grave through
a web and tangle of fog. It was not one of the regular yellow devils
who come and eat up London, first this part, and then that, then
disgorge a little, choking it all up only to snap at it and swallow it
down all bewildered a quarter of an hour after. This was a cobweb fog
spun, as it might be, by some malignant central spider hidden darkly in
his lair. The vapouring-like filmy threads twisted and twined their way
all over London, and for four days and nights the town was a city of
ghosts. Buildings loomed dimly behind their masks of silver tissue,
streets seemed unsubstantial, pavements had no foundation, streams of
water appeared to hang glittering in mid-air, men and horses would
suddenly plunge into grey abysses and vanish from sight, church-bells
would ring peals high up in air, and there would be, it seemed, no
steeple there for them to ring from. As the sun behind the fog rose and
set so the mist would catch gold and red and purple into the vapours,
strange gleams of brass and silver as though behind its web armies
flaunting their colours were marching through the sky; down on the very
earth itself horses staggered and stumbled on the thin coating of
greasy mud that covered everything; men opened their doors to look out
on to the world, and instantly into the passages there floated such
strange forms and shadows in misty shape that it seemed as though the
rooms were suddenly invaded by a flock of spirits.

Sometimes for half an hour the fog lifted and bright blue sky gleamed
like a miraculous lake suddenly discovered in the heart of the
boundless waste, then vanished again. Suddenly, with a whisk of the
immortal broom, the web was torn, the spider slain, the world clear
once more--but, in the obscurity and dusk, 1907 had seen his chance and
vanished.

Warlock, long before this, had lost consciousness of external sights
and sounds. He could not have told any one when it was that the two
worlds had parted company. For many many years he had been conscious of
both existences, but during his youth and middle-age they had seemed to
mingle and go along together. He had believed in both equally and had
been a citizen of both. Then gradually, as time passed, he had seemed
to have less and less hold upon the actual physical world. He saw it
suddenly with darkened vision; his wife and daughter, and indeed all
human beings, except in so far as they were souls to be saved for the
Lord, became less and less