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From The Ramp one could gaze in wonder at that magnificent volcano, White Lady of the Antarctic, beautiful in her glistening gown of sparkling crystal with a stole of filmy smoke-cloud wrapped about her wonderful shoulders. We used to gaze and gaze at that constantly changing smoke or steam which the White Lady breathes out at all seasons, and has done for thousands of years.
The trail freshened in the snow, narrowed and broadened, and near the middle of the forenoon the scattered herd was sighted. The long yell of warning was answered only by a tiny smoke-cloud, hanging low over the creek bed, and before Joel was aware of his presence, Dell rode up to the very bank under which the fire was burning. "How do you like an all-night drift?" shouted Dell.
Many of these were damaged, and some crushed beyond repair, by the rain of logs, stones, and other missiles hurled from the dense smoke-cloud that was slowly drifting to leeward in fleecy folds. Although the blockhouse was violently shaken, it remained standing, and, after a moment of consternation, its garrison rushed out to hasten the flight of their terrified foes.
The daringly original stratagem was made all the easier of achievement by the fact that the Commanders of the French transports, counting upon the assistance of the airships and the enormous strength of the naval force which had been launched against Portsmouth, had taken victory for granted, and when the first line came in sight of land, and officers and men saw the smoke-cloud that was still hanging over what twenty-four hours before had been the greatest of British strongholds, cheer after cheer went up.
We had the whole Pacific Ocean in front of us, with nothing to do but do nothing and be comfortable. The city of Victoria was twinkling dim in the deep heart of her smoke-cloud, and getting ready to vanish and now we closed the field-glasses and sat down on our steamer chairs contented and at peace. But they went to wreck and ruin under us and brought us to shame before all the passengers.
I shall never forget the feeling of dismay with which, an hour later, I perceived from the car window a huge smoke-cloud which embraced the whole eastern horizon, for this, I was told was the soaring banner of the great and gloomy inland metropolis, whose dens of vice and houses of greed had been so often reported to me by wandering hired men.
"The thing is plain to me," gasped Rickerl, pointing to the smoke-cloud eddying above the vineyard "a brigade or two of Frossard's corps have been cut off and hurled back towards Nancy. Their rear-guard is making a stand that's all. Jack, what on earth did you get into such a terrible scrape for?"
They were saved, however, almost miraculously; the sheet of flame passed them twenty yards away, as the wind fortunately shifted at the moment the fire reached the foot of the rock. The darkness was so intense that they did not discover the flame; they only knew that they were saved as the clear sky greeted them from behind the dense smoke-cloud.
Jean himself was carried along, down stairs and passages, out into the prison courtyard, and pitched head foremost against the wall. By the time he recovered from the shock of his fall, the prisoners had vanished, and he stood alone before the open wicket. Outside in the street he heard the crackle of musketry and saw the Seine running grey under the lowering smoke-cloud of burning Paris.
Here and there was an old ruined castle a manor-house rising among its ancestral trees or the faint, misty smoke-cloud, that indicated some hamlet or small town. Save these, the landscape swept on unbroken, until it ended at the horizon in the high range of the D shire hills. Even to Captain Rothesay, this scene seemed strangely beautiful.
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