peace, when a burly
blackguard, needlessly obstructing me, said derisively:

"I guess you are working pockets."

"You are a liar!" I retorted hotly.

That is all the provocation that I remember to have given.

SONS OF THE FAIR STAR

When consciousness returned the sun was high in the heavens, yet the light
was dim, and had that indefinable ghastly quality that is observed during
a partial eclipse. The sun itself appeared singularly small, as if it were
at an immensely greater distance than usual. Rising with some difficulty
to my feet, I looked about me. I was in an open space among some trees
growing on the slope of a mountain range whose summit on the one hand was
obscured by a mist of a strange pinkish hue, and on the other rose into
peaks glittering with snow. Skirting the base at a distance of two or
three miles flowed a wide river, and beyond it a nearly level plain
stretched away to the horizon, dotted with villages and farmhouses and
apparently in a high state of cultivation. All was unfamiliar in its every
aspect. The trees were unlike any that I had ever seen or even imagined,
the trunks being mostly square and the foliage consisting of slender
filaments resembling hair, in many instances long enough to reach the
earth. It was of many colors, and I could not perceive that there was any
prevailing one, as green is in the vegetation to which I was accustomed.
As far as I could see there were no grass, no weeds, no flowers; the earth
was covered with a kind of lichen, uniformly blue. Instead of rocks, great
masses of metals protruded here and there, and above me on the mountain
were high cliffs of what seemed to be bronze veined with brass. No animals
were visible, but a few birds as uncommon in appearance as their
surroundings glided through the air or perched upon the rocks. I say
glided, for their motion was not true flight, their wings being mere
membranes extended parallel to their sides, and having no movement
independent of the body. The bird was, so to say, suspended between them
and moved forward by quick strokes of a pair of enormously large webbed
feet, precisely as a duck propels itself in water. All these things
excited in me no surprise, nor even curiosity; they were merely
unfamiliar. That which most interested me was what appeared to be a bridge
several miles away, up the river, and to this I directed my steps,
crossing over from the barren and desolate hills to the populous plain.

For a