cloudswept

Updated: July 13, 2026

For on to my verandah came four soldiers, and it seemed as if the hour of death drew nigh; and as I looked again, first upon the cloudswept sky and upon the cold and steely glitter of the stars, and then again at the soldiers with their guns, I turned giddy, shuddering at the darkness and the loneliness, and with a nameless fear lying at the center of life like a lurking shadow of an unknown, unseen foe.

Edwin John Dingle - Across China on Foot