The midland journal., 1917-12-21

Office, leaving the second sea lord and
the secretary staring at each other. He
was at the bottom of the stairway be-
fore they had recovered their self
possession. Then the sea lord snatched
up his telephone.
A curious haze was creeping up from
the Thames, spreading perceptibly
from corner to corner. 1t blotted out
the redness of the evening clouds and
hung overhead like a great, smoky
pail. A newsboy rushed past, shout
| ing. Donald saw the contents of the
f, placard that swung before him. 1t
mentioned series of local explosions
which had been occurring along the
east coast of England.
Donald was trying to locate hotel.
He groped his way from corner to
corner, clinging to the ratings of areas
and pillars of houses.
He had reached some open space,
which he imagined to be Trafalgar
square, but it was impossible to cross.
Carts, carriages, omnibuses, stalled by
the fog, loomed up on every side.
Horses stood snorting invisibly, few
inches away. Drivers struck out with
their whips promiscuously. Men were
shouting, women screaming. Panic
had begun. All knew that this was not
one of those rare black fogs that de-
scend upon London.
Then it was that the news of the
|man-monsters began to filter through
the crowd.
A man announcing himself, through
a megaphone, to be the police commits
sioner, ordered all to remain still until
star bombs could be set off. Nobody
needed him, and his efforts to stay the
panic were unavailing. The mob had
begun to flow in one direction, sweep
ing all before 1t.
Donald had been swept along with
1T, and then left, stranded and jammed
by the human torrent, into a small re-
cess. In front of him he felt parapet.
He tore himself away and was lost
in the crowd. Donald hoisted himself
to the parapet, scrambled to the outer
coping, and clung there. The shrieking
mob rushed past and never touched
him. Then there came the sound of
mighty explosion, long volume of re-
sounding thunder. It went rolling
down the river like the discharge of
thousand cannon.
And then, as a flood from hose
pipe, burst of water from the skies
deluged the city. 1t boiled through the
air with kissing lashes, as if the por-
tails of the armament were broken
open. The grinning face of the moon
broke through the smoky pail. Sud
denly the stars appeared. And 1t was
calm, clear weather.
A roar of relief seemed to go up
from the throats of the multitude. And
very slowly the traffic began to resume
it's course again.
What had happened, as scientists
afterward surmised, was this: The hy-
drogen, increasing until it attained a
certain chemical relationship to the
oxygen of the atmosphere, had explod-
ed where it was densest, on contact
with fire, as in a laboratory. But the
explosion instantly generated water
as the two gases met. Hence followed
the deluge.
But as yet the government was only
dimly beginning to understand that
this was some unknown natural force
and not contrivance of the enemy.
They did not know until Donald pre-
sented himself in the office of the Sec
ond sea lord at nine o'clock.
The second sea lord grasped him by
the hands.
''There isn't time to say more than
that / apologize" he said. ''The gov
ernment has been searching for you