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The river was choked with the dead and dying, and the fire spread swiftly over all, embracing everything in its clutches, until at last it approached the bridge which I was on, and, making desperate efforts, the people managed somehow to get moderately clear. My skin was scorched and blistered with the fearful heat; lumps of iron, stones, arid flaming debris descended continually. On the ground in front of me were injured and helpless people, who were being electrocuted before my eyes, blue sparks flying from their bodies. Over these I jumped and stumbled in my dash for safety; and, as I passed, I could feel the tingling electricity passing through my veins.

And so I rushed blindly on until I was just off the bridge, and then I was struck on the head by a piece of falling debris. I became unconscious, and owe my salvation to the fact that I managed to fall under the shelter of a great doorway of one of the riverside houses.

When I became conscious again, I was in absolute darkness — an inky blackness — and, curiously enough, the first thought which came to my’ mind was, “Is this death?” But I was alive, sure enough; my skin still burned and smarted, and my head was heavy-with pain.

However, stumbling to my feet, I groped around in the darkness, and speedily felt what I guessed to be a beam of steel. I moved, collided with something, and some bricks and stones came rattling down. Then I stumbled over a plank, and in falling (I shudder at the remembrance) I clutched something cold and fleshy — a dead man’s hand. I tried to find the arm, but came into contact with more steel substance, and at last realized that this man was crushed to death and that I was buried alive? Perhaps it is to my credit that I did not go mad; probably it was because I felt too weak. I was famished with hunger and parched with thirst, but I sat down and felt almost resigned, though if I had had a revolver I should undoubtedly have shot myself there and then. By extraordinary fate I had been saved from one death, yet it seemed only to die in a worse fashion, and blank despair filled my heart as I sat in that maddening blackness. After some time I happened to look upwards, and was astonished to find something which seemed to be an irregular patch of blue in the roof of my prison. My reason told me what it was; it was the sky — the glorious sky! The beloved sky! — And the-new day was approaching.

Scrambling and climbing over the debris I succeeded in reaching the roof-hole, and after a tight squeeze I was free!

But what an appalling sight met my gaze! This had been a calamity, indeed. As I scrambled into the sunshine there was still an uncomfortable sense of stifling heat in the air, the ground was hot under foot, and all the miles of charred and blackened ruins were still glimmering and smoking, although there was nothing left that could burn; but there was no sign of the terrible green flame. It had passed. But the bodies! Thousands and thousands, so far as the eye could reach, mangled, shapeless, unrecognizable.

I looked back to the heap of ruins that had become my prison. Mine had been a miraculous escape. The building that had collapsed over me was one of the great ice-storage houses; and the proximity of the ice and the river greatly nullified the heat of the flames, and to this I owe my life.

The rest of the story is well known to the civilized world; everyone knows how the indescribable and as yet unexplained something ran its course of destruction in twenty-four hours, and it was on the morning of the second day when I saw the ruins. On that day the noble Rescue Brigades had already commenced to arrive from the districts of Kingstown, Liverpool, Paris, Berlin, and other places, and I received food and help, and further description is needless.

Meanwhile, the peoples of the world are waiting. Our chief electricians must give us the solution. Many of our great living districts are masses of electricity.

The sword of ancient Damocles is hanging over our heads, and who shall be the next?

WITHIN