Free The Great Fog by H. F. Heard

which was lost in the iridescent mist. When we reached the cliff, we saw a cleft in it. This turned out to be the opening of a very narrow canyon, its walls not more than some six feet apart and going up pretty sheer till along the top one could see a ribbon of pulsing light—the sky, as it appeared in that odd place. Our path, which was smooth sand—the bed of some stream that once had issued through this cleft, I suppose—opened into a small amphitheater—after perhaps five or six loops and bends. The place was small, but up till then it was the most wonderful spot I’d ever seen.
    â€œTalk of the Forty Thieves’ cave in Ali Baba! All the rocks were of different colors; but that’s simply to start with. The amazing thing was that they all seemed to be lit from within. They were partly translucent and were partly glowing with a queer radiance that seemed to flush out from their crystalline structure. Then I realized what, of course, it must be: They were fluorescing. The queer sky above must, for some reason, have been making these queer minerals—just as labradorite and other such do—send back a kind of light-echo, a sort of secondary radiation. But there nearly every rock seemed to have its own flush and pulse of color. You’ve never seen color until you’ve seen stuff like this. And that wasn’t the end of the show which was being put on for me to gape at.
    Out of these glowing rocks with their iridescent bloom and glow, and over them, flowed streams of steaming water in colors, waters like champagne, like burgundy, like chartreuse—purple, gold, amethyst. These cascades formed in fonts and pools; they tumbled over weirs which heaped up foam of every color and tint. The rivulets flowed off musically into culverts and grottoes, in the dusk of which they shone with a glowing phosphorescence.
    â€œThe floor of this domeless cave of wonder was a sand that sparkled like gold and diamond dust. Yet there was nothing harsh or garish about any of this close-packed splendor. The entire area was literally bathed in an opalescent mist. From the waters rose wreaths of steam across which shimmered half-formed rainbows.
    â€œI turned to my guide. All he did was to wave a flipper toward the bubbling terraces; then he turned about, stalked off, and vanished around the first turn of the canyon cleft. My wish and what I took to be his intention chimed. I was out of my clothes and into one of those pools almost before his stiff tail feathers had whisked around the corner of a coral rock. I can’t say I’ve ever bathed before or since. In comparison with that”—he sought for a poetic word in which to cloak his bare and timid emotion—“that laving—why one can only wallow, out here. The quality of that water! It tingled; tiny bubbles pricked your skin; it was like being combed, massaged, relaxed, stimulated, buoyed and plunged, needle-sprayed and warm-packed all at once. I shouted for sheer physical joy, and the strange polished rocks through the rush of the waters, gave back strange harmonics of my call. Out of pure animal spirits I threshed the foaming water and with my hand struck the glass-smooth sides of the pool in which I lay. A huge stalactite rose from the pool’s lip, depending from and seeming to support an absurdly fretted gothic canopy overhead. I hit the smooth shaft with my palm. A beautiful deep note, as of a great bell, sounded through the place.
    â€œI laughed like a child at the lovely joke of it all. Then, through my modest pink curtains of mist, I caught sight of my guide peeping discreetly around the edge of the rose-red cleft behind which he had retired—like an insect concealing itself in the petals of a tropical flower. I felt gayer, more trustful, more adventurous than I’ve felt since I was three and my nurse was giving me my bath.
    â€œâ€˜I’m coming,’ I shouted, quite certain in a way that this was