A brilliant
career! And very swiftly reviewed, for just as I had reached the
theatrical episodes, there was an extraordinary change in the light, and
my thoughts very abruptly shifted from my past misdemeanours.
It had been evening when I dropped from the clouds, but the mist kept the
light very white though rather dim. Now a sudden blackness seemed to rise
up underneath my descending feet, and at the same moment the mist thinned
out till I could see for a space all round below me. This space was green
and almost before I realised what the greenness meant I was sitting in a
field of clover.
II
THE MAN ON THE SHORE
The breeze that had been driving the balloon along high overhead was
evidently an upper current only, for it was almost quite still in that
clover field. What between the falling of evening and the thin mist, my
vision was limited to a radius of about a quarter of a mile or so, but I
can assure you I studied that visible space more intently than I have
ever studied anything in my life. It seemed to be an almost flat country
I had landed in, all cultivated but very bare. I was within fifty yards
or so of a low rough stone wall, and on the further side of that lay a
field of corn. On every other side other fields faded into the evening
and the mist, and that was all there was to be seen.
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