"God, give me Martin," was her last challenge in the strange pale silence that floated around her. Then suddenly, as though she had pushed open a door and gone through, she was back in the world again, a flood of sound was about her ears, and in front of her the red face of Mrs. Smith, her mouth wide open, like the mouth of an eager fish, singing about "the Blood of the Lamb" with unctuous satisfaction ... CHAPTER X THE PROPHET The year 1907 had four more days of life: it crept to its grave through a web and tangle of fog. It was not one of the regular yellow devils who come and eat up London, first this part, and then that, then disgorge a little, choking it all up only to snap at it and swallow it down all bewildered a quarter of an hour after. This was a cobweb fog spun, as it might be, by some malignant central spider hidden darkly in his lair. The vapouring-like filmy threads twisted and twined their way all over London, and for four days and nights the town was a city of ghosts. Buildings loomed dimly behind their masks of silver tissue, streets seemed unsubstantial, pavements had no foundation, streams of water appeared to hang glittering in mid-air, men and horses would suddenly plunge into grey abysses and vanish from sight, church-bells would ring peals high up in air, and there would be, it seemed, no steeple there for them to ring from. As the sun behind the fog rose and set so the mist would catch gold and red and purple into the vapours, strange gleams of brass and silver as though behind its web armies flaunting their colours were marching through the sky; down on the very earth itself horses staggered and stumbled on the thin coating of greasy mud that covered everything; men opened their doors to look out on to the world, and instantly into the passages there floated such strange forms and shadows in misty shape that it seemed as though the rooms were suddenly invaded by a flock of spirits. Sometimes for half an hour the fog lifted and bright blue sky gleamed like a miraculous lake suddenly discovered in the heart of the boundless waste, then vanished again. Suddenly, with a whisk of the immortal broom, the web was torn, the spider slain, the world clear once more--but, in the obscurity and dusk, 1907 had seen his chance and vanished.