In the Fog | Page 5

diagonal course across
Piccadilly, and tack in toward the railings of Green Park. At the end of
these railings, going east, I would find the Walsingham, and my own
hotel.
"To a sailor the course did not seem difficult, so I bade my friend
goodnight and walked forward until my feet touched the paving. I
continued upon it until I reached the curbing of the sidewalk. A few
steps further, and my hands struck the wall of the barracks. I turned in
the direction from which I had just come, and saw a square of faint
light cut in the yellow fog. I shouted 'All right,' and the voice of my
friend answered, 'Good luck to you.' The light from his open door
disappeared with a bang, and I was left alone in a dripping, yellow
darkness. I have been in the Navy for ten years, but I have never known
such a fog as that of last night, not even among the icebergs of Behring
Sea. There one at least could see the light of the binnacle, but last night
I could not even distinguish the hand by which I guided myself along
the barrack wall. At sea a fog is a natural phenomenon. It is as familiar
as the rainbow which follows a storm, it is as proper that a fog should
spread upon the waters as that steam shall rise from a kettle. But a fog
which springs from the paved streets, that rolls between solid
house-fronts, that forces cabs to move at half speed, that drowns
policemen and extinguishes the electric lights of the music hall, that to
me is incomprehensible. It is as out of place as a tidal wave on
Broadway.
"As I felt my way along the wall, I encountered other men who were
coming from the opposite direction, and each time when we hailed each
other I stepped away from the wall to make room for them to pass. But
the third time I did this, when I reached out my hand, the wall had
disappeared, and the further I moved to find it the further I seemed to
be sinking into space. I had the unpleasant conviction that at any
moment I might step over a precipice. Since I had set out I had heard
no traffic in the street, and now, although I listened some minutes, I
could only distinguish the occasional footfalls of pedestrians. Several
times I called aloud, and once a jocular gentleman answered me, but
only to ask me where I thought he was, and then even he was

swallowed up in the silence. Just above me I could make out a jet of
gas which I guessed came from a street lamp, and I moved over to that,
and, while I tried to recover my bearings, kept my hand on the iron post.
Except for this flicker of gas, no larger than the tip of my finger, I could
distinguish nothing about me. For the rest, the mist hung between me
and the world like a damp and heavy blanket.
"I could hear voices, but I could not tell from whence they came, and
the scrape of a foot moving cautiously, or a muffled cry as some one
stumbled, were the only sounds that reached me.
"I decided that until some one took me in tow I had best remain where I
was, and it must have been for ten minutes that I waited by the lamp,
straining my ears and hailing distant footfalls. In a house near me some
people were dancing to the music of a Hungarian band. I even fancied I
could hear the windows shake to the rhythm of their feet, but I could
not make out from which part of the compass the sounds came. And
sometimes, as the music rose, it seemed close at my hand, and again, to
be floating high in the air above my head. Although I was surrounded
by thousands of householders--13--I was as completely lost as though I
had been set down by night in the Sahara Desert. There seemed to be
no reason in waiting longer for an escort, so I again set out, and at once
bumped against a low iron fence. At first I believed this to be an area
railing, but on following it I found that it stretched for a long distance,
and that it was pierced at regular intervals with gates. I was standing
uncertainly with my hand on one of these when a square of light
suddenly opened in the night, and in it I saw, as you see a picture
thrown by a biograph in a darkened theatre, a young gentleman in
evening dress, and back of him the lights of a hall. I guessed from its
elevation