Chapter III: The Scarlet Pall

The coming of the terror was slow and gradual enough--and as silent as the tomb! With all the magic of the quiet woodland beauty throbbing in my being, I was strolling up the narrow gravel walk toward the peaceful vine-covered cottage, where Sam was sitting in sleepy content. Gazing idly into the measureless infinity of the liquid azure sky, I saw the beginning come, so slowly that I scarcely marked it!

A pale rosy mist seemed suddenly to condense in the sky! A ubiquitous crimson haze was born from nowhere! Even as I stood in open-mouthed amazement--with the sudden chill of alien terror grasping my limbs and tugging at my heart--the hue of the sky ran quickly from the pure deep blue to an intense and awful scarlet! It was deeper than the crimson of sunset--it had a terrible, bloody intensity! It was as if a spray of blood from the arteries of some dying monster had abruptly encrimsoned the sky!

A fearful, blood-red twilight fell swiftly upon the tranquil beauty of the scene before me, painting it with hues of weird and gruesome horror! The once blue sea rolled in like a tide of blood, flashing a million gleams of awful crimson light, as the red sun was reflected on its waves! Familiar objects took on dreadful forms of wild foreboding, in that suddenly ghastly gloom of red!

And that was but the beginning!

The Unknown is always terrible, and if ever the earth was menaced with an unfamiliar threat, it was that scarlet pall. For a moment I was gripped fast by the surprise, and the chilling, alien fear of it. Then my reason reasserted itself, and I hurried on toward the cottage, trying to convince myself that my dread was unfounded.

I knew, of course, that red light penetrated clouds much better than other colors. I knew that the red light of a neon beacon is visible through miles of mist. I knew that the sun looks red on a murky day, because all but the red rays are absorbed by the atmosphere. I had an idea that a cloud had suddenly come between earth and sun, perhaps a haze of meteoric dust. But I failed to reassure myself.

With a glance at the sun, which was gleaming at the zenith like a great red moon, I stepped upon the veranda, still feeling a slight weakness about the knees. Sam had risen to his feet. He stood gazing silently and blankly out to the eastern horizon, where the flaming intensity of the encrimsoned sky met the glancing brilliant beams from the darkened sea. There was no surprise in his expression, and little of fear--merely pain and despair.

"What is it, Sam?" I asked quickly.

He looked around slowly. "I don't know what it is, Mel, but it means the end of the earth! I've known for years that it was coming, but I hoped it wouldn't be so soon."

"You knew that this was coming! And you didn't tell anybody! Not even me!"

"It would have done no good. What would be the benefit to mankind to know that it was doomed to die like rats in a trap? A few more years, and I might have been ready to save the earth. As it is, there's just a chance--a bare chance!"

"But what does it mean? It's uncanny!"

He sat down again, wearily. There were lines of age and care on his lean face that I had never seen before. But even in the dull red light, there was still energy and determination in it.

"I've never told you, Mel, but ever since the radio brought you your dream of the Green Girl, I have been working--building delicate apparatus and exploring the ether. And I found a strange force at work--a force that is battling to control the ether! For fifteen years I have known that it was working _to freeze the earth_!"

"To freeze the earth!"

"It seems so. What it is is a mystery, whose solution has resisted all my efforts. I can hardly conceive a reason for it. But I know that something is at work to cut us off from the sun! You know that light waves of different phases and the same frequency interfere, with mutual extinction--the diffraction grating is based on that fact. And interfering waves have been setting up such a disturbance in the ether about the earth as will ultimately cut off the sun's radiation! The principles of it are a bit abstruse. Even now, of course, the effect is only partially complete. In fact, the red and infra-red rays carry most of the sun's heat."

"Then there's no immediate danger?"

"No man knows at what moment the force may be synchronized. When it is, within a short time the temperature of the earth will fall to absolute zero. And even as it is, life could not go on long under this red pall, for all life depends upon the actinic rays in the ultra-violet spectrum."

"And you have kept a thing like this to yourself for years!"

"It would have done the world no good to know that any day might be its last. I have spared no efforts to find means of averting the catastrophe. And it has been terrible to know. Every day that I have walked among our trees, or listened to the birds, or watched the wonder of the sea, I have known that in a day it might all be frozen death!"

"But you say there is a chance? There's something you can do to save the earth?"

"I've built a machine to broadcast vibrations to interfere with that other force. It will upset it--I hope!--for perhaps a few days. But think, Mel, what it means! Think of the vastness of the power that would be able to cut off the sun! Earth--mankind--would mean nothing to it! It would soon get around my interference! I must save my machine for the last emergency!"