand bits of protuberances and concavities, dented,
notched, and jagged.
At six o'clock the travellers found themselves exactly over the north
pole. They were quietly gazing at the rapidly shifting features of the
wondrous view unrolling itself beneath them, and were silently wondering
what was to come next, when, suddenly, the Projectile passed the
dividing line. The Sun and Moon instantly vanished from view. The next
moment, without the slightest warning the travellers found themselves
plunged in an ocean of the most appalling darkness!
CHAPTER XIV.
A NIGHT OF FIFTEEN DAYS.
The Projectile being not quite 30 miles from the Moon's north pole when
the startling phenomenon, recorded in our last chapter, took place, a
few seconds were quite sufficient to launch it at once from the
brightest day into the unknown realms of night. The transition was so
abrupt, so unexpected, without the slightest shading off, from dazzling
effulgence to Cimmerian gloom, that the Moon seemed to have been
suddenly extinguished like a lamp when the gas is turned off.
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