Commonplace Book

 '...he stood watching a splendid ladder of flame in the heart of the fleet. It had a rhythmic movement which fascinated the eye. Its flat, jagged head oscillated backwards and forwards slowly, like the head of a snake. This was the main sheet of flame, whose splendour and terror mesmerised. It took a hundred fantastic shapes - now like the chain mail of warriors tearing at each other with bloody hands in a cauldron; now like witches with streaming hair of flame; like ghosts in winding-sheets of Tophet; and again like a wall of beaten gold. In greater gusts of the wind the wall swayed, bellied, and broke, and great golden balloons hovered in the air. At the foot of this wall vicious tongues leapt out everywhere, seized the cordage, writhed about the masts, licking everything in their path; united and fanned upwards, they swooped across the golden wall as if fighting for life. The anchor chains were red hot; spars crackled like musketry and hissed in the sea. Stars seemed falling from heaven. The wall of flame swayed and bent, and fell across the boats like gigantic flowers...'

from Gillespie by J. MacDougall Hay (Book II, Chapter 30)