cals
collected by the wonderful people of those times. Upon the surface of
the water there was a greenish-yellow oil, to touch which was death to
any creature; it was the very essence of corruption. Sometimes it
floated before the wind, and fragments became attached to reeds or flags
far from the place itself. If a moorhen or duck chanced to rub the reed,
and but one drop stuck to its feathers, it forthwith died. Of the red
water he had not heard, nor of the black, into which he had unwittingly
sailed.

Ghastly beings haunted the site of so many crimes, shapeless monsters,
hovering by night, and weaving a fearful dance. Frequently they caught
fire, as it seemed, and burned as they flew or floated in the air.
Remembering these stories, which in part, at least, now seemed to be
true, Felix glanced aside, where the cloud still kept pace with him, and
involuntarily put his hands to his ears lest the darkness of the air
should whisper some horror of old times. The earth on which he walked,
the black earth, leaving phosphoric footmarks behind him, was composed
of the mouldered bodies of millions of men who had passed away in the
centuries during which the city existed. He shuddered as he moved; he
hastened, yet could not go fast, his numbed limbs would not permit him.

He dreaded lest he should fall and sleep, and wake no more, like the
searchers after treasure; treasure which they had found only to lose for
ever. He looked around, supposing that he might see the gleaming head
and shoulders of the half-buried giant, of which he recollected he had
been told. The giant was punished for some crime by being buried to the
chest in the earth; fire incessantly consumed his head and played about
it, yet it was not destroyed. The learned thought, if such a thing
really existed, that it must be the upper part of an ancient brazen
statue, kept bright by the action of acid in the atmosphere, and shining
with reflected light. Felix did not see it, and shortly afterwards
surmounted the hill, and looked down upon his canoe. It was on fire!

CHAPTER XXIV

FIERY VAPOURS

Felix tried to run, but his feet would not rise from the ground; his
limbs were numb as in a nightmare; he could not get there. His body
would not obey his will. In reality he did move, but more slowly than
when he walked. By degrees approaching the canoe his alarm subsided, for
although it burned it was not injured; the canvas of the sail was not
even scorched.