midnight
`` I see , '' said Cortlandt , `` that Deepwaters has been as good as his word , and has his ships on the watch to rescue us in case we fail . '' `` Yes , '' replied Bearwarden , `` he is the right sort . When he gave that promise I knew his men would be there . '' They soon perceived that they had reached the void of space , for , though the sun blazed with a splendour they had never before seen , the firmament was intensely black , and the stars shone as at midnight . Here they began to change their course to a curve beginning with a spiral , by charging the Callisto apergetically , and directing the current towards the moon , to act as an aid to the lunar attraction , while still allowing the earth to repel , and their motion gradually became the resultant of the two forces , the change from a straight line being so gradual , however , that for some minutes they scarcely perceived it . The coronal streamers about the sun , such as are visible on earth during a total eclipse , shone with a halo against the ultra-Cimmerian background , bursting forth to a height of twenty or thirty thousand miles above the surface in vast cyclonic storms , producing so rapid a motion that a column of incandescent gas may move ten thousand miles in less than ten minutes . Whether these great streaks were in part electrical phenomena similar to the aurora borealis , or entirely of intensely heated material thrown up by explosions within the sun 's mass , they could not tell even from their point of vantage .