The Land Of Fire

CHAPTER ONE.

"THE SEA! THE SEA! THE OPEN SEA!"

One of the most interesting of English highways is the old coach road
from London to Portsmouth. Its interest is in part due to the charming
scenery through which it runs, but as much to memories of a bygone time.
One travelling this road at the present day might well deem it lonely,
as there will be met on it only the liveried equipage of some local
magnate, the more unpretentious turn-out of country doctor or parson,
with here and there a lumbering farm waggon, or the farmer himself in
his smart two-wheeled "trap," on the way to a neighbouring market.

How different it was half a century ago, when along this same highway
fifty four-horse stages were "tooled" to and fro from England's
metropolis to her chief seaport town, top-heavy with fares--often a
noisy crowd of jovial Jack tars, just off a cruise and making
Londonward, or with faces set for Portsmouth, once more to breast the
billows and brave the dangers of the deep! Many a naval officer of name
and fame historic, such as the Rodneys, Cochranes, Collingwoods, and
Codringtons,--even Nile's hero himself,--has been whirled along this old
highway.

All that is over now, and long has been. To-day the iron horse, with
its rattling train, carries such travellers by a different route--the
screech of its whistle being just audible to wayfarers on the old road,
as in mockery of their crawling pace. Of its ancient glories there
remain only the splendid causeway, still kept in repair, and the inns
encountered at short distances apart, many of them once grand
hostelries. They, however, are not in repair; instead, altogether out
of it. Their walls are cracked and crumbling to ruins, the ample
courtyards are grass-grown and the stables empty, or occupied only by
half a dozen clumsy cart-horses; while of human kind moving around will
be a lout or two in smock-frocks, where gaudily-dressed postillions,
booted and spurred, with natty ostlers in sleeve-waistcoats,
tight-fitting breeches, and gaiters, once ruled the roast.

Among other ancient landmarks on this now little-used highway is one of
dark and tragic import. Beyond the town of Petersfield, going
southward, the road winds up a long steep ridge of chalk formation--the
"South Downs," which have given their name to the celebrated breed of
sheep. Near the summit is a crater-like depression, several hundred
feet in depth, around whose rim the causeway is carried--a dark and
dismal hole, so weird of aspect as to have earned for it the appellation
of the "Devil's Punch Bowl." Human agency has further contributed to
the appropriateness of the title. By the side of the road, just where
it turns around the upper edge of the hollow, is a monolithic monument,
recording the tragic fate of a sailor who was there murdered and his
dead body flung into the "Bowl." The inscription further states that
justice overtook his murderers, who were hanged on the selfsame spot,
the scene of their crime. The obelisk of stone, with its long record,
occupying the place where stood the gallows-tree.

It is a morning in the month of June; the hour a little after daybreak.
A white fog is over the land of South Hampshire--so white that it might
be taken for snow. The resemblance is increased by the fact of its
being but a layer, so low that the crests of the hills and tree-tops of
copses appear as islets in the ocean, with shores well defined, though
constantly shifting. For, in truth, it is the effect of a mirage, a
phenomenon aught but rare in the region of the South Downs.

The youth who is wending his way up the slope leading to the Devil's
Punch Bowl takes no note of this illusion of nature. But he is not
unobservant of the fog itself; indeed, he seems pleased at having it
around him, as though it afforded concealment from pursuers. Some
evidence of this might be gathered from his now and then casting
suspicious glances rearward, and at intervals stopping to listen.
Neither seeing nor hearing anything, however, he continues up the hill
in a brisk walk, though apparently weary. That he is tired can be told
by his sitting down on a bank by the roadside as soon as he reaches the
summit, evidently to rest himself. What he carries could not be the
cause of his fatigue--only a small bundle done up in a silk
handkerchief. More likely it comes from his tramp along the hard road,
the thick dust over his clothes showing that it had been a long one.