Author: Grant Allen / Year: 1848 - 1899 / Genre: Thriller Two bicyclists, one a Londoner, the other an American geologist named Ward, out for a pleasant bicycle trip in the idyllic Thames valley, meet at a small village inn on the west bank of the Thames. Their parlor chat turns to the subjects of mountains and volcanic eruptions, and the difference between small vent-hole eruptions and large fissure eruptions. "Let us be thankful," I said, carelessly, "that such things don't happen in our own times." He eyed me curiously. "Haven't happened, you mean," he answered. Cycling the next morning, stopping on a river bridge, the Londoner hears a frantic cry and sees a man running on the river tow path as though being pursued by a wild animal. "I glanced back to see what his pursuer might be; and then, in one second, the whole horror and terror of the catastrophe burst upon me. Its whole horror and terror, I say, but not yet its magnitude. I was aware at first just of a moving red wall, like dull, red-hot molten metal. ... I think I can recollect that my earliest idea was no more than this: "He must run, or the moving wall will overtake him!"
