Hour by hour the clouds thickened, obscuring every ray of light, closing the avenues of sight and sound, until, isolated from the outer world by this intangible yet impenetrable barrier, Darrell was alone in a world peopled only with the phantoms of his imagination. Of the lapse of time, of the weary procession of days and nights which followed, he knew nothing. Day and night were to him only an endless repetition of the horrors which thronged his fevered brain.
Again and again he lived over the tragic scene in the sleeping-car, each iteration and reiteration growing in dreadful realism, until it was he himself who grappled in deadly contest with the murderer, and the latter in turn became a monster whose hot breath stifled him, whose malign, demoniacal glance seemed to sear his eyeballs like living fire. Over and over, with failing strength, he waged the unequal contest, striving at last with a legion of hideous forms. Then, as the clouds grew still more dense about him, these shapes grew dim and he found himself, weak and trembling, adrift upon a sea of darkness whose black waves tossed him angrily, with each breath threatening to engulf him in their gloomy depths. Desperately he battled with them, each struggle leaving him weaker than the last, until at length, scarcely breathing, his strength utterly exhausted, he lay watching the towering forms as they swept relentlessly towards him, gathering strength and fury as they came. He saw
the yawning abysses on each side, he heard the roar of the on-coming waves, but was powerless to move hand or foot.
But while he waited in helpless terror the waves on which he tossed to and fro grew calm; then they seemed to divide, and he felt himself going down, down into infinite depths. The sullen roar died away; the darkness was flooded with golden light, and through its ethereal waves he was still floating downward more gently than ever a roseleaf floated to earth on the evening's breath. Through the waves of golden light there came to him a faint, distant murmur of voices, and the words,—
"He is sinking fast!"
He smiled with perfect content, wondering dreamily if it would never end; then consciousness was lost in utter oblivion.
Three weeks had elapsed since Darrell came to The Pines. August had given place to September, but the languorous days brought no cessation of the fearful heat, no cooling rain to the panting earth, no promise of renewed life to the drought-smitten vegetation. The timber on the ranges had been reduced to masses of charred and smouldering embers, among which the low flames still crept and crawled, winding their way up and down the mountains. The pall of smoke overhanging the city grew more and more dense, until there came a morning when, as the sun looked over the distant ranges, the landscape was suffused with a dull red glare which steadily deepened until all objects assumed a blood-red hue. Two or three hours passed, and then a lurid light illumined the strange scene, brightening moment by moment, till earth and sky glowed like a mass of molten copper. The heat seemed
to concentrate upon that part of the earth's surface, the air grew oppressive, and an ominous silence reigned, in which even the birds were hushed and the dumb brutes cowered beside their masters.