Everywhere the sense of a fearful urgency, everywhere the
feeling of a brooding and awful presence that overshadows the heavens with
a cosmic menace. It is as though you are living on the slopes of some vast
volcano whose eruptions may at any moment submerge all this phantasmal life
in a sea of molten lava. And, hark! through the sounds of the roads and the
streets, the chaffering of the market-place, the rush of motor-cars, the
rhythmic tramp of men, there comes a dull, hollow roar, as from the mouth
of a volcano itself.
As you advance the scene changes. The movement becomes more feverish, more
intense. The very breath of the volcano seems to fan your cheek, and the
hollow roar has become near and plangent. It is no longer like the breaking
of great seas on a distant shore: it is like thunder rending the sky above
you. A little further, and another subtle change is observable. On either
hand the land has become solitary and unkempt. All the life of the fields
has vanished and the soldiers are in undisputed possession.
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