Strange Things

: WILD ENGLAND

The thought struck Felix that perhaps he might find a spring somewhere

in the island, and he started at once up over the hill. At the top he

paused. The sun had not sunk, but had disappeared as a disk. In its

place was a billow of blood, for so it looked, a vast up-heaved billow

of glowing blood surging on the horizon. Over it flickered a tint of

palest blue, like that seen in fire. The black waters reflected the

glow,
and the yellow vapour around was suffused with it. Though

momentarily startled, Felix did not much heed these appearances; he was

still dazed and heavy from his sleep.



He went on, looking for a spring, sometimes walking on firm ground,

sometimes sinking to the ankle in a friable soil like black sand. The

ground looked, indeed, as if it had been burnt, but there were no

charred stumps of timber such as he had seen on the sites of forest

fires. The extreme dreariness seemed to oppress his spirits, and he went

on and on in a heavy waking dream. Descending into a plain, he lost

sight of the flaming sunset and the black waters. In the level plain the

desolation was yet more marked; there was not a grass-blade or plant;

the surface was hard, black, and burned, resembling iron, and indeed in

places it resounded to his feet, though he supposed that was the echo

from hollow passages beneath.



Several times he shook himself, straightened himself up, and endeavoured

to throw off the sense of drowsy weight which increased upon him. He

could not do so; he walked with bent back, and crept, as it were, over

the iron land which radiated heat. A shimmer like that of water appeared

in front; he quickened his pace, but could not get to it, and realized

presently that it was a mirage which receded as he advanced. There was

no pleasant summer twilight; the sunset was succeeded by an indefinite

gloom, and while this shadow hung overhead the yellow vapour around was

faintly radiant. Felix suddenly stopped, having stepped, as he thought,

on a skeleton.



Another glance, however, showed that it was merely the impression of

one, the actual bones had long since disappeared. The ribs, the skull,

and limbs were drawn on the black ground in white lines as if it had

been done with a broad piece of chalk. Close by he found three or four

more, intertangled and superimposed as if the unhappy beings had fallen

partly across each other, and in that position had mouldered away

leaving nothing but their outline. From among a variety of objects that

were scattered about Felix picked up something that shone; it was a

diamond bracelet of one large stone, and a small square of blue china

tile with a curious heraldic animal drawn on it. Evidently these had

belonged to one or other of the party who had perished.



Though startled at the first sight, it was curious that Felix felt so

little horror; the idea did not occur to him that he was in danger as

these had been. Inhaling the gaseous emanations from the soil and

contained in the yellow vapour, he had become narcotized, and moved as

if under the influence of opium, while wide awake, and capable of

rational conduct. His senses were deadened, and did not carry the usual

vivid impression to the mind; he saw things as if they were afar off.

Accidentally looking back, he found that his footmarks, as far as he

could see, shone with a phosphoric light like that of "touchwood" in the

dark. Near at hand they did not shine; the appearance did not come till

some few minutes had elapsed. His track was visible behind till the

vapour hid it. As the evening drew on the vapour became more luminous,

and somewhat resembled an aurora.



Still anxious for water, he proceeded as straight ahead as he could, and

shortly became conscious of an indefinite cloud which kept pace with him

on either side. When he turned to look at either of the clouds, the one

looked at disappeared. It was not condensed enough to be visible to

direct vision, yet he was aware of it from the corner of his eye.

Shapeless and threatening, the gloomy thickness of the air floated

beside him like the vague monster of a dream. Sometimes he fancied that

he saw an arm or a limb among the folds of the cloud, or an approach to

a face; the instant he looked it vanished. Marching at each hand these

vapours bore him horrible company.



His brain became unsteady, and flickering things moved about him; yet,

though alarmed, he was not afraid; his senses were not acute enough for

fear. The heat increased; his hands were intolerably hot as if he had

been in a fever, he panted; but did not perspire. A dry heat like an

oven burned his blood in his veins. His head felt enlarged, and his eyes

seemed alight; he could see these two globes of phosphoric light under

his brows. They seemed to stand out so that he could see them. He

thought his path straight, it was really curved; nor did he know that he

staggered as he walked.



Presently a white object appeared ahead; and on coming to it, he found

it was a wall, white as snow, with some kind of crystal. He touched it,

when the wall fell immediately, with a crushing sound as if pulverised,

and disappeared in a vast cavern at his feet. Beyond this chasm he came

to more walls like those of houses, such as would be left if the roofs

fell in. He carefully avoided touching them, for they seemed as brittle

as glass, and merely a white powder having no consistency at all. As he

advanced these remnants of buildings increased in number, so that he had

to wind in and out round them. In some places the crystallized wall had

fallen of itself, and he could see down into the cavern; for the house

had either been built partly underground, or, which was more probable,

the ground had risen. Whether the walls had been of bricks or stone or

other material he could not tell; they were now like salt.



Soon wearying of winding round these walls, Felix returned and retraced

his steps till he was outside the place, and then went on towards the

left. Not long after, as he still walked in a dream and without feeling

his feet, he descended a slight slope and found the ground change in

colour from black to a dull red. In his dazed state he had taken several

steps into this red before he noticed that it was liquid, unctuous and

slimy, like a thick oil. It deepened rapidly and was already over his

shoes; he returned to the black shore and stood looking out over the

water, if such it could be called.



The luminous yellow vapour had now risen a height of ten or fifteen

feet, and formed a roof both over the land and over the red water, under

which it was possible to see for a great distance. The surface of the

red oil or viscid liquid was perfectly smooth, and, indeed, it did not

seem as if any wind could rouse a wave on it, much less that a swell

should be left after the gale had gone down. Disappointed in his search

for water to drink, Felix mechanically turned to go back.



He followed his luminous footmarks, which he could see a long way before

him. His trail curved so much that he made many short cuts across the

winding line he had left. His weariness was now so intense that all

feeling had departed. His feet, his limbs, his arms, and hands were

numbed. The subtle poison of the emanations from the earth had begun to

deaden his nerves. It seemed a full hour or more to him till he reached

the spot where the skeletons were drawn in white upon the ground.



He passed a few yards to one side of them, and stumbled over a heap of

something which he did not observe, as it was black like the level

ground. It emitted a metallic sound, and looking he saw that he had

kicked his foot against a great heap of money. The coins were black as

ink; he picked up a handful and went on. Hitherto Felix had accepted all

that he saw as something so strange as to be unaccountable. During his

advance into this region in the canoe he had in fact become slowly

stupefied by the poisonous vapour he had inhaled. His mind was partly in

abeyance; it acted, but only after some time had elapsed. He now at last

began to realize his position; the finding of the heap of blackened

money touched a chord of memory. These skeletons were the miserable

relics of men who had ventured, in search of ancient treasures, into the

deadly marshes over the site of the mightiest city of former days. The

deserted and utterly extinct city of London was under his feet.



He had penetrated into the midst of that dreadful place, of which he had

heard many a tradition: how the earth was poison, the water poison, the

air poison, the very light of heaven, falling through such an

atmosphere, poison. There were said to be places where the earth was on

fire and belched forth sulphurous fumes, supposed to be from the

combustion of the enormous stores of strange and unknown chemicals

collected by the wonderful people of those times. Upon the surface of

the water there was a greenish-yellow oil, to touch which was death to

any creature; it was the very essence of corruption. Sometimes it

floated before the wind, and fragments became attached to reeds or flags

far from the place itself. If a moorhen or duck chanced to rub the reed,

and but one drop stuck to its feathers, it forthwith died. Of the red

water he had not heard, nor of the black, into which he had unwittingly

sailed.



Ghastly beings haunted the site of so many crimes, shapeless monsters,

hovering by night, and weaving a fearful dance. Frequently they caught

fire, as it seemed, and burned as they flew or floated in the air.

Remembering these stories, which in part, at least, now seemed to be

true, Felix glanced aside, where the cloud still kept pace with him, and

involuntarily put his hands to his ears lest the darkness of the air

should whisper some horror of old times. The earth on which he walked,

the black earth, leaving phosphoric footmarks behind him, was composed

of the mouldered bodies of millions of men who had passed away in the

centuries during which the city existed. He shuddered as he moved; he

hastened, yet could not go fast, his numbed limbs would not permit him.



He dreaded lest he should fall and sleep, and wake no more, like the

searchers after treasure; treasure which they had found only to lose for

ever. He looked around, supposing that he might see the gleaming head

and shoulders of the half-buried giant, of which he recollected he had

been told. The giant was punished for some crime by being buried to the

chest in the earth; fire incessantly consumed his head and played about

it, yet it was not destroyed. The learned thought, if such a thing

really existed, that it must be the upper part of an ancient brazen

statue, kept bright by the action of acid in the atmosphere, and shining

with reflected light. Felix did not see it, and shortly afterwards

surmounted the hill, and looked down upon his canoe. It was on fire!



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