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"We know that Algol, known to the ancients as the 'Demon Star, and several other variable stars, are accompanied by a dark companion, with which they revolve about a common centre, and which periodically obscures part of their light. Now, some of these non-luminaries are nearly as large as our sun, and, of course, many hundred times the size of Jupiter.
There had been considerable shooting in the Servile City; evidently the ex-slaves had to be convinced that they must not pillage or destroy their places of employment. "Evacuate them off-planet," Shatrak said. "As soon as Algol gets here, we'll load the lot of them onto Mizar or Canopus and haul them somewhere. Ghu only knows how they'll live, but...."
And the denizens of this puny ball have come to know that Algol possesses an invisible companion, three and a quarter millions of miles away, and that the twain move in their respective orbits at rates of fifty-five and twenty-six miles per second. They also know that beyond it are great chasms of space, innumerable worlds, and vast star systems.
From irregularities in the movements of Algol it has been judged that there may be also in the same system another dark body, but of it nothing has been definitely ascertained. But all variable stars need not necessarily be due to the light being intercepted by a dark body.
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.
Like all whose passions pilot them, Angelique believed in destiny. Le Gardeur had sipped a few drops of the cup of astrology from the venerable Professor Vallier. Angelique's finger pointed to the star Algol that strange, mutable star that changes from bright to dark with the hours, and which some believe changes men's hearts to stone.
This should give rise either to intermittence in the star's light or else to variability. It was by supposing the existence of a dark companion to Algol that its discoverer, Goodricke of York, in 1783, explained variable stars of this type. It loses three-fifths of its light, and regains it in twelve hours.
Chandler has put forward the hypothesis that there is another invisible body connected with Algol, and situated at a distance from it of about 1,800,000,000 miles, and that around this body, which is far more massive than the others, Algol and its companions revolve in a period of one hundred and thirty years! Dr.
Yet the recognition in Eros of an "Algol asteroid" seems on other grounds inadmissible; nor until the phenomenon is conspicuously renewed as it probably will be at the opposition of 1903 can there be much hope of finding its appropriate rationale. The crowd of orbits disclosed by asteroidal detections invites attentive study.
"Mere Malheur would not tell me the meaning of that star, but bade me, if a saint, to watch and wait; if a sinner, to watch and pray. What means Algol, Le Gardeur?" she half faltered. "Nothing for you, love. A fig for all the stars in the sky! Your bright eyes outshine them all in radiance, and overpower them in influence.
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