midday
The sun , pale in the midst of a strange sickly transparence , lighted up this outline of the Apocalypse . Already the cloudy bank had blotted out one half the space of the sky : shelving like the fearful talus of the abyss . It was the uprising of a dark mountain between earth and heaven . It was night falling suddenly upon midday . There was a heat in the air as from an oven door , coming from that mysterious mass on mass . The sky , which from blue had become white , was now turning from white to a slatey grey . The sea beneath was leaden-hued and dull .