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"Mere Malheur lied!" exclaimed he, placing his arm round her, as if to protect her from the baleful influence. "That cursed star never presided over your birth, Angelique! That is the demon star Algol." Angelique shuddered, and pressed still closer to him, as if in fear.
Pigott had discovered periodical variations of light in the star Algol. He has observed the same in the n of Antinous, and makes the period of variation seven days, four hours, and thirty minutes, the duration of the increase sixty-three hours, and of the decrease thirty-six hours. What are we to conclude from this? That there are suns which have their orbits of revolution too?
In the early morning of February 22, 1901, he perceived that Algol had a neighbour of nearly its own brightness, which a photograph taken by Mr. Stanley Williams, at Brighton, proved to have risen from below the twelfth magnitude within the preceding 28 hours. And it was still swiftly ascending.
It was enclosed to me by the Postmaster-General, who says that it arrived last week in the long-lost mail of the steamship Algol, which you doubtless recollect was lost some time ago, plying between New York and Havre; It now appears that a Dutch sailing vessel bound for Tasmania wherever that may be; somewhere among the cannibals, I presume boarded her after she had been deserted by the crew, and secured the mail bags, intending to put in along the Spanish coast and land them, but stress of weather drove them so far out to sea, that they sailed on to some point in Africa, and as the postmasters in that progressive and enlightened region did not serve their apprenticeship in the United States Postal Bureau, you perceive that your document has not had 'despatch. If salt water is ever a preservative, your news ought not to be stale."
An interesting variable, of the type of Algol, is lambda, which at maximum is of magnitude three and four tenths and at minimum of magnitude four and two tenths. Its period from one maximum to the next is about three days and twenty-three hours, but the actual changes occupy only about ten hours, and it loses light more swiftly than it regains it.
To do this in the time the large dark planet must be very near to Algol; indeed, astronomers have calculated that the surfaces of the two bodies are not more than about two million miles apart, and this is a trifle when we consider that we ourselves are more than forty-six times as far as that from the sun.
Most of them require much longer periods than Algol, and sometimes a new star which nobody has ever seen before will suddenly kindle into brilliancy. It is now known that the bright star Algol is attended by a dark companion. This dark star sometimes comes between Algol and the observer and cuts off the light. Thus it is that the diminution of brightness is produced. Double Stars.
"You have learnt that in Egypt," Priscus interrupted, "for the Egyptians see the river Nile in the constellation Eridanus. I should like to know under which constellation this Lutetia lies!" "It lies under Andromeda, like Rome," answered Maximus, "but Perseus hangs over the Holy Land, so that Algol stands over Jerusalem."
The star is a remarkable variable, belonging to what is called the Algol type. Its period, according to Chandler, is 2 days 7 hours, 51 minutes, 22.8 seconds. The time occupied by the actual changes is about twelve hours. At maximum the star is of magnitude five and at minimum of magnitude 6.2. Its leading star alpha, Arcturus, is the brightest in the northern hemisphere.
The constellations seemed to kindle with new splendors as the student and the story-teller walked homeward in their light; Alioth and Algol looked down on them as on the first pair of lovers they shone over, and the autumn air seemed full of harmonies as when the morning stars sang together.
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