helmed, as
though, after the death of these little twinkling flames, he could no
longer hope ever to escape from the heavy darkness which was stifling
him or to discover the tremendous secret in pursuit of which he had
darted. What was he doing? Where was he? What did it all mean? What
was the use of making such efforts?

"Forward!" he cried. "At the double! and we don't do any more
thinking. I shall understand presently, when I get there. Until then,
it's a matter of going on and on, like a beast of burden."

He spoke aloud, to shake off his drowsiness. And, as a protest against
a weakness of which he was ashamed, he set off at a run.

It was a quarter past three. In the keener air of the morning he was
conscious of a sense of well-being. Moreover, he noticed that the
obscurity around him was becoming lighter and was gradually lifting
like a mist.

The first glimmer of dawn appeared. The day broke quickly and at last
the new land was visible to Simon's eyes, grey, as he had supposed,
and yellower in places, with streaks of sand and hollows filled with
water in which all sorts of fish were seen struggling or dying, with a
whole galaxy of little islands and irregular shoals, beaches of fine,
close-packed gravel, tracts of sea-weed and gentle undulations, like
those of a rich plain.

And in the midst of it all there was ever a multitude of objects whose
real shape could no longer be distinguished, remnants enlarged and
swollen by the addition of everything that could be encrusted or
fastened on them, or else eaten away, worn out, corroded, or
disintegrated by everything that helps to dissolve or to destroy.

They were flotsam and jetsam of all kinds. Past counting, glistening
with slime, of all types and of all materials, of an age to be
reckoned in months or years, it might be in centuries, they bore
witness to the unbroken procession of thousands and thousands of
wrecks. And, as many as were these remnants of wood and iron, so many
were the human lives engulfed in companies of tens and hundreds.
Youth, health, wealth, hope: each wreck represented the destruction of
all their dreams, of all their realities; and each also recalled the
distress of the living, the mourning of mothers and wives.

And the field of death stretched away indefinitely, an immense, tragic
cemetery, such as the earth had never known, with endless lines of
graves, tombstones and funeral monuments. To the right and left there
was nothing, no