Deluge. S. Fowler Wright
the blood of the woman that he had tried to succour. He would wash them before returning. He remembered that there was a stream at a short distance, and crossed the ruined wall and a park-like enclosure beyond to reach it.
While he did this he regained the nervous control that he had almost lost, and decided that it would be cowardly to return without making a further search. He had no doubt that he had left his family in safety. It was not his presence which they would need, but the things which he could find for their food and comfort.
He crossed another field, and came in sight of a farmhouse that was still burning. Avoiding this, he crossed a hollow, beyond which he thought he saw the thatched roof of a cottage. It proved to be no more than a deserted cattle shed which the storm had spared, as though in derision. As he entered it, a hen ran cackling between his feet. He found a nest and several eggs.
Pleased with this booty, he resolved to continue along the higher ground, making a circuit of the hollow which he had crossed, and so return by a somewhat different route, foraging as he went.
It was then that he became aware that he was walking unsteadily. He sat down on the ground, feeling uncertain whether he had done so by compulsion or of his own volition.
A piece of wall, very solidly built, that had withstood the tempest of the previous night, leaned over and fell with a crash of brick and masonry, and a cloud of dust, that spread chokingly around him.
He felt a sensation as when a lift starts suddenly downward. After a time he got up and continued his way. If the ground were still sinking (as it must have been, and as it must have continued to do with a very steady and gradual motion, till it had descended some hundreds of feet below its previous level) he had become so accustomed to the movement that it had ceased to affect him consciously.
It did not give him any premonition of fresh disaster, as would have been the case had the earth quaked violently, or been torn apart. Its storm-beaten surface seemed quiet and peaceful enough, under a smoky pall of sky that was liver-coloured in places and a glowing copper in others. It was solid earth to the view, and unshaken.
Martin made slow progress. It was a larger circuit than he had supposed, and the way through the fields was impeded by hedges which had few gates in the direction he was attempting.
He was conscious of an increasing weariness, natural to the length and nature of the exertions which he had made since the previous night, and of an intermittent giddiness, and a feeling of sickness, which may have had a different cause.
At last he felt compelled to rest, where a fallen fence gave a drier seat than the ground could offer, and some support behind it, and here he remained, only dimly aware of the passing hour, till he noticed that the sun was near its setting, and rose in a belated haste, with the fear that he might not have completed his homeward journey before the light should fail him.
Even then, his concern was not that he should have any difficulty in returning, but only lest the length of his absence should have caused anxiety to Helen. He did not think that he had far to go. Though the familiar landmarks were obliterated or broken, he felt sure that he was not far from the road which he must have crossed a mile or two further west when he set out. Once there, he could find his way in the dark. It was downhill, too, and easy going. After his rest he made a good pace. He was soon descending toward the hollow along which ran the lane to Goring Dene. He could follow that lane....
But the lane to Goring Dene was under thirty feet of water that was rising, foot by foot, on the sloping field that he had crested to gain it.
Martin stopped. There was no way here. He could not easily understand what had happened. A chill of fear was at his heart which he would not heed. What stream, what river, could have risen thus? What flood could have filled it?
He went on along the crest of the field, climbing to a wider view. A sea of turbulent water stretched beneath him, dull red beneath the copper sky. He realised with a shock of horror that the whole city must be under water. He thought—he hoped—that it would not have reached to where he had left those who were dearest to him. But how could he reach them?
On his left, the water stretched to the horizon. It heaved as it advanced in long, rolling curves that did not break, except here and there, where the higher ground was not yet deeply covered.
It may seem strange that it rose so gently. It is not difficult to imagine that there were places where a swirling torrent of ocean poured into the abyss of a sinking continent with a rush that carried it far on across the face of land from which it must ultimately be withdrawn by the law that rules its level—indeed, it was such a torrent that swept the central plain of Europe, and left it sown with salt, empty, and desolate. There may have been places also where the lifting land threw off the weight of waters that it had carried since the dawn of history, with a force that hurried it, a mile-high wave, against an equal wall of advancing water, to break in tumult that men may have beheld, but could not live to tell.
But here the water rose with an amazing quietness, as the land sank, foot by foot, without evidence of either tilt or fracture.
The main rush of the Atlantic was to the mighty hollow that had formed in the Mediterranean basin. But here it brimmed gently to the falling land....
To Martin it bore no aspect of gentleness. He had no assurance—he had no reasonable hope—that it would not continue to rise till the last foot of land had disappeared beneath it, yet with a tenacity of purpose and loyalty of affection which were fundamental he continued to make his difficult way along the edge of the advancing flood in the failing light, seeking for some point at which it would be possible for him to return to the rescue of those whom he had left in this unsuspected peril.
It was in vain. The night fell, and the water was around and beneath him on every side. He could not doubt that they were dead, nor could he hope that there were many hours of life before him.
Till the dawn came, he sat unmoving on a fallen rail and watched the moonlight on the ruffled face of the waters.
He could not doubt that they were dead. Yesterday, such an incident, the deaths of his wife and both his children, would have brought a sense of desolation, of irretrievable loss; he would have felt as though the world had ended.
Now that it appeared that there was indeed an end to all the world he knew, their deaths did not affect him in the same way. They did not afflict him with a sense of separation. Only, he regretted bitterly, that he had not been with them: that he should have seemed to have deserted them at such a moment.
But he had no wish to live, as he had no expectation. His world was gone in the night. He was left there for the moment, by the caprice of fortune, till the next tremor of land or rise of tide should sweep him to the common fate of his race.
So he sat, neither desirous of sleep, nor aware either of cold or hunger. Awed, rather than miserable: even elated by the greatness of the events around him.
He saw and watched the moon on the water.
So the dawn found him. It came, a faint widening of gold, in a sky that the night-wind, which had blown steadily from the north-west, had cleared of the polluting dust of yesterday. The pale gold flushed rose-pink over half the sky, and was reflected upon the waters.
He watched the dawn advance, august and passionless, indifferent to the triviality of human destiny; indifferent and serene, though there should be no man living to observe its beauty, and, as he looked, he knew that life would continue.
Realising this, he felt sorrow, as the night had been powerless to bring it. He knew that it must even be possible that his own life would continue, and realising this, he felt fear.
He became conscious of pain and hunger. He rose stiffly, and was aware that he was very cold.
He felt the warm rays of the level sun, and an impulse of satisfaction, if not of pleasure, moved beneath the desolation of his mind.
He looked round, and resignation left him; he was a human atom once again; a private in the losing battle with death which is the common destiny of his race. The water was around him on every side. It swept in a strong current but twenty feet