United States or Marshall Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It told of a fire that was sweeping along through miles of grass with the rush of an incoming tide, leaping, flinging, dancing as it came, throwing up its columns of smoke, spark-laden and dense; sweeping in long lines of flame, reaching out like endless feelers from the great red demon behind; stretching out in thin streaks of glowing red, flameless till a dozen had spread in a network, laced and interlaced, in the dull buff hue of the grass, and a breath came out from the smoke and fanned them all to a blaze, and the flames sprang up with a roar, and leaping, rushed like a charging host when battle-cries rend the air, devouring everything, destroying everything, in the maddened swirl of heat.
In the middle of the rock wall by the corridor a semicircular funnel had been carved out to serve as a fireplace, and at its base a flameless fire of beautiful, crumbling red brands was glowing. This hearth cut in the living rock was very wonderful and beautiful. Suddenly a trench shell landed right on the roof of the abri, shaking little fragments of stone down into the fire on the hearth.
The flameless tapers stand where we have left them, and beside them lies the half-read book that we had been studying, or the wired flower that we had worn at the ball, or the letter that we had been afraid to read, or that we had read too often. Nothing seems to us changed. Out of the unreal shadows of the night comes back the real life that we had known.
Shortly before this the air-ship had stationed itself about a thousand feet above the water, and a mile from the fortifications. From this position it commenced a brief, rapid cannonade from its smokeless and flameless guns, the effects of which on the fortress are said to have been indescribably awful.
Then he put charcoal into the oven, kindled it, and blew it laboriously with his mouth until it became red-hot. This flameless fire did not tend much to enlighten surrounding objects; it merely added to them a lurid tinge of red. The operator's face, being close in front of the fire as he blew, seemed almost as hot as the glowing coals.
When the chief opened the door of the cottage, there was no one to be seen within. The fire was burning hot and flameless; a three-footed pot stood half in it; other sign of presence they saw none. As Alister stooped searching for some implement to serve their need, in shot a black cat, jumped over his back, and disappeared.
In the face of this power, the fortresses, armies, and fleets of the world were useless and helpless. The destruction of Kronstadt had proved that to demonstration. From a height of several thousand feet, and a distance of nearly seven miles, the unknown air-vessel had practically destroyed, with four shots from her mysterious, smokeless, and flameless guns, the strongest fortress in Europe.
The flameless tapers stand where we had left them, and beside them lies the half-cut book that we had been studying, or the wired flower that we had worn at the ball, or the letter that we had been afraid to read, or that we had read too often. Nothing seems to us changed. Out of the unreal shadows of the night comes back the real life that we had known.
Then, as the crowded craft got under way, a minute later, both men left the car and strolled to the rail to watch the glittering sparkle of the sunlight on the harbor; the teeming commerce of the port; the creeping liners and busy tugs; the towering figure of Liberty, her flameless torch held far aloft in mockery. Suddenly Waldron spoke.
So they stood looking out together. The fire had burned down into a great bed of flameless coals, the kitchen glowed warm and red, throwing out even a patch of ruddy light on the snow-covered yard without.
Word Of The Day