midnight
So , too , barbarism and savagery , already tired of the novelty , went about their nightly business , and , save for a howling dog here and there , the beast world left the star unheeded . And yet , when at last the watchers in the European States saw the star rise , an hour later , it is true , but no larger than it had been the night before , there were still plenty awake to laugh at the master mathematician -- to take the danger as if it had passed . But hereafter the laughter ceased . The star grew -- it grew with a terrible steadiness hour after hour , a little larger each hour , a little nearer the midnight zenith , and brighter and brighter , until it had turned night into a second day . Had it come straight to the earth instead of in a curved path , had it lost no velocity to Jupiter , it must have leapt the intervening gulf in a day ; but as it was , it took five days altogether to come by our planet . The next night it had become a third the size of the moon before it set to English eyes , and the thaw was assured . It rose over America near the size of the moon , but blinding white to look at , and _ hot _ ; and a breath of hot wind blew now with its rising and gathering strength , and in Virginia , and Brazil , and down the St. Lawrence valley , it shone intermittently through a driving reek of thunder-clouds , flickering violet lightning , and hail unprecedented .