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Bouton, John Bell

"Round the Block"


Still black, still noiseless, still revolving slowly, like a tardy but
certain doom. Then a quarter of the leaden space was filled with their
gigantic bodies, and the lurid air was darker. Then a half of the
heavens was blotted out; She grew faint and sick, as she moved her head
to the right and left, and up and down, and watched the dizzy
revolutions of those vast orbs, between which she knew that she was to
be crushed at last, as by the nether and upper millstones. Her
inarticulate cries to God were unheard. It seemed as if there were no
God for that accursed part of the universe.
Majestically, slowly, silently ever, the orbs increased. Two strips of
the sky could be seen constantly changing positions, but always opposite
to each other. These were the gaps, fast narrowing, which were to be
filled up by the swelling worlds before her destruction was
accomplished. Her long familiarity with the movements of this stupendous
enginery of death enabled her to calculate to a nicety when the crash
would come. She lay like the bound victim under the guillotine, watching
fer the axe to descend.


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