Even as Diggs spoke, far out on the black, heaving horizon, a dull luminosity became suddenly apparent. Brighter it grew, and some stray wisps of cirrus cloud above smoldered in the sky.
"What’s that over there?" asked the reporter. "It looks as if the moon were coming up—only it is up!"
He turned and gazed into the heavens, where the moon was rolling through the clouds like a great golden wheel,
Bennie was lighting his pipe, and Rhoda vouchsafed no reply. Then, on the edge of the distant, watery world, a bead of fire rose and sent toward them a flittering beam. An orange disk thrust itself above the waves—a brilliant, dazzling shield of gold marked with strange wrinkles like a corrugated orange.
"Good heavens, what’s that?" exclaimed Diggs. "Am I see-ing double?"
No more—than anybody—else," retorted Bennie puffing. That is our evidence - the proof you were asking for. That is Medusa—the earth’s new satellite—the wandering asteroid that will wander hereafter around the earth."
Two moons?" demanded Diggs.
Yes, Mr. Diggs; you can telephone to New York that here-after you have arranged for two moons—a big one for the grown-ups; a little one, half-size, for the children."
"And not such a bad little moon at that," added Bennie. "Our honeymoon," whispered Rhoda. "Goodnight, Mr. Diggs."
THE END