Gray, rayless faces. Below in the water⁠—tense blue veins. Heavy, cast-iron patches of sky. It was so difficult to lift my cast-iron hand and take up the receiver of the commander’s telephone!⁠ ⁠… “Up! Forty-five degrees!”

A heavy explosion⁠—a jerk⁠—a rabid greenish-white mountain of water aft⁠—the deck beneath my feet began to move, soft as rubber; and everything below, the whole life, forever.⁠ ⁠… For a second, falling deeper and deeper into a sort of funnel, becoming more and more compressed⁠—the icy-blue relief-map of the City, the round bubbles of cupolas, the lonely leaden finger of the Accumulating Tower.⁠ ⁠… Then instantaneously a cotton curtain of cloud.⁠ ⁠… We pierced it, and there was the sun and the blue sky! Seconds, minutes, miles⁠—the blue was hardening, fast filling with darkness; like drops of cold silver sweat appeared the stars.⁠ ⁠…