They could soon all see the glittering specks not only becoming more and more numerous, but also gradually assuming the shape of an extremely slender, but extremely brilliant crescent.

Rapidly more brilliant and more decided in shape the profile gradually grew, till it soon resembled the first faint sketch of the New Moon that we catch of evenings in the western sky, or rather the first glimpse we get of her limb as it slowly moves out of eclipse.

But it was inconceivably brighter than either, and was furthermore strangely relieved by the pitchy blackness both of sky and Moon.

In fact, it soon became so brilliant as to dispel in a moment all doubt as to its particular nature.

No meteor could present such a perfect shape; no volcano, such dazzling splendor.
"The Sun!" cried Barbican.
"The Sun ?" asked M'Nicholl and Ardan in some astonishment.
"Yes, dear friends; it is the Sun himself that you now see; these summits that you behold him gilding are the mountains that lie on the Moon's southern rim.