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Updated: May 17, 2025
I have stood on Banstead Downs in the blaze of sunlight on a still October morning, and when I saw the smoke-cloud black as night hang over the horizon northwards, I have longed with the yearning of an imprisoned convict to be the meanest of the blessed souls enveloped in it.
The glare of cannon lit the smoke-cloud; mortar shells rose, described their fiery curves, and descended in the trenches, and these were saluted as they rose and fell by the crack of musketry, the roar of artillery, the echoing cheers of the blue and gray people, who never seemed weary of fighting, yelling, and paying their compliments to each other.
Being come to the rock, Sir Richard unslung his water bottle and stopped, was blotted out in sudden smoke-cloud, and, even as the report reached me, I began to run, raving like any madman; and thus, panting out prayers and curses, I came where stood Sir Richard leaning against this rock, one hand clasped to his side, and the fingers of this hand horribly red.
Water meandered over this mud, or carved its soft way in channels; it lay about in puddles, thick and dark as coffee-grounds; it filled abandoned shallow holes to the brim. From this scene rose a blurred hum of sound; rose and as it were remained stationary above it like a smoke-cloud, which no wind comes to drive away.
Sometimes for miles the solitude of the forests and rock-bound shores is unbroken, save by an occasional fisherman's hut or an open patch of green pasture; then suddenly, upon turning a point, a group of red-roofed villas glimmer through the foliage; sail-boats are seen gliding over the water with gay companies of ladies and gentlemen from the city enjoying the fresh breeze that sweeps up from the Gulf; now a hay-boat or a clumsy lugger laden with wood drifts along lazily toward the grand centre of trade; and as we approach nearer to the dim smoke-cloud that hangs over the city, big and little craft gather thicker and thicker before us, till the whole fjord seems alive with masts and sails.
It pounced upon the blinding smoke-cloud and swept it from its path and plunged to the heart of the conflagration with a shriek and roar of cruel delight. One breath, like the breath of a tornado, and its boisterous lungs had sent its mischief broadcast in the flash of an eye.
During this tremendous eruption at the base of the Vesuvian cone, and the fearful earthquakes which accompanied it, the summit was tranquil. The sky was serene, the stars were brilliant, and only over Vesuvius hung a thick, dark smoke-cloud, lighted up into an auroral arch by the glare of a stream of fire more than two miles long, and more than a quarter of a mile broad.
When her bows went down the shining swell broke with a dull roar and rainbows flickered in the spray about her forecastle; then, while the long deck got level, one heard the beat of engines and the grinding of screws. A wake like an angry torrent foamed astern, and in the distance, where the dingy smoke-cloud melted, the crags of Labrador ran in faint, broken line.
From the door came answer, shot for shot, and the car was filled with the stifling odor of burnt powder. A woman screamed hysterically. Then a puff of cool, prairie breeze came in through the shattered window behind Thurston, and the smoke-cloud lifted like a curtain blown upward in the wind.
Shivering, she pressed close to him as the distant black smoke-cloud spread toward the center of the sky. Before sunset, they reached the area of ashes where the ship had stood. Cochrane was sure that if anybody else had been left behind besides themselves, the landing-place was an inevitable rendezvous.
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