part of the wonder and necessary to its existence. 'Were it not for my
courage and enterprise,' I cried, 'this phenomenon would have remained a
secret of the Nature that gave birth to it. She yields her treasures to
such only as fear not.'

"I had read in a book of Huyghens, Guinand, Newton, Herschel--the great
high-priests of science who had striven through patient years to read the
hieroglyphics of the heavens. 'The wise imbeciles,' I thought. 'They
toiled and died, and Nature held no mirror up to them. For me, the
poor Camille, she has worked in secret while they grew old and passed
unsatisfied.'

"Brilliant projects of astronomy whirled in my brain. The evening of my
last discovery I remained out on the hills, and entered the cave as it
grew dusk. A feeling of awe surged in me as dark fell over the valley,
and the first stars glistened faintly. I dipped under the fan of water
and took my stand in the hollow behind it. There was no moon, but my
telescope was inclined, as it were, at a generous angle, and a section of
the firmament was open before me. My heart beat fast as I looked through
the lens.

"Shall I tell you what I saw then and many nights after? Rings and
crosses in the heavens of golden mist, spangled, as it seemed, with
jewels; stars as big as cart-wheels, twinkling points no longer, but
round, like great bosses of molten fire; things shadowy, luminous, of
strange colours and stranger forms, that seemed to brush the waters
as they passed, but were in reality vast distances away.

"Sometimes the thrust of wind up the ravine would produce a tremulous
motion in the image at the focus of the mirror; but this was seldom.