The Poison Belt

Published：2026-07-31 22:30:19 Source: best electronic learning toys for siblings Author: Soft Body Dolls

THE POISON BELT

BY

ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

Being an account of another adventure of
Prof. George E. Challenger,plush dinosaurs for 9 year olds under 10 dollars Lord John Roxton,
Prof. Summerlee, and Mr. E. D. Malone,
the discoverers of "The Lost World"

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter I

THE BLURRING OF LINES

It is imperative that now at once, while these stupendous events arestill clear in my mind, I should set them down with that exactness ofdetail which time may blur. But even as I do so, I am overwhelmed by thewonder of the fact that it should be our little group of the "LostWorld"—Professor Challenger, Professor Summerlee, Lord John Roxton, andmyself—who have passed through this amazing experience.

When, some years ago, I chronicled in the Daily Gazette our epoch-makingjourney in South America, I little thought that it should ever fall to mylot to tell an even stranger personal experience, one which is unique inall human annals and must stand out in the records of history as a greatpeak among the humble foothills which surround it. The event itself willalways be marvellous, but the circumstances that we four were together atthe time of this extraordinary episode came about in a most natural and,indeed, inevitable fashion. I will explain the events which led up to itas shortly and as clearly as I can, though I am well aware that thefuller the detail upon such a subject the more welcome it will be to thereader, for the public curiosity has been and still is insatiable.

It was upon Friday, the twenty-seventh of August—a date forevermemorable in the history of the world—that I went down to the office ofmy paper and asked for three days' leave of absence from Mr. McArdle, whostill presided over our news department. The good old Scotchman shookhis head, scratched his dwindling fringe of ruddy fluff, and finally puthis reluctance into words.

"I was thinking, Mr. Malone, that we could employ you to advantage thesedays. I was thinking there was a story that you are the only man thatcould handle as it should be handled."

"I am sorry for that," said I, trying to hide my disappointment. "Ofcourse if I am needed, there is an end of the matter. But the engagementwas important and intimate. If I could be spared——"

"Well, I don't see that you can."

It was bitter, but I had to put the best face I could upon it. Afterall, it was my own fault, for I should have known by this time that ajournalist has no right to make plans of his own.

"Then I'll think no more of it," said I with as much cheerfulness as Icould assume at so short a notice. "What was it that you wanted me todo?"

"Well, it was just to interview that deevil of a man down at Rotherfield."

"You don't mean Professor Challenger?" I cried.

"Aye, it's just him that I do mean. He ran young Alec Simpson of theCourier a mile down the high road last week by the collar of his coat andthe slack of his breeches. You'll have read of it, likely, in the policereport. Our boys would as soon interview a loose alligator in the zoo.But you could do it, I'm thinking—an old friend like you."

"Why," said I, greatly relieved, "this makes it all easy. It so happensthat it was to visit Professor Challenger at Rotherfield that I wasasking for leave of absence. The fact is, that it is the anniversary ofour main adventure on the plateau three years ago, and he has asked ourwhole party down to his house to see him and celebrate the occasion."

"Capital!" cried McArdle, rubbing his hands and beaming through hisglasses. "Then you will be able to get his opeenions out of him. In anyother man I would say it was all moonshine, but the fellow has made goodonce, and who knows but he may again!"

"Get what out of him?" I asked. "What has he been doing?"

"Haven't you seen his letter on 'Scientific Possibeelities' in to-day'sTimes?"

"No."

McArdle dived down and picked a copy from the floor.

"Read it aloud," said he, indicating a column with his finger. "I'd beglad to hear it again, for I am not sure now that I have the man'smeaning clear in my head."

This was the letter which I read to the news editor of the Gazette:—

"SCIENTIFIC POSSIBILITIES"

"Sir,—I have read with amusement, not wholly unmixed with some lesscomplimentary emotion, the complacent and wholly fatuous letter of JamesWilson MacPhail which has lately appeared in your columns upon thesubject of the blurring of Fraunhofer's lines in the spectra both of theplanets and of the fixed stars. He dismisses the matter as of nosignificance. To a wider intelligence it may well seem of very greatpossible importance—so great as to involve the ultimate welfare of everyman, woman, and child upon this planet. I can hardly hope, by the use ofscientific language, to convey any sense of my meaning to thoseineffectual people who gather their ideas from the columns of a dailynewspaper. I will endeavour, therefore, to condescend to theirlimitation and to indicate the situation by the use of a homely analogywhich will be within the limits of the intelligence of your readers."

"Man, he's a wonder—a living wonder!" said McArdle, shaking his headreflectively. "He'd put up the feathers of a sucking-dove and set up ariot in a Quakers' meeting. No wonder he has made London too hot forhim. It's a peety, Mr. Malone, for it's a grand brain! We'll let's havethe analogy."

"We will suppose," I read, "that a small bundle of connected corks waslaunched in a sluggish current upon a voyage across the Atlantic. Thecorks drift slowly on from day to day with the same conditions all roundthem. If the corks were sentient we could imagine that they wouldconsider these conditions to be permanent and assured. But we, with oursuperior knowledge, know that many things might happen to surprise thecorks. They might possibly float up against a ship, or a sleeping whale,or become entangled in seaweed. In any case, their voyage would probablyend by their being thrown up on the rocky coast of Labrador. But whatcould they know of all this while they drifted so gently day by day inwhat they thought was a limitless and homogeneous ocean?

"Your readers will possibly comprehend that the Atlantic, in thisparable, stands for the mighty ocean of ether through which we drift andthat the bunch of corks represents the little and obscure planetarysystem to which we belong. A third-rate sun, with its rag tag andbobtail of insignificant satellites, we float under the same dailyconditions towards some unknown end, some squalid catastrophe which willoverwhelm us at the ultimate confines of space, where we are swept overan etheric Niagara or dashed upon some unthinkable Labrador. I see noroom here for the shallow and ignorant optimism of your correspondent,Mr. James Wilson MacPhail, but many reasons why we should watch with avery close and interested attention every indication of change in thosecosmic surroundings upon which our own ultimate fate may depend."

"Man, he'd have made a grand meenister," said McArdle. "It just boomslike an organ. Let's get doun to what it is that's troubling him."

"The general blurring and shifting of Fraunhofer's lines of the spectrumpoint, in my opinion, to a widespread cosmic change of a subtle andsingular character. Light from a planet is the reflected light of thesun. Light from a star is a self-produced light. But the spectra bothfrom planets and stars have, in this instance, all undergone the samechange. Is it, then, a change in those planets and stars? To me such anidea is inconceivable. What common change could simultaneously come uponthem all? Is it a change in our own atmosphere? It is possible, but inthe highest degree improbable, since we see no signs of it around us, andchemical analysis has failed to reveal it. What, then, is the thirdpossibility? That it may be a change in the conducting medium, in thatinfinitely fine ether which extends from star to star and pervades thewhole universe. Deep in that ocean we are floating upon a slow current.Might that current not drift us into belts of ether which are novel andhave properties of which we have never conceived? There is a changesomewhere. This cosmic disturbance of the spectrum proves it. It may bea good change. It may be an evil one. It may be a neutral one. We donot know. Shallow observers may treat the matter as one which can bedisregarded, but one who like myself is possessed of the deeperintelligence of the true philosopher will understand that thepossibilities of the universe are incalculable and that the wisest man ishe who holds himself ready for the unexpected. To take an obviousexample, who would undertake to say that the mysterious and universaloutbreak of illness, recorded in your columns this very morning as havingbroken out among the indigenous races of Sumatra, has no connection withsome cosmic change to which they may respond more quickly than the morecomplex peoples of Europe? I throw out the idea for what it is worth.To assert it is, in the present stage, as unprofitable as to deny it, butit is an unimaginative numskull who is too dense to perceive that it iswell within the bounds of scientific possibility.

"Yours faithfully,
    "GEORGE EDWARD CHALLENGER.

"THE BRIARS, ROTHERFIELD."

"It's a fine, steemulating letter," said McArdle thoughtfully, fitting acigarette into the long glass tube which he used as a holder. "What'syour opeenion of it, Mr. Malone?"

I had to confess my total and humiliating ignorance of the subject atissue. What, for example, were Fraunhofer's lines? McArdle had justbeen studying the matter with the aid of our tame scientist at theoffice, and he picked from his desk two of those many-coloured spectralbands which bear a general resemblance to the hat-ribbons of some youngand ambitious cricket club. He pointed out to me that there were certainblack lines which formed crossbars upon the series of brilliant coloursextending from the red at one end through gradations of orange, yellow,green, blue, and indigo to the violet at the other.

"Those dark bands are Fraunhofer's lines," said he. "The colours arejust light itself. Every light, if you can split it up with a prism,gives the same colours. They tell us nothing. It is the lines thatcount, because they vary according to what it may be that produces thelight. It is these lines that have been blurred instead of clear thislast week, and all the astronomers have been quarreling over the reason.Here's a photograph of the blurred lines for our issue to-morrow. Thepublic have taken no interest in the matter up to now, but this letter ofChallenger's in the Times will make them wake up, I'm thinking."

"And this about Sumatra?"

"Well, it's a long cry from a blurred line in a spectrum to a sick niggerin Sumatra. And yet the chiel has shown us once before that he knowswhat he's talking about. There is some queer illness down yonder, that'sbeyond all doubt, and to-day there's a cable just come in from Singaporethat the lighthouses are out of action in the Straits of Sundan, and twoships on the beach in consequence. Anyhow, it's good enough for you tointerview Challenger upon. If you get anything definite, let us have acolumn by Monday."

I was coming out from the news editor's room, turning over my new missionin my mind, when I heard my name called from the waiting-room below. Itwas a telegraph-boy with a wire which had been forwarded from my lodgingsat Streatham. The message was from the very man we had been discussing,and ran thus:—

Malone, 17, Hill Street, Streatham.—Bring oxygen.—Challenger.

"Bring oxygen!" The Professor, as I remembered him, had an elephantinesense of humour capable of the most clumsy and unwieldly gambollings.Was this one of those jokes which used to reduce him to uproariouslaughter, when his eyes would disappear and he was all gaping mouth andwagging beard, supremely indifferent to the gravity of all around him? Iturned the words over, but could make nothing even remotely jocose out ofthem. Then surely it was a concise order—though a very strange one. Hewas the last man in the world whose deliberate command I should care todisobey. Possibly some chemical experiment was afoot; possibly——Well,it was no business of mine to speculate upon why he wanted it. I mustget it. There was nearly an hour before I should catch the train atVictoria. I took a taxi, and having ascertained the address from thetelephone book, I made for the Oxygen Tube Supply Company in OxfordStreet.

As I alighted on the pavement at my destination, two youths emerged fromthe door of the establishment carrying an iron cylinder, which, with sometrouble, they hoisted into a waiting motor-car. An elderly man was attheir heels scolding and directing in a creaky, sardonic voice. Heturned towards me. There was no mistaking those austere features andthat goatee beard. It was my old cross-grained companion, ProfessorSummerlee.

"What!" he cried. "Don't tell me that youhave had one of thesepreposterous telegrams for oxygen?"

I exhibited it.

"Well, well! I have had one too, and, as you see, very much against thegrain, I have acted upon it. Our good friend is as impossible as ever.The need for oxygen could not have been so urgent that he must desert theusual means of supply and encroach upon the time of those who are reallybusier than himself. Why could he not order it direct?"

I could only suggest that he probably wanted it at once.

"Or thought he did, which is quite another matter. But it is superfluousnow for you to purchase any, since I have this considerable supply."

"Still, for some reason he seems to wish that I should bring oxygen too.It will be safer to do exactly what he tells me."

Accordingly, in spite of many grumbles and remonstrances from Summerlee,I ordered an additional tube, which was placed with the other in hismotor-car, for he had offered me a lift to Victoria.

I turned away to pay off my taxi, the driver of which was verycantankerous and abusive over his fare. As I came back to ProfessorSummerlee, he was having a furious altercation with the men who hadcarried down the oxygen, his little white goat's beard jerking withindignation. One of the fellows called him, I remember, "a silly oldbleached cockatoo," which so enraged his chauffeur that he bounded out ofhis seat to take the part of his insulted master, and it was all we coulddo to prevent a riot in the street.

These little things may seem trivial to relate, and passed as mereincidents at the time. It is only now, as I look back, that I see theirrelation to the whole story which I have to unfold.

The chauffeur must, as it seemed to me, have been a novice or else havelost his nerve in this disturbance, for he drove vilely on the way to thestation. Twice we nearly had collisions with other equally erraticvehicles, and I remember remarking to Summerlee that the standard ofdriving in London had very much declined. Once we brushed the very edgeof a great crowd which was watching a fight at the corner of the Mall.The people, who were much excited, raised cries of anger at the clumsydriving, and one fellow sprang upon the step and waved a stick above ourheads. I pushed him off, but we were glad when we had got clear of themand safe out of the park. These little events, coming one after theother, left me very jangled in my nerves, and I could see from mycompanion's petulant manner that his own patience had got to a low ebb.

But our good humour was restored when we saw Lord John Roxton waiting forus upon the platform, his tall, thin figure clad in a yellow tweedshooting-suit. His keen face, with those unforgettable eyes, so fierceand yet so humorous, flushed with pleasure at the sight of us. His ruddyhair was shot with grey, and the furrows upon his brow had been cut alittle deeper by Time's chisel, but in all else he was the Lord John whohad been our good comrade in the past.

"Hullo, Herr Professor! Hullo, young fella!" he shouted as he cametoward us.

He roared with amusement when he saw the oxygen cylinders upon theporter's trolly behind us. "So you've got them too!" he cried. "Mine isin the van. Whatever can the old dear be after?"

"Have you seen his letter in the Times?" I asked.

"What was it?"

"Stuff and nonsense!" said Summerlee harshly.

"Well, it's at the bottom of this oxygen business, or I am mistaken,"said I.

"Stuff and nonsense!" cried Summerlee again with quite unnecessaryviolence. We had all got into a first-class smoker, and he had alreadylit the short and charred old briar pipe which seemed to singe the end ofhis long, aggressive nose.

"Friend Challenger is a clever man," said he with great vehemence. "Noone can deny it. It's a fool that denies it. Look at his hat. There'sa sixty-ounce brain inside it—a big engine, running smooth, and turningout clean work. Show me the engine-house and I'll tell you the size ofthe engine. But he is a born charlatan—you've heard me tell him so tohis face—a born charlatan, with a kind of dramatic trick of jumping intothe limelight. Things are quiet, so friend Challenger sees a chance toset the public talking about him. You don't imagine that he seriouslybelieves all this nonsense about a change in the ether and a danger tothe human race? Was ever such a cock-and-bull story in this life?"

He sat like an old white raven, croaking and shaking with sardoniclaughter.

A wave of anger passed through me as I listened to Summerlee. It wasdisgraceful that he should speak thus of the leader who had been thesource of all our fame and given us such an experience as no men haveever enjoyed. I had opened my mouth to utter some hot retort, when LordJohn got before me.

"You had a scrap once before with old man Challenger," said he sternly,"and you were down and out inside ten seconds. It seems to me, ProfessorSummerlee, he's beyond your class, and the best you can do with him is towalk wide and leave him alone."

"Besides," said I, "he has been a good friend to every one of us.Whatever his faults may be, he is as straight as a line, and I don'tbelieve he ever speaks evil of his comrades behind their backs."

"Well said, young fellah-my-lad," said Lord John Roxton. Then, with akindly smile, he slapped Professor Summerlee upon his shoulder. "Come,Herr Professor, we're not going to quarrel at this time of day. We'veseen too much together. But keep off the grass when you get nearChallenger, for this young fellah and I have a bit of a weakness for theold dear."

But Summerlee was in no humour for compromise. His face was screwed upin rigid disapproval, and thick curls of angry smoke rolled up from hispipe.

"As to you, Lord John Roxton," he creaked, "your opinion upon a matter ofscience is of as much value in my eyes as my views upon a new type ofshot-gun would be in yours. I have my own judgment, sir, and I use it inmy own way. Because it has misled me once, is that any reason why Ishould accept without criticism anything, however far-fetched, which thisman may care to put forward? Are we to have a Pope of science, withinfallible decrees laid down ex cathedra, and accepted without questionby the poor humble public? I tell you, sir, that I have a brain of myown and that I should feel myself to be a snob and a slave if I did notuse it. If it pleases you to believe this rigmarole about ether andFraunhofer's lines upon the spectrum, do so by all means, but do not askone who is older and wiser than yourself to share in your folly. Is itnot evident that if the ether were affected to the degree which hemaintains, and if it were obnoxious to human health, the result of itwould already be apparent upon ourselves?" Here he laughed withuproarious triumph over his own argument. "Yes, sir, we should alreadybe very far from our normal selves, and instead of sitting quietlydiscussing scientific problems in a railway train we should be showingactual symptoms of the poison which was working within us. Where do wesee any signs of this poisonous cosmic disturbance? Answer me that, sir!Answer me that! Come, come, no evasion! I pin you to an answer!"

I felt more and more angry. There was something very irritating andaggressive in Summerlee's demeanour.

"I think that if you knew more about the facts you might be less positivein your opinion," said I.

Summerlee took his pipe from his mouth and fixed me with a stony stare.

"Pray what do you mean, sir, by that somewhat impertinent observation?"

"I mean that when I was leaving the office the news editor told me that atelegram had come in confirming the general illness of the Sumatranatives, and adding that the lights had not been lit in the Straits ofSunda."

"Really, there should be some limits to human folly!" cried Summerlee ina positive fury. "Is it possible that you do not realize that ether, iffor a moment we adopt Challenger's preposterous supposition, is auniversal substance which is the same here as at the other side of theworld? Do you for an instant suppose that there is an English ether anda Sumatran ether? Perhaps you imagine that the ether of Kent is in someway superior to the ether of Surrey, through which this train is nowbearing us. There really are no bounds to the credulity and ignorance ofthe average layman. Is it conceivable that the ether in Sumatra shouldbe so deadly as to cause total insensibility at the very time when theether here has had no appreciable effect upon us whatever? Personally, Ican truly say that I never felt stronger in body or better balanced inmind in my life."

"That may be. I don't profess to be a scientific man," said I, "though Ihave heard somewhere that the science of one generation is usually thefallacy of the next. But it does not take much common sense to see that,as we seem to know so little about ether, it might be affected by somelocal conditions in various parts of the world and might show an effectover there which would only develop later with us."

"With 'might' and 'may' you can prove anything," cried Summerleefuriously. "Pigs may fly. Yes, sir, pigs mayfly—but they don't. Itis not worth arguing with you. Challenger has filled you with hisnonsense and you are both incapable of reason. I had as soon layarguments before those railway cushions."

"I must say, Professor Summerlee, that your manners do not seem to haveimproved since I last had the pleasure of meeting you," said Lord Johnseverely.

"You lordlings are not accustomed to hear the truth," Summerlee answeredwith a bitter smile. "It comes as a bit of a shock, does it not, whensomeone makes you realize that your title leaves you none the less a veryignorant man?"

"Upon my word, sir," said Lord John, very stern and rigid, "if you were ayounger man you would not dare to speak to me in so offensive a fashion."

Summerlee thrust out his chin, with its little wagging tuft of goateebeard.

"I would have you know, sir, that, young or old, there has never been atime in my life when I was afraid to speak my mind to an ignorantcoxcomb—yes, sir, an ignorant coxcomb, if you had as many titles asslaves could invent and fools could adopt."

For a moment Lord John's eyes blazed, and then, with a tremendous effort,he mastered his anger and leaned back in his seat with arms folded and abitter smile upon his face. To me all this was dreadful and deplorable.Like a wave, the memory of the past swept over me, the good comradeship,the happy, adventurous days—all that we had suffered and worked for andwon. That it should have come to this—to insults and abuse! Suddenly Iwas sobbing—sobbing in loud, gulping, uncontrollable sobs which refusedto be concealed. My companions looked at me in surprise. I covered myface with my hands.

"It's all right," said I. "Only—only it issuch a pity!"

"You're ill, young fellah, that's what's amiss with you," said Lord John."I thought you were queer from the first."

"Your habits, sir, have not mended in these three years," said Summerlee,shaking his head. "I also did not fail to observe your strange mannerthe moment we met. You need not waste your sympathy, Lord John. Thesetears are purely alcoholic. The man has been drinking. By the way, LordJohn, I called you a coxcomb just now, which was perhaps unduly severe.But the word reminds me of a small accomplishment, trivial but amusing,which I used to possess. You know me as the austere man of science. Canyou believe that I once had a well-deserved reputation in severalnurseries as a farmyard imitator? Perhaps I can help you to pass thetime in a pleasant way. Would it amuse you to hear me crow like a cock?"

"No, sir," said Lord John, who was still greatly offended, "it wouldnotamuse me."

"My imitation of the clucking hen who had just laid an egg was alsoconsidered rather above the average. Might I venture?"

"No, sir, no—certainly not."

But in spite of this earnest prohibition, Professor Summerlee laid downhis pipe and for the rest of our journey he entertained—or failed toentertain—us by a succession of bird and animal cries which seemed soabsurd that my tears were suddenly changed into boisterous laughter,which must have become quite hysterical as I sat opposite this graveProfessor and saw him—or rather heard him—in the character of theuproarious rooster or the puppy whose tail had been trodden upon. OnceLord John passed across his newspaper, upon the margin of which he hadwritten in pencil, "Poor devil! Mad as a hatter." No doubt it was veryeccentric, and yet the performance struck me as extraordinarily cleverand amusing.

Whilst this was going on, Lord John leaned forward and told me someinterminable story about a buffalo and an Indian rajah which seemed to meto have neither beginning nor end. Professor Summerlee had just begun tochirrup like a canary, and Lord John to get to the climax of his story,when the train drew up at Jarvis Brook, which had been given us as thestation for Rotherfield.

And there was Challenger to meet us. His appearance was glorious. Notall the turkey-cocks in creation could match the slow, high-steppingdignity with which he paraded his own railway station and the benignantsmile of condescending encouragement with which he regarded everybodyaround him. If he had changed in anything since the days of old, it wasthat his points had become accentuated. The huge head and broad sweep offorehead, with its plastered lock of black hair, seemed even greater thanbefore. His black beard poured forward in a more impressive cascade, andhis clear grey eyes, with their insolent and sardonic eyelids, were evenmore masterful than of yore.

He gave me the amused hand-shake and encouraging smile which the headmaster bestows upon the small boy, and, having greeted the others andhelped to collect their bags and their cylinders of oxygen, he stowed usand them away in a large motor-car which was driven by the same impassiveAustin, the man of few words, whom I had seen in the character of butlerupon the occasion of my first eventful visit to the Professor. Ourjourney led us up a winding hill through beautiful country. I sat infront with the chauffeur, but behind me my three comrades seemed to me tobe all talking together. Lord John was still struggling with his buffalostory, so far as I could make out, while once again I heard, as of old,the deep rumble of Challenger and the insistent accents of Summerlee astheir brains locked in high and fierce scientific debate. SuddenlyAustin slanted his mahogany face toward me without taking his eyes fromhis steering-wheel.

"I'm under notice," said he.

"Dear me!" said I.

Everything seemed strange to-day. Everyone said queer, unexpectedthings. It was like a dream.

"It's forty-seven times," said Austin reflectively.

"When do you go?" I asked, for want of some better observation.

"I don'tgo," said Austin.

The conversation seemed to have ended there, but presently he came backto it.

"If I was to go, who would look after 'im?" He jerked his head towardhis master. "Who would 'e get to serve 'im?"

"Someone else," I suggested lamely.

"Not 'e. No one would stay a week. If I was to go, that 'ouse would rundown like a watch with the mainspring out. I'm telling you becauseyou're 'is friend, and you ought to know. If I was to take 'im at 'isword—but there, I wouldn't have the 'eart. 'E and the missus would belike two babes left out in a bundle. I'm just everything. And then 'egoes and gives me notice."

"Why would no one stay?" I asked.

"Well, they wouldn't make allowances, same as I do. 'E's a very cleverman, the master—so clever that 'e's clean balmy sometimes. I've seen'im right off 'is onion, and no error. Well, look what 'e did thismorning."

"What did he do?"

Austin bent over to me.

"'E bit the 'ousekeeper," said he in a hoarse whisper.

"Bit her?"

"Yes, sir. Bit 'er on the leg. I saw 'er with my own eyes startin' amarathon from the 'all-door."

"Good gracious!"

"So you'd say, sir, if you could see some of the goings on. 'E don'tmake friends with the neighbors. There's some of them thinks that when'e was up among those monsters you wrote about, it was just ''Ome, Sweet'Ome' for the master, and 'e was never in fitter company. That's whattheysay. But I've served 'im ten years, and I'm fond of 'im, and,mind you, 'e's a great man, when all's said an' done, and it's an honorto serve 'im. But 'e does try one cruel at times. Now look at that,sir. That ain't what you might call old-fashioned 'ospitality, is itnow? Just you read it for yourself."

The car on its lowest speed had ground its way up a steep, curvingascent. At the corner a notice-board peered over a well-clipped hedge.As Austin said, it was not difficult to read, for the words were few andarresting:—

+---------------------------------------+                 |               WARNING.                |                 |                ----                   |                 |  Visitors, Pressmen, and Mendicants   |                 |        are not encouraged.            |                 |                                       |                 |                  G. E. CHALLENGER.    |                 +---------------------------------------+

"No, it's not what you might call 'earty," said Austin, shaking his headand glancing up at the deplorable placard. "It wouldn't look well in aChristmas card. I beg your pardon, sir, for I haven't spoke as much asthis for many a long year, but to-day my feelings seem to 'ave got thebetter of me. 'E can sack me till 'e's blue in the face, but I ain'tgoing, and that's flat. I'm 'is man and 'e's my master, and so it willbe, I expect, to the end of the chapter."

We had passed between the white posts of a gate and up a curving drive,lined with rhododendron bushes. Beyond stood a low brick house, pickedout with white woodwork, very comfortable and pretty. Mrs. Challenger, asmall, dainty, smiling figure, stood in the open doorway to welcome us.

"Well, my dear," said Challenger, bustling out of the car, "here are ourvisitors. It is something new for us to have visitors, is it not? Nolove lost between us and our neighbors, is there? If they could get ratpoison into our baker's cart, I expect it would be there."

"It's dreadful—dreadful!" cried the lady, between laughter and tears."George is always quarreling with everyone. We haven't a friend on thecountryside."

"It enables me to concentrate my attention upon my incomparable wife,"said Challenger, passing his short, thick arm round her waist. Picture agorilla and a gazelle, and you have the pair of them. "Come, come, thesegentlemen are tired from the journey, and luncheon should be ready. HasSarah returned?"

The lady shook her head ruefully, and the Professor laughed loudly andstroked his beard in his masterful fashion.

"Austin," he cried, "when you have put up the car you will kindly helpyour mistress to lay the lunch. Now, gentlemen, will you please stepinto my study, for there are one or two very urgent things which I amanxious to say to you."

Chapter II

THE TIDE OF DEATH

As we crossed the hall the telephone-bell rang, and we were theinvoluntary auditors of Professor Challenger's end of the ensuingdialogue. I say "we," but no one within a hundred yards could havefailed to hear the booming of that monstrous voice, which reverberatedthrough the house. His answers lingered in my mind.

"Yes, yes, of course, it is I.... Yes, certainly, theProfessorChallenger, the famous Professor, who else?... Of course, every word ofit, otherwise I should not have written it.... I shouldn't besurprised.... There is every indication of it.... Within a day or so atthe furthest.... Well, I can't help that, can I?... Very unpleasant, nodoubt, but I rather fancy it will affect more important people than you.There is no use whining about it.... No, I couldn't possibly. You musttake your chance.... That's enough, sir. Nonsense! I have somethingmore important to do than to listen to such twaddle."

He shut off with a crash and led us upstairs into a large airy apartmentwhich formed his study. On the great mahogany desk seven or eightunopened telegrams were lying.

"Really," he said as he gathered them up, "I begin to think that it wouldsave my correspondents' money if I were to adopt a telegraphic address.Possibly 'Noah, Rotherfield,' would be the most appropriate."

As usual when he made an obscure joke, he leaned against the desk andbellowed in a paroxysm of laughter, his hands shaking so that he couldhardly open the envelopes.

"Noah! Noah!" he gasped, with a face of beetroot, while Lord John and Ismiled in sympathy and Summerlee, like a dyspeptic goat, wagged his headin sardonic disagreement. Finally Challenger, still rumbling andexploding, began to open his telegrams. The three of us stood in the bowwindow and occupied ourselves in admiring the magnificent view.

It was certainly worth looking at. The road in its gentle curves hadreally brought us to a considerable elevation—seven hundred feet, as weafterwards discovered. Challenger's house was on the very edge of thehill, and from its southern face, in which was the study window, onelooked across the vast stretch of the weald to where the gentle curves ofthe South Downs formed an undulating horizon. In a cleft of the hills ahaze of smoke marked the position of Lewes. Immediately at our feetthere lay a rolling plain of heather, with the long, vivid greenstretches of the Crowborough golf course, all dotted with the players. Alittle to the south, through an opening in the woods, we could see asection of the main line from London to Brighton. In the immediateforeground, under our very noses, was a small enclosed yard, in whichstood the car which had brought us from the station.

An ejaculation from Challenger caused us to turn. He had read histelegrams and had arranged them in a little methodical pile upon hisdesk. His broad, rugged face, or as much of it as was visible over thematted beard, was still deeply flushed, and he seemed to be under theinfluence of some strong excitement.

"Well, gentlemen," he said, in a voice as if he was addressing a publicmeeting, "this is indeed an interesting reunion, and it takes place underextraordinary—I may say unprecedented—circumstances. May I ask if youhave observed anything upon your journey from town?"

"The only thing which I observed," said Summerlee with a sour smile, "wasthat our young friend here has not improved in his manners during theyears that have passed. I am sorry to state that I have had to seriouslycomplain of his conduct in the train, and I should be wanting infrankness if I did not say that it has left a most unpleasant impressionin my mind."

"Well, well, we all get a bit prosy sometimes," said Lord John. "Theyoung fellah meant no real harm. After all, he's an International, so ifhe takes half an hour to describe a game of football he has more right todo it than most folk."

"Half an hour to describe a game!" I cried indignantly. "Why, it was youthat took half an hour with some long-winded story about a buffalo.Professor Summerlee will be my witness."

"I can hardly judge which of you was the most utterly wearisome," saidSummerlee. "I declare to you, Challenger, that I never wish to hear offootball or of buffaloes so long as I live."

"I have never said one word to-day about football," I protested.

Lord John gave a shrill whistle, and Summerlee shook his head sadly.

"So early in the day too," said he. "It is indeed deplorable. As I satthere in sad but thoughtful silence——"

"In silence!" cried Lord John. "Why, you were doin' a music-hall turn ofimitations all the way—more like a runaway gramophone than a man."

Summerlee drew himself up in bitter protest.

"You are pleased to be facetious, Lord John," said he with a face ofvinegar.

"Why, dash it all, this is clear madness," cried Lord John. "Each of usseems to know what the others did and none of us knows what he didhimself. Let's put it all together from the first. We got into afirst-class smoker, that's clear, ain't it? Then we began to quarrelover friend Challenger's letter in the Times."

"Oh, you did, did you?" rumbled our host, his eyelids beginning to droop.

"You said, Summerlee, that there was no possible truth in his contention."

"Dear me!" said Challenger, puffing out his chest and stroking his beard."No possible truth! I seem to have heard the words before. And may Iask with what arguments the great and famous Professor Summerleeproceeded to demolish the humble individual who had ventured to expressan opinion upon a matter of scientific possibility? Perhaps before heexterminates that unfortunate nonentity he will condescend to give somereasons for the adverse views which he has formed."

He bowed and shrugged and spread open his hands as he spoke with hiselaborate and elephantine sarcasm.

"The reason was simple enough," said the dogged Summerlee. "I contendedthat if the ether surrounding the earth was so toxic in one quarter thatit produced dangerous symptoms, it was hardly likely that we three in therailway carriage should be entirely unaffected."

The explanation only brought uproarious merriment from Challenger. Helaughed until everything in the room seemed to rattle and quiver.

"Our worthy Summerlee is, not for the first time, somewhat out of touchwith the facts of the situation," said he at last, mopping his heatedbrow. "Now, gentlemen, I cannot make my point better than by detailingto you what I have myself done this morning. You will the more easilycondone any mental aberration upon your own part when you realize thateven I have had moments when my balance has been disturbed. We have hadfor some years in this household a housekeeper—one Sarah, with whosesecond name I have never attempted to burden my memory. She is a womanof a severe and forbidding aspect, prim and demure in her bearing, veryimpassive in her nature, and never known within our experience to showsigns of any emotion. As I sat alone at my breakfast—Mrs. Challenger isin the habit of keeping her room of a morning—it suddenly entered myhead that it would be entertaining and instructive to see whether I couldfind any limits to this woman's inperturbability. I devised a simple buteffective experiment. Having upset a small vase of flowers which stoodin the centre of the cloth, I rang the bell and slipped under the table.She entered and, seeing the room empty, imagined that I had withdrawn tothe study. As I had expected, she approached and leaned over the tableto replace the vase. I had a vision of a cotton stocking and anelastic-sided boot. Protruding my head, I sank my teeth into the calf ofher leg. The experiment was successful beyond belief. For some momentsshe stood paralyzed, staring down at my head. Then with a shriek shetore herself free and rushed from the room. I pursued her with somethoughts of an explanation, but she flew down the drive, and some minutesafterwards I was able to pick her out with my field-glasses travellingvery rapidly in a south-westerly direction. I tell you the anecdote forwhat it is worth. I drop it into your brains and await its germination.Is it illuminative? Has it conveyed anything to your minds? What doyouthink of it, Lord John?"

Lord John shook his head gravely.

"You'll be gettin' into serious trouble some of these days if you don'tput a brake on," said he.

"Perhaps you have some observation to make, Summerlee?"

"You should drop all work instantly, Challenger, and take three months ina German watering-place," said he.

"Profound! Profound!" cried Challenger. "Now, my young friend, is itpossible that wisdom may come from you where your seniors have sosignally failed?"

And it did. I say it with all modesty, but it did. Of course, it allseems obvious enough to you who know what occurred, but it was not sovery clear when everything was new. But it came on me suddenly with thefull force of absolute conviction.

"Poison!" I cried.

Then, even as I said the word, my mind flashed back over the wholemorning's experiences, past Lord John with his buffalo, past my ownhysterical tears, past the outrageous conduct of Professor Summerlee, tothe queer happenings in London, the row in the park, the driving of thechauffeur, the quarrel at the oxygen warehouse. Everything fittedsuddenly into its place.

"Of course," I cried again. "It is poison. We are all poisoned."

"Exactly," said Challenger, rubbing his hands, "we are all poisoned. Ourplanet has swum into the poison belt of ether, and is now flying deeperinto it at the rate of some millions of miles a minute. Our young friendhas expressed the cause of all our troubles and perplexities in a singleword, 'poison.'"

We looked at each other in amazed silence. No comment seemed to meet thesituation.

"There is a mental inhibition by which such symptoms can be checked andcontrolled," said Challenger. "I cannot expect to find it developed inall of you to the same point which it has reached in me, for I supposethat the strength of our different mental processes bears some proportionto each other. But no doubt it is appreciable even in our young friendhere. After the little outburst of high spirits which so alarmed mydomestic I sat down and reasoned with myself. I put it to myself that Ihad never before felt impelled to bite any of my household. The impulsehad then been an abnormal one. In an instant I perceived the truth. Mypulse upon examination was ten beats above the usual, and my reflexeswere increased. I called upon my higher and saner self, the real G. E.C., seated serene and impregnable behind all mere molecular disturbance.I summoned him, I say, to watch the foolish mental tricks which thepoison would play. I found that I was indeed the master. I couldrecognize and control a disordered mind. It was a remarkable exhibitionof the victory of mind over matter, for it was a victory over thatparticular form of matter which is most intimately connected with mind.I might almost say that mind was at fault and that personality controlledit. Thus, when my wife came downstairs and I was impelled to slip behindthe door and alarm her by some wild cry as she entered, I was able tostifle the impulse and to greet her with dignity and restraint. Anoverpowering desire to quack like a duck was met and mastered in the samefashion.

"Later, when I descended to order the car and found Austin bending overit absorbed in repairs, I controlled my open hand even after I had liftedit and refrained from giving him an experience which would possibly havecaused him to follow in the steps of the housekeeper. On the contrary, Itouched him on the shoulder and ordered the car to be at the door in timeto meet your train. At the present instant I am most forcibly tempted totake Professor Summerlee by that silly old beard of his and to shake hishead violently backwards and forwards. And yet, as you see, I amperfectly restrained. Let me commend my example to you."

"I'll look out for that buffalo," said Lord John.

"And I for the football match."

"It may be that you are right, Challenger," said Summerlee in a chastenedvoice. "I am willing to admit that my turn of mind is critical ratherthan constructive and that I am not a ready convert to any new theory,especially when it happens to be so unusual and fantastic as this one.However, as I cast my mind back over the events of the morning, and as Ireconsider the fatuous conduct of my companions, I find it easy tobelieve that some poison of an exciting kind was responsible for theirsymptoms."

Challenger slapped his colleague good-humouredly upon the shoulder. "Weprogress," said he. "Decidedly we progress."

"And pray, sir," asked Summerlee humbly, "what is your opinion as to thepresent outlook?"

"With your permission I will say a few words upon that subject." Heseated himself upon his desk, his short, stumpy legs swinging in front ofhim. "We are assisting at a tremendous and awful function. It is, in myopinion, the end of the world."

The end of the world! Our eyes turned to the great bow-window and welooked out at the summer beauty of the country-side, the long slopes ofheather, the great country-houses, the cozy farms, the pleasure-seekersupon the links.

The end of the world! One had often heard the words, but the idea thatthey could ever have an immediate practical significance, that it shouldnot be at some vague date, but now, to-day, that was a tremendous, astaggering thought. We were all struck solemn and waited in silence forChallenger to continue. His overpowering presence and appearance lentsuch force to the solemnity of his words that for a moment all thecrudities and absurdities of the man vanished, and he loomed before us assomething majestic and beyond the range of ordinary humanity. Then tome, at least, there came back the cheering recollection of how twicesince we had entered the room he had roared with laughter. Surely, Ithought, there are limits to mental detachment. The crisis cannot be sogreat or so pressing after all.

"You will conceive a bunch of grapes," said he, "which are covered bysome infinitesimal but noxious bacillus. The gardener passes it througha disinfecting medium. It may be that he desires his grapes to becleaner. It may be that he needs space to breed some fresh bacillus lessnoxious than the last. He dips it into the poison and they are gone.Our Gardener is, in my opinion, about to dip the solar system, and thehuman bacillus, the little mortal vibrio which twisted and wriggled uponthe outer rind of the earth, will in an instant be sterilized out ofexistence."

Again there was silence. It was broken by the high trill of thetelephone-bell.

"There is one of our bacilli squeaking for help," said he with a grimsmile. "They are beginning to realize that their continued existence isnot really one of the necessities of the universe."

He was gone from the room for a minute or two. I remember that none ofus spoke in his absence. The situation seemed beyond all words orcomments.

"The medical officer of health for Brighton," said he when he returned."The symptoms are for some reason developing more rapidly upon the sealevel. Our seven hundred feet of elevation give us an advantage. Folkseem to have learned that I am the first authority upon the question. Nodoubt it comes from my letter in the Times. That was the mayor of aprovincial town with whom I talked when we first arrived. You may haveheard me upon the telephone. He seemed to put an entirely inflated valueupon his own life. I helped him to readjust his ideas."

Summerlee had risen and was standing by the window. His thin, bony handswere trembling with his emotion.

"Challenger," said he earnestly, "this thing is too serious for merefutile argument. Do not suppose that I desire to irritate you by anyquestion I may ask. But I put it to you whether there may not be somefallacy in your information or in your reasoning. There is the sunshining as brightly as ever in the blue sky. There are the heather andthe flowers and the birds. There are the folk enjoying themselves uponthe golf-links and the laborers yonder cutting the corn. You tell usthat they and we may be upon the very brink of destruction—that thissunlit day may be that day of doom which the human race has so longawaited. So far as we know, you found this tremendous judgment uponwhat? Upon some abnormal lines in a spectrum—upon rumours fromSumatra—upon some curious personal excitement which we have discerned ineach other. This latter symptom is not so marked but that you and wecould, by a deliberate effort, control it. You need not stand onceremony with us, Challenger. We have all faced death together beforenow. Speak out, and let us know exactly where we stand, and what, inyour opinion, are our prospects for our future."

It was a brave, good speech, a speech from that stanch and strong spiritwhich lay behind all the acidities and angularities of the old zoologist.Lord John rose and shook him by the hand.

"My sentiment to a tick," said he. "Now, Challenger, it's up to you totell us where we are. We ain't nervous folk, as you know well; but whenit comes to makin' a week-end visit and finding you've run full butt intothe Day of Judgment, it wants a bit of explainin'. What's the danger,and how much of it is there, and what are we goin' to do to meet it?"

He stood, tall and strong, in the sunshine at the window, with his brownhand upon the shoulder of Summerlee. I was lying back in an armchair, anextinguished cigarette between my lips, in that sort of half-dazed statein which impressions become exceedingly distinct. It may have been a newphase of the poisoning, but the delirious promptings had all passed awayand were succeeded by an exceedingly languid and, at the same time,perceptive state of mind. I was a spectator. It did not seem to be anypersonal concern of mine. But here were three strong men at a greatcrisis, and it was fascinating to observe them. Challenger bent hisheavy brows and stroked his beard before he answered. One could see thathe was very carefully weighing his words.

"What was the last news when you left London?" he asked.

"I was at the Gazette office about ten," said I. "There was a Reuterjust come in from Singapore to the effect that the sickness seemed to beuniversal in Sumatra and that the lighthouses had not been lit inconsequence."

"Events have been moving somewhat rapidly since then," said Challenger,picking up his pile of telegrams. "I am in close touch both with theauthorities and with the press, so that news is converging upon me fromall parts. There is, in fact, a general and very insistent demand that Ishould come to London; but I see no good end to be served. From theaccounts the poisonous effect begins with mental excitement; the riotingin Paris this morning is said to have been very violent, and the Welshcolliers are in a state of uproar. So far as the evidence to hand can betrusted, this stimulative stage, which varies much in races and inindividuals, is succeeded by a certain exaltation and mental lucidity—Iseem to discern some signs of it in our young friend here—which, afteran appreciable interval, turns to coma, deepening rapidly into death. Ifancy, so far as my toxicology carries me, that there are some vegetablenerve poisons——"

"Datura," suggested Summerlee.

"Excellent!" cried Challenger. "It would make for scientific precisionif we named our toxic agent. Let it be daturon. To you, my dearSummerlee, belongs the honour—posthumous, alas, but none the lessunique—of having given a name to the universal destroyer, the GreatGardener's disinfectant. The symptoms of daturon, then, may be taken tobe such as I indicate. That it will involve the whole world and that nolife can possibly remain behind seems to me to be certain, since ether isa universal medium. Up to now it has been capricious in the places whichit has attacked, but the difference is only a matter of a few hours, andit is like an advancing tide which covers one strip of sand and thenanother, running hither and thither in irregular streams, until at lastit has submerged it all. There are laws at work in connection with theaction and distribution of daturon which would have been of deep interesthad the time at our disposal permitted us to study them. So far as I cantrace them"—here he glanced over his telegrams—"the less developedraces have been the first to respond to its influence. There aredeplorable accounts from Africa, and the Australian aborigines appear tohave been already exterminated. The Northern races have as yet showngreater resisting power than the Southern. This, you see, is dated fromMarseilles at nine-forty-five this morning. I give it to you verbatim:—

"'All night delirious excitement throughout Provence. Tumult of vinegrowers at Nimes. Socialistic upheaval at Toulon. Sudden illnessattended by coma attacked population this morning. Peste foudroyante.Great numbers of dead in the streets. Paralysis of business anduniversal chaos.'

"An hour later came the following, from the same source:—

"'We are threatened with utter extermination. Cathedrals and churchesfull to overflowing. The dead outnumber the living. It is inconceivableand horrible. Decease seems to be painless, but swift and inevitable.'

"There is a similar telegram from Paris, where the development is not yetas acute. India and Persia appear to be utterly wiped out. The Slavonicpopulation of Austria is down, while the Teutonic has hardly beenaffected. Speaking generally, the dwellers upon the plains and upon theseashore seem, so far as my limited information goes, to have felt theeffects more rapidly than those inland or on the heights. Even a littleelevation makes a considerable difference, and perhaps if there be asurvivor of the human race, he will again be found upon the summit ofsome Ararat. Even our own little hill may presently prove to be atemporary island amid a sea of disaster. But at the present rate ofadvance a few short hours will submerge us all."

Lord John Roxton wiped his brow.

"What beats me," said he, "is how you could sit there laughin' with thatstack of telegrams under your hand. I've seen death as often as mostfolk, but universal death—it's awful!"

"As to the laughter," said Challenger, "you will bear in mind that, likeyourselves, I have not been exempt from the stimulating cerebral effectsof the etheric poison. But as to the horror with which universal deathappears to inspire you, I would put it to you that it is somewhatexaggerated. If you were sent to sea alone in an open boat to someunknown destination, your heart might well sink within you. Theisolation, the uncertainty, would oppress you. But if your voyage weremade in a goodly ship, which bore within it all your relations and yourfriends, you would feel that, however uncertain your destination mightstill remain, you would at least have one common and simultaneousexperience which would hold you to the end in the same close communion.A lonely death may be terrible, but a universal one, as painless as thiswould appear to be, is not, in my judgment, a matter for apprehension.Indeed, I could sympathize with the person who took the view that thehorror lay in the idea of surviving when all that is learned, famous, andexalted had passed away."

"What, then, do you propose to do?" asked Summerlee, who had for oncenodded his assent to the reasoning of his brother scientist.

"To take our lunch," said Challenger as the boom of a gong soundedthrough the house. "We have a cook whose omelettes are only excelled byher cutlets. We can but trust that no cosmic disturbance has dulled herexcellent abilities. My Scharzberger of '96 must also be rescued, so faras our earnest and united efforts can do it, from what would be adeplorable waste of a great vintage." He levered his great bulk off thedesk, upon which he had sat while he announced the doom of the planet."Come," said he. "If there is little time left, there is the more needthat we should spend it in sober and reasonable enjoyment."

And, indeed, it proved to be a very merry meal. It is true that we couldnot forget our awful situation. The full solemnity of the event loomedever at the back of our minds and tempered our thoughts. But surely itis the soul which has never faced death which shies strongly from it atthe end. To each of us men it had, for one great epoch in our lives,been a familiar presence. As to the lady, she leaned upon the strongguidance of her mighty husband and was well content to go whither hispath might lead. The future was our fate. The present was our own. Wepassed it in goodly comradeship and gentle merriment. Our minds were, asI have said, singularly lucid. Even I struck sparks at times. As toChallenger, he was wonderful! Never have I so realized the elementalgreatness of the man, the sweep and power of his understanding.Summerlee drew him on with his chorus of subacid criticism, while LordJohn and I laughed at the contest and the lady, her hand upon his sleeve,controlled the bellowings of the philosopher. Life, death, fate, thedestiny of man—these were the stupendous subjects of that memorablehour, made vital by the fact that as the meal progressed strange, suddenexaltations in my mind and tinglings in my limbs proclaimed that theinvisible tide of death was slowly and gently rising around us. Once Isaw Lord John put his hand suddenly to his eyes, and once Summerleedropped back for an instant in his chair. Each breath we breathed wascharged with strange forces. And yet our minds were happy and at ease.Presently Austin laid the cigarettes upon the table and was about towithdraw.

"Austin!" said his master.

"Yes, sir?"

"I thank you for your faithful service." A smile stole over theservant's gnarled face.

"I've done my duty, sir."

"I'm expecting the end of the world to-day, Austin."

"Yes, sir. What time, sir?"

"I can't say, Austin. Before evening."

"Very good, sir."

The taciturn Austin saluted and withdrew. Challenger lit a cigarette,and, drawing his chair closer to his wife's, he took her hand in his.

"You know how matters stand, dear," said he. "I have explained it alsoto our friends here. You're not afraid are you?"

"It won't be painful, George?"

"No more than laughing-gas at the dentist's. Every time you have had ityou have practically died."

"But that is a pleasant sensation."

"So may death be. The worn-out bodily machine can't record itsimpression, but we know the mental pleasure which lies in a dream or atrance. Nature may build a beautiful door and hang it with many a gauzyand shimmering curtain to make an entrance to the new life for ourwondering souls. In all my probings of the actual, I have always foundwisdom and kindness at the core; and if ever the frightened mortal needstenderness, it is surely as he makes the passage perilous from life tolife. No, Summerlee, I will have none of your materialism, for I, atleast, am too great a thing to end in mere physical constituents, apacket of salts and three bucketfuls of water. Here—here"—and he beathis great head with his huge, hairy fist—"there is something which usesmatter, but is not of it—something which might destroy death, but whichdeath can never destroy."

"Talkin' of death," said Lord John. "I'm a Christian of sorts, but itseems to me there was somethin' mighty natural in those ancestors of ourswho were buried with their axes and bows and arrows and the like, same asif they were livin' on just the same as they used to. I don't know," headded, looking round the table in a shamefaced way, "that I wouldn't feelmore homely myself if I was put away with my old .450 Express and thefowlin'-piece, the shorter one with the rubbered stock, and a clip or twoof cartridges—just a fool's fancy, of course, but there it is. How doesit strike you, Herr Professor?"

"Well," said Summerlee, "since you ask my opinion, it strikes me as anindefensible throwback to the Stone Age or before it. I'm of thetwentieth century myself, and would wish to die like a reasonablecivilized man. I don't know that I am more afraid of death than the restof you, for I am an oldish man, and, come what may, I can't have verymuch longer to live; but it is all against my nature to sit waitingwithout a struggle like a sheep for the butcher. Is it quite certain,Challenger, that there is nothing we can do?"

"To save us—nothing," said Challenger. "To prolong our lives a fewhours and thus to see the evolution of this mighty tragedy before we areactually involved in it—that may prove to be within my powers. I havetaken certain steps——"

"The oxygen?"

"Exactly. The oxygen."

"But what can oxygen effect in the face of a poisoning of the ether?There is not a greater difference in quality between a brick-bat and agas than there is between oxygen and ether. They are different planes ofmatter. They cannot impinge upon one another. Come, Challenger, youcould not defend such a proposition."

"My good Summerlee, this etheric poison is most certainly influenced bymaterial agents. We see it in the methods and distribution of theoutbreak. We should not a priorihave expected it, but it isundoubtedly a fact. Hence I am strongly of opinion that a gas likeoxygen, which increases the vitality and the resisting power of the body,would be extremely likely to delay the action of what you have so happilynamed the daturon. It may be that I am mistaken, but I have everyconfidence in the correctness of my reasoning."

"Well," said Lord John, "if we've got to sit suckin' at those tubes likeso many babies with their bottles, I'm not takin' any."

"There will be no need for that," Challenger answered. "We have madearrangements—it is to my wife that you chiefly owe it—that her boudoirshall be made as airtight as is practicable. With matting and varnishedpaper."

"Good heavens, Challenger, you don't suppose you can keep out ether withvarnished paper?"

"Really, my worthy friend, you are a trifle perverse in missing thepoint. It is not to keep out the ether that we have gone to suchtrouble. It is to keep in the oxygen. I trust that if we can ensure anatmosphere hyper-oxygenated to a certain point, we may be able to retainour senses. I had two tubes of the gas and you have brought me threemore. It is not much, but it is something."

"How long will they last?"

"I have not an idea. We will not turn them on until our symptoms becomeunbearable. Then we shall dole the gas out as it is urgently needed. Itmay give us some hours, possibly even some days, on which we may look outupon a blasted world. Our own fate is delayed to that extent, and wewill have the very singular experience, we five, of being, in allprobability, the absolute rear guard of the human race upon its marchinto the unknown. Perhaps you will be kind enough now to give me a handwith the cylinders. It seems to me that the atmosphere already growssomewhat more oppressive."

Chapter III

SUBMERGED

The chamber which was destined to be the scene of our unforgettableexperience was a charmingly feminine sitting-room, some fourteen orsixteen feet square. At the end of it, divided by a curtain of redvelvet, was a small apartment which formed the Professor's dressing-room.This in turn opened into a large bedroom. The curtain was still hanging,but the boudoir and dressing-room could be taken as one chamber for thepurposes of our experiment. One door and the window frame had beenplastered round with varnished paper so as to be practically sealed.Above the other door, which opened on to the landing, there hung afanlight which could be drawn by a cord when some ventilation becameabsolutely necessary. A large shrub in a tub stood in each corner.

"How to get rid of our excessive carbon dioxide without unduly wastingour oxygen is a delicate and vital question," said Challenger, lookinground him after the five iron tubes had been laid side by side againstthe wall. "With longer time for preparation I could have brought thewhole concentrated force of my intelligence to bear more fully upon theproblem, but as it is we must do what we can. The shrubs will be of somesmall service. Two of the oxygen tubes are ready to be turned on at aninstant's notice, so that we cannot be taken unawares. At the same time,it would be well not to go far from the room, as the crisis may be asudden and urgent one."

There was a broad, low window opening out upon a balcony. The viewbeyond was the same as that which we had already admired from the study.Looking out, I could see no sign of disorder anywhere. There was a roadcurving down the side of the hill, under my very eyes. A cab from thestation, one of those prehistoric survivals which are only to be found inour country villages, was toiling slowly up the hill. Lower down was anurse girl wheeling a perambulator and leading a second child by thehand. The blue reeks of smoke from the cottages gave the wholewidespread landscape an air of settled order and homely comfort. Nowherein the blue heaven or on the sunlit earth was there any foreshadowing ofa catastrophe. The harvesters were back in the fields once more and thegolfers, in pairs and fours, were still streaming round the links. Therewas so strange a turmoil within my own head, and such a jangling of myoverstrung nerves, that the indifference of those people was amazing.

"Those fellows don't seem to feel any ill effects," said I, pointing downat the links.

"Have you played golf?" asked Lord John.

"No, I have not."

"Well, young fellah, when you do you'll learn that once fairly out on around, it would take the crack of doom to stop a true golfer. Halloa!There's that telephone-bell again."

From time to time during and after lunch the high, insistent ring hadsummoned the Professor. He gave us the news as it came through to him ina few curt sentences. Such terrific items had never been registered inthe world's history before. The great shadow was creeping up from thesouth like a rising tide of death. Egypt had gone through its deliriumand was now comatose. Spain and Portugal, after a wild frenzy in whichthe Clericals and the Anarchists had fought most desperately, were nowfallen silent. No cable messages were received any longer from SouthAmerica. In North America the southern states, after some terribleracial rioting, had succumbed to the poison. North of Maryland theeffect was not yet marked, and in Canada it was hardly perceptible.Belgium, Holland, and Denmark had each in turn been affected. Despairingmessages were flashing from every quarter to the great centres oflearning, to the chemists and the doctors of world-wide repute, imploringtheir advice. The astronomers too were deluged with inquiries. Nothingcould be done. The thing was universal and beyond our human knowledge orcontrol. It was death—painless but inevitable—death for young and old,for weak and strong, for rich and poor, without hope or possibility ofescape. Such was the news which, in scattered, distracted messages, thetelephone had brought us. The great cities already knew their fate andso far as we could gather were preparing to meet it with dignity andresignation. Yet here were our golfers and laborers like the lambs whogambol under the shadow of the knife. It seemed amazing. And yet howcould they know? It had all come upon us in one giant stride. What wasthere in the morning paper to alarm them? And now it was but three inthe afternoon. Even as we looked some rumour seemed to have spread, forwe saw the reapers hurrying from the fields. Some of the golfers werereturning to the club-house. They were running as if taking refuge froma shower. Their little caddies trailed behind them. Others werecontinuing their game. The nurse had turned and was pushing herperambulator hurriedly up the hill again. I noticed that she had herhand to her brow. The cab had stopped and the tired horse, with his headsunk to his knees, was resting. Above there was a perfect summersky—one huge vault of unbroken blue, save for a few fleecy white cloudsover the distant downs. If the human race must die to-day, it was atleast upon a glorious death-bed. And yet all that gentle loveliness ofnature made this terrific and wholesale destruction the more pitiable andawful. Surely it was too goodly a residence that we should be soswiftly, so ruthlessly, evicted from it!

But I have said that the telephone-bell had rung once more. Suddenly Iheard Challenger's tremendous voice from the hall.

"Malone!" he cried. "You are wanted."

I rushed down to the instrument. It was McArdle speaking from London.

"That you, Mr. Malone?" cried his familiar voice. "Mr. Malone, there areterrible goings-on in London. For God's sake, see if ProfessorChallenger can suggest anything that can be done."

"He can suggest nothing, sir," I answered. "He regards the crisis asuniversal and inevitable. We have some oxygen here, but it can onlydefer our fate for a few hours."

"Oxygen!" cried the agonized voice. "There is no time to get any. Theoffice has been a perfect pandemonium ever since you left in the morning.Now half of the staff are insensible. I am weighed down with heavinessmyself. From my window I can see the people lying thick in Fleet Street.The traffic is all held up. Judging by the last telegrams, the wholeworld——"

His voice had been sinking, and suddenly stopped. An instant later Iheard through the telephone a muffled thud, as if his head had fallenforward on the desk.

"Mr. McArdle!" I cried. "Mr. McArdle!"

There was no answer. I knew as I replaced the receiver that I shouldnever hear his voice again.

At that instant, just as I took a step backwards from the telephone, thething was on us. It was as if we were bathers, up to our shoulders inwater, who suddenly are submerged by a rolling wave. An invisible handseemed to have quietly closed round my throat and to be gently pressingthe life from me. I was conscious of immense oppression upon my chest,great tightness within my head, a loud singing in my ears, and brightflashes before my eyes. I staggered to the balustrades of the stair. Atthe same moment, rushing and snorting like a wounded buffalo, Challengerdashed past me, a terrible vision, with red-purple face, engorged eyes,and bristling hair. His little wife, insensible to all appearance, wasslung over his great shoulder, and he blundered and thundered up thestair, scrambling and tripping, but carrying himself and her throughsheer will-force through that mephitic atmosphere to the haven oftemporary safety. At the sight of his effort I too rushed up the steps,clambering, falling, clutching at the rail, until I tumbled halfsenseless upon by face on the upper landing. Lord John's fingers ofsteel were in the collar of my coat, and a moment later I was stretchedupon my back, unable to speak or move, on the boudoir carpet. The womanlay beside me, and Summerlee was bunched in a chair by the window, hishead nearly touching his knees. As in a dream I saw Challenger, like amonstrous beetle, crawling slowly across the floor, and a moment later Iheard the gentle hissing of the escaping oxygen. Challenger breathed twoor three times with enormous gulps, his lungs roaring as he drew in thevital gas.

"It works!" he cried exultantly. "My reasoning has been justified!" Hewas up on his feet again, alert and strong. With a tube in his hand herushed over to his wife and held it to her face. In a few seconds shemoaned, stirred, and sat up. He turned to me, and I felt the tide oflife stealing warmly through my arteries. My reason told me that it wasbut a little respite, and yet, carelessly as we talk of its value, everyhour of existence now seemed an inestimable thing. Never have I knownsuch a thrill of sensuous joy as came with that freshet of life. Theweight fell away from my lungs, the band loosened from my brow, a sweetfeeling of peace and gentle, languid comfort stole over me. I laywatching Summerlee revive under the same remedy, and finally Lord Johntook his turn. He sprang to his feet and gave me a hand to rise, whileChallenger picked up his wife and laid her on the settee.

"Oh, George, I am so sorry you brought me back," she said, holding him bythe hand. "The door of death is indeed, as you said, hung withbeautiful, shimmering curtains; for, once the choking feeling had passed,it was all unspeakably soothing and beautiful. Why have you dragged meback?"

"Because I wish that we make the passage together. We have been togetherso many years. It would be sad to fall apart at the supreme moment."

For a moment in his tender voice I caught a glimpse of a new Challenger,something very far from the bullying, ranting, arrogant man who hadalternately amazed and offended his generation. Here in the shadow ofdeath was the innermost Challenger, the man who had won and held awoman's love. Suddenly his mood changed and he was our strong captainonce again.

"Alone of all mankind I saw and foretold this catastrophe," said he witha ring of exultation and scientific triumph in his voice. "As to you, mygood Summerlee, I trust your last doubts have been resolved as to themeaning of the blurring of the lines in the spectrum and that you will nolonger contend that my letter in the Times was based upon a delusion."

For once our pugnacious colleague was deaf to a challenge. He could butsit gasping and stretching his long, thin limbs, as if to assure himselfthat he was still really upon this planet. Challenger walked across tothe oxygen tube, and the sound of the loud hissing fell away till it wasthe most gentle sibilation.

"We must husband our supply of the gas," said he. "The atmosphere of theroom is now strongly hyperoxygenated, and I take it that none of us feelany distressing symptoms. We can only determine by actual experimentswhat amount added to the air will serve to neutralize the poison. Let ussee how that will do."

We sat in silent nervous tension for five minutes or more, observing ourown sensations. I had just begun to fancy that I felt the constrictionround my temples again when Mrs. Challenger called out from the sofa thatshe was fainting. Her husband turned on more gas.

"In pre-scientific days," said he, "they used to keep a white mouse inevery submarine, as its more delicate organization gave signs of avicious atmosphere before it was perceived by the sailors. You, my dear,will be our white mouse. I have now increased the supply and you arebetter."

"Yes, I am better."

"Possibly we have hit upon the correct mixture. When we have ascertainedexactly how little will serve we shall be able to compute how long weshall be able to exist. Unfortunately, in resuscitating ourselves wehave already consumed a considerable proportion of this first tube."

"Does it matter?" asked Lord John, who was standing with his hands in hispockets close to the window. "If we have to go, what is the use ofholdin' on? You don't suppose there's any chance for us?"

Challenger smiled and shook his head.

"Well, then, don't you think there is more dignity in takin' the jump andnot waitin' to be pushed in? If it must be so, I'm for sayin' ourprayers, turnin' off the gas, and openin' the window."

"Why not?" said the lady bravely. "Surely, George, Lord John is rightand it is better so."

"I most strongly object," cried Summerlee in a querulous voice. "When wemust die let us by all means die, but to deliberately anticipate deathseems to me to be a foolish and unjustifiable action."

"What does our young friend say to it?" asked Challenger.

"I think we should see it to the end."

"And I am strongly of the same opinion," said he.

"Then, George, if you say so, I think so too," cried the lady.

"Well, well, I'm only puttin' it as an argument," said Lord John. "Ifyou all want to see it through I am with you. It's dooced interestin',and no mistake about that. I've had my share of adventures in my life,and as many thrills as most folk, but I'm endin' on my top note."

"Granting the continuity of life," said Challenger.

"A large assumption!" cried Summerlee. Challenger stared at him insilent reproof.

"Granting the continuity of life," said he, in his most didactic manner,"none of us can predicate what opportunities of observation one may havefrom what we may call the spirit plane to the plane of matter. It surelymust be evident to the most obtuse person" (here he glared a Summerlee)"that it is while we are ourselves material that we are most fitted towatch and form a judgment upon material phenomena. Therefore it is onlyby keeping alive for these few extra hours that we can hope to carry onwith us to some future existence a clear conception of the moststupendous event that the world, or the universe so far as we know it,has ever encountered. To me it would seem a deplorable thing that weshould in any way curtail by so much as a minute so wonderful anexperience."

"I am strongly of the same opinion," cried Summerlee.

"Carried without a division," said Lord John. "By George, that poordevil of a chauffeur of yours down in the yard has made his last journey.No use makin' a sally and bringin' him in?"

"It would be absolute madness," cried Summerlee.

"Well, I suppose it would," said Lord John. "It couldn't help him andwould scatter our gas all over the house, even if we ever got back alive.My word, look at the little birds under the trees!"

We drew four chairs up to the long, low window, the lady still restingwith closed eyes upon the settee. I remember that the monstrous andgrotesque idea crossed my mind—the illusion may have been heightened bythe heavy stuffiness of the air which we were breathing—that we were infour front seats of the stalls at the last act of the drama of the world.

In the immediate foreground, beneath our very eyes, was the small yardwith the half-cleaned motor-car standing in it. Austin, the chauffeur,had received his final notice at last, for he was sprawling beside thewheel, with a great black bruise upon his forehead where it had struckthe step or mud-guard in falling. He still held in his hand the nozzleof the hose with which he had been washing down his machine. A couple ofsmall plane trees stood in the corner of the yard, and underneath themlay several pathetic little balls of fluffy feathers, with tiny feetuplifted. The sweep of death's scythe had included everything, great andsmall, within its swath.

Over the wall of the yard we looked down upon the winding road, which ledto the station. A group of the reapers whom we had seen running from thefields were lying all pell-mell, their bodies crossing each other, at thebottom of it. Farther up, the nurse-girl lay with her head and shoulderspropped against the slope of the grassy bank. She had taken the babyfrom the perambulator, and it was a motionless bundle of wraps in herarms. Close behind her a tiny patch upon the roadside showed where thelittle boy was stretched. Still nearer to us was the dead cab-horse,kneeling between the shafts. The old driver was hanging over thesplash-board like some grotesque scarecrow, his arms dangling absurdly infront of him. Through the window we could dimly discern that a young manwas seated inside. The door was swinging open and his hand was graspingthe handle, as if he had attempted to leap forth at the last instant. Inthe middle distance lay the golf links, dotted as they had been in themorning with the dark figures of the golfers, lying motionless upon thegrass of the course or among the heather which skirted it. On oneparticular green there were eight bodies stretched where a foursome withits caddies had held to their game to the last. No bird flew in the bluevault of heaven, no man or beast moved upon the vast countryside whichlay before us. The evening sun shone its peaceful radiance across it,but there brooded over it all the stillness and the silence of universaldeath—a death in which we were so soon to join. At the present instantthat one frail sheet of glass, by holding in the extra oxygen whichcounteracted the poisoned ether, shut us off from the fate of all ourkind. For a few short hours the knowledge and foresight of one man couldpreserve our little oasis of life in the vast desert of death and save usfrom participation in the common catastrophe. Then the gas would runlow, we too should lie gasping upon that cherry-coloured boudoir carpet,and the fate of the human race and of all earthly life would be complete.For a long time, in a mood which was too solemn for speech, we looked outat the tragic world.

"There is a house on fire," said Challenger at last, pointing to a columnof smoke which rose above the trees. "There will, I expect, be manysuch—possibly whole cities in flames—when we consider how many folk mayhave dropped with lights in their hands. The fact of combustion is initself enough to show that the proportion of oxygen in the atmosphere isnormal and that it is the ether which is at fault. Ah, there you seeanother blaze on the top of Crowborough Hill. It is the golf clubhouse,or I am mistaken. There is the church clock chiming the hour. It wouldinterest our philosophers to know that man-made mechanisms have survivedthe race who made it."

"By George!" cried Lord John, rising excitedly from his chair. "What'sthat puff of smoke? It's a train."

We heard the roar of it, and presently it came flying into sight, goingat what seemed to me to be a prodigious speed. Whence it had come, orhow far, we had no means of knowing. Only by some miracle of luck couldit have gone any distance. But now we were to see the terrific end ofits career. A train of coal trucks stood motionless upon the line. Weheld our breath as the express roared along the same track. The crashwas horrible. Engine and carriages piled themselves into a hill ofsplintered wood and twisted iron. Red spurts of flame flickered up fromthe wreckage until it was all ablaze. For half an hour we sat withhardly a word, stunned by the stupendous sight.

"Poor, poor people!" cried Mrs. Challenger at last, clinging with awhimper to her husband's arm.

"My dear, the passengers on that train were no more animate than thecoals into which they crashed or the carbon which they have now become,"said Challenger, stroking her hand soothingly. "It was a train of theliving when it left Victoria, but it was driven and freighted by the deadlong before it reached its fate."

"All over the world the same thing must be going on," said I as a visionof strange happenings rose before me. "Think of the ships at sea—howthey will steam on and on, until the furnaces die down or until they runfull tilt upon some beach. The sailing ships too—how they will back andfill with their cargoes of dead sailors, while their timbers rot andtheir joints leak, till one by one they sink below the surface. Perhapsa century hence the Atlantic may still be dotted with the old driftingderelicts."

"And the folk in the coal-mines," said Summerlee with a dismal chuckle."If ever geologists should by any chance live upon earth again they willhave some strange theories of the existence of man in carboniferousstrata."

"I don't profess to know about such things," remarked Lord John, "but itseems to me the earth will be 'To let, empty,' after this. When once ourhuman crowd is wiped off it, how will it ever get on again?"

"The world was empty before," Challenger answered gravely. "Under lawswhich in their inception are beyond and above us, it became peopled. Whymay the same process not happen again?"

"My dear Challenger, you can't mean that?"

"I am not in the habit, Professor Summerlee, of saying things which I donot mean. The observation is trivial." Out went the beard and down camethe eyelids.

"Well, you lived an obstinate dogmatist, and you mean to die one," saidSummerlee sourly.

"And you, sir, have lived an unimaginative obstructionist and never canhope now to emerge from it."

"Your worst critics will never accuse you of lacking imagination,"Summerlee retorted.

"Upon my word!" said Lord John. "It would be like you if you used up ourlast gasp of oxygen in abusing each other. What can it matter whetherfolk come back or not? It surely won't be in our time."

"In that remark, sir, you betray your own very pronounced limitations,"said Challenger severely. "The true scientific mind is not to be tieddown by its own conditions of time and space. It builds itself anobservatory erected upon the border line of present, which separates theinfinite past from the infinite future. From this sure post it makes itssallies even to the beginning and to the end of all things. As to death,the scientific mind dies at its post working in normal and methodicfashion to the end. It disregards so petty a thing as its own physicaldissolution as completely as it does all other limitations upon the planeof matter. Am I right, Professor Summerlee?"

Summerlee grumbled an ungracious assent.

"With certain reservations, I agree," said he.

"The ideal scientific mind," continued Challenger—"I put it in the thirdperson rather than appear to be too self-complacent—the ideal scientificmind should be capable of thinking out a point of abstract knowledge inthe interval between its owner falling from a balloon and reaching theearth. Men of this strong fibre are needed to form the conquerors ofnature and the bodyguard of truth."

"It strikes me nature's on top this time," said Lord John, looking out ofthe window. "I've read some leadin' articles about you gentlemencontrollin' her, but she's gettin' a bit of her own back."

"It is but a temporary setback," said Challenger with conviction. "A fewmillion years, what are they in the great cycle of time? The vegetableworld has, as you can see, survived. Look at the leaves of that planetree. The birds are dead, but the plant flourishes. From this vegetablelife in pond and in marsh will come, in time, the tiny crawlingmicroscopic slugs which are the pioneers of that great army of life inwhich for the instant we five have the extraordinary duty of serving asrear guard. Once the lowest form of life has established itself, thefinal advent of man is as certain as the growth of the oak from theacorn. The old circle will swing round once more."

"But the poison?" I asked. "Will that not nip life in the bud?"

"The poison may be a mere stratum or layer in the ether—a mephitic GulfStream across that mighty ocean in which we float. Or tolerance may beestablished and life accommodate itself to a new condition. The merefact that with a comparatively small hyperoxygenation of our blood we canhold out against it is surely a proof in itself that no very great changewould be needed to enable animal life to endure it."

The smoking house beyond the trees had burst into flames. We could seethe high tongues of fire shooting up into the air.

"It's pretty awful," muttered Lord John, more impressed than I had everseen him.

"Well, after all, what does it matter?" I remarked. "The world is dead.Cremation is surely the best burial."

"It would shorten us up if this house went ablaze."

"I foresaw the danger," said Challenger, "and asked my wife to guardagainst it."

"Everything is quite safe, dear. But my head begins to throb again.What a dreadful atmosphere!"

"We must change it," said Challenger. He bent over his cylinder ofoxygen.

"It's nearly empty," said he. "It has lasted us some three and a halfhours. It is now close on eight o'clock. We shall get through the nightcomfortably. I should expect the end about nine o'clock to-morrowmorning. We shall see one sunrise, which shall be all our own."

He turned on his second tube and opened for half a minute the fanlightover the door. Then as the air became perceptibly better, but our ownsymptoms more acute, he closed it once again.

"By the way," said he, "man does not live upon oxygen alone. It's dinnertime and over. I assure you, gentlemen, that when I invited you to myhome and to what I had hoped would be an interesting reunion, I hadintended that my kitchen should justify itself. However, we must do whatwe can. I am sure that you will agree with me that it would be folly toconsume our air too rapidly by lighting an oil-stove. I have some smallprovision of cold meats, bread, and pickles which, with a couple ofbottles of claret, may serve our turn. Thank you, my dear—now as everyou are the queen of managers."

It was indeed wonderful how, with the self-respect and sense of proprietyof the British housekeeper, the lady had within a few minutes adorned thecentral table with a snow-white cloth, laid the napkins upon it, and setforth the simple meal with all the elegance of civilization, including anelectric torch lamp in the centre. Wonderful also was it to find thatour appetites were ravenous.

"It is the measure of our emotion," said Challenger with that air ofcondescension with which he brought his scientific mind to theexplanation of humble facts. "We have gone through a great crisis. Thatmeans molecular disturbance. That in turn means the need for repair.Great sorrow or great joy should bring intense hunger—not abstinencefrom food, as our novelists will have it."

"That's why the country folk have great feasts at funerals," I hazarded.

"Exactly. Our young friend has hit upon an excellent illustration. Letme give you another slice of tongue."

"The same with savages," said Lord John, cutting away at the beef. "I'veseen them buryin' a chief up the Aruwimi River, and they ate a hippo thatmust have weighed as much as a tribe. There are some of them down NewGuinea way that eat the late-lamented himself, just by way of a last tidyup. Well, of all the funeral feasts on this earth, I suppose the one weare takin' is the queerest."

"The strange thing is," said Mrs. Challenger, "that I find it impossibleto feel grief for those who are gone. There are my father and mother atBedford. I know that they are dead, and yet in this tremendous universaltragedy I can feel no sharp sorrow for any individuals, even for them."

"And my old mother in her cottage in Ireland," said I. "I can see her inmy mind's eye, with her shawl and her lace cap, lying back with closedeyes in the old high-backed chair near the window, her glasses and herbook beside her. Why should I mourn her? She has passed and I ampassing, and I may be nearer her in some other life than England is toIreland. Yet I grieve to think that that dear body is no more."

"As to the body," remarked Challenger, "we do not mourn over the paringsof our nails nor the cut locks of our hair, though they were once part ofourselves. Neither does a one-legged man yearn sentimentally over hismissing member. The physical body has rather been a source of pain andfatigue to us. It is the constant index of our limitations. Why thenshould we worry about its detachment from our psychical selves?"

"If they can indeed be detached," Summerlee grumbled. "But, anyhow,universal death is dreadful."

"As I have already explained," said Challenger, "a universal death mustin its nature be far less terrible than a isolated one."

"Same in a battle," remarked Lord John. "If you saw a single man lyingon that floor with his chest knocked in and a hole in his face it wouldturn you sick. But I've seen ten thousand on their backs in the Soudan,and it gave me no such feelin', for when you are makin' history the lifeof any man is too small a thing to worry over. When a thousand millionpass over together, same as happened to-day, you can't pick your ownpartic'lar out of the crowd."

"I wish it were well over with us," said the lady wistfully. "Oh,George, I am so frightened."

"You'll be the bravest of us all, little lady, when the time comes. I'vebeen a blusterous old husband to you, dear, but you'll just bear in mindthat G. E. C. is as he was made and couldn't help himself. After all,you wouldn't have had anyone else?"

"No one in the whole wide world, dear," said she, and put her arms roundhis bull neck. We three walked to the window and stood amazed at thesight which met our eyes.

Darkness had fallen and the dead world was shrouded in gloom. But rightacross the southern horizon was one long vivid scarlet streak, waxing andwaning in vivid pulses of life, leaping suddenly to a crimson zenith andthen dying down to a glowing line of fire.

"Lewes is ablaze!"

"No, it is Brighton which is burning," said Challenger, stepping acrossto join us. "You can see the curved back of the downs against the glow.That fire is miles on the farther side of it. The whole town must bealight."

There were several red glares at different points, and the pile ofdebrisupon the railway line was still smoldering darkly, but they allseemed mere pin-points of light compared to that monstrous conflagrationthrobbing beyond the hills. What copy it would have made for theGazette! Had ever a journalist such an opening and so little chance ofusing it—the scoop of scoops, and no one to appreciate it? And then,suddenly, the old instinct of recording came over me. If these men ofscience could be so true to their life's work to the very end, why shouldnot I, in my humble way, be as constant? No human eye might ever restupon what I had done. But the long night had to be passed somehow, andfor me at least, sleep seemed to be out of the question. My notes wouldhelp to pass the weary hours and to occupy my thoughts. Thus it is thatnow I have before me the notebook with its scribbled pages, writtenconfusedly upon my knee in the dim, waning light of our one electrictorch. Had I the literary touch, they might have been worthy of theoccasion. As it is, they may still serve to bring to other minds thelong-drawn emotions and tremors of that awful night.

Chapter IV

A DIARY OF THE DYING

How strange the words look scribbled at the top of the empty page of mybook! How stranger still that it is I, Edward Malone, who have writtenthem—I who started only some twelve hours ago from my rooms in Streathamwithout one thought of the marvels which the day was to bring forth! Ilook back at the chain of incidents, my interview with McArdle,Challenger's first note of alarm in the Times, the absurd journey in thetrain, the pleasant luncheon, the catastrophe, and now it has come tothis—that we linger alone upon an empty planet, and so sure is our fatethat I can regard these lines, written from mechanical professional habitand never to be seen by human eyes, as the words of one who is alreadydead, so closely does he stand to the shadowed borderland over which alloutside this one little circle of friends have already gone. I feel howwise and true were the words of Challenger when he said that the realtragedy would be if we were left behind when all that is noble and goodand beautiful had passed. But of that there can surely be no danger.Already our second tube of oxygen is drawing to an end. We can count thepoor dregs of our lives almost to a minute.

We have just been treated to a lecture, a good quarter of an hour long,from Challenger, who was so excited that he roared and bellowed as if hewere addressing his old rows of scientific sceptics in the Queen's Hall.He had certainly a strange audience to harangue: his wife perfectlyacquiescent and absolutely ignorant of his meaning, Summerlee seated inthe shadow, querulous and critical but interested, Lord John lounging ina corner somewhat bored by the whole proceeding, and myself beside thewindow watching the scene with a kind of detached attention, as if itwere all a dream or something in which I had no personal interestwhatever. Challenger sat at the centre table with the electric lightilluminating the slide under the microscope which he had brought from hisdressing room. The small vivid circle of white light from the mirrorleft half of his rugged, bearded face in brilliant radiance and half indeepest shadow. He had, it seems, been working of late upon the lowestforms of life, and what excited him at the present moment was that in themicroscopic slide made up the day before he found the amoeba to be stillalive.

"You can see it for yourselves," he kept repeating in great excitement."Summerlee, will you step across and satisfy yourself upon the point?Malone, will you kindly verify what I say? The little spindle-shapedthings in the centre are diatoms and may be disregarded since they areprobably vegetable rather than animal. But the right-hand side you willsee an undoubted amoeba, moving sluggishly across the field. The upperscrew is the fine adjustment. Look at it for yourselves."

Summerlee did so and acquiesced. So did I and perceived a littlecreature which looked as if it were made of ground glass flowing in asticky way across the lighted circle. Lord John was prepared to take himon trust.

"I'm not troublin' my head whether he's alive or dead," said he. "Wedon't so much as know each other by sight, so why should I take it toheart? I don't suppose he's worryin' himself over the state of ourhealth."

I laughed at this, and Challenger looked in my direction with his coldestand most supercilious stare. It was a most petrifying experience.

"The flippancy of the half-educated is more obstructive to science thanthe obtuseness of the ignorant," said he. "If Lord John Roxton wouldcondescend——"

"My dear George, don't be so peppery," said his wife, with her hand onthe black mane that drooped over the microscope. "What can it matterwhether the amoeba is alive or not?"

"It matters a great deal," said Challenger gruffly.

"Well, let's hear about it," said Lord John with a good-humoured smile."We may as well talk about that as anything else. If you think I've beentoo off-hand with the thing, or hurt its feelin's in any way, I'llapologize."

"For my part," remarked Summerlee in his creaky, argumentative voice, "Ican't see why you should attach such importance to the creature beingalive. It is in the same atmosphere as ourselves, so naturally thepoison does not act upon it. If it were outside of this room it would bedead, like all other animal life."

"Your remarks, my good Summerlee," said Challenger with enormouscondescension (oh, if I could paint that over-bearing, arrogant face inthe vivid circle of reflection from the microscope mirror!)—"yourremarks show that you imperfectly appreciate the situation. Thisspecimen was mounted yesterday and is hermetically sealed. None of ouroxygen can reach it. But the ether, of course, has penetrated to it, asto every other point upon the universe. Therefore, it has survived thepoison. Hence, we may argue that every amoeba outside this room, insteadof being dead, as you have erroneously stated, has really survived thecatastrophe."

"Well, even now I don't feel inclined to hip-hurrah about it," said LordJohn. "What does it matter?"

"It just matters this, that the world is a living instead of a dead one.If you had the scientific imagination, you would cast your mind forwardfrom this one fact, and you would see some few millions of years hence—amere passing moment in the enormous flux of the ages—the whole worldteeming once more with the animal and human life which will spring fromthis tiny root. You have seen a prairie fire where the flames have sweptevery trace of grass or plant from the surface of the earth and left onlya blackened waste. You would think that it must be forever desert. Yetthe roots of growth have been left behind, and when you pass the place afew years hence you can no longer tell where the black scars used to be.Here in this tiny creature are the roots of growth of the animal world,and by its inherent development, and evolution, it will surely in timeremove every trace of this incomparable crisis in which we are nowinvolved."

"Dooced interestin'!" said Lord John, lounging across and looking throughthe microscope. "Funny little chap to hang number one among the familyportraits. Got a fine big shirt-stud on him!"

"The dark object is his nucleus," said Challenger with the air of a nurseteaching letters to a baby.

"Well, we needn't feel lonely," said Lord John laughing. "There'ssomebody livin' besides us on the earth."

"You seem to take it for granted, Challenger," said Summerlee, "that theobject for which this world was created was that it should produce andsustain human life."

"Well, sir, and what object do you suggest?" asked Challenger, bristlingat the least hint of contradiction.

"Sometimes I think that it is only the monstrous conceit of mankind whichmakes him think that all this stage was erected for him to strut upon."

"We cannot be dogmatic about it, but at least without what you haveventured to call monstrous conceit we can surely say that we are thehighest thing in nature."

"The highest of which we have cognizance."

"That, sir, goes without saying."

"Think of all the millions and possibly billions of years that the earthswung empty through space—or, if not empty, at least without a sign orthought of the human race. Think of it, washed by the rain and scorchedby the sun and swept by the wind for those unnumbered ages. Man onlycame into being yesterday so far as geological times goes. Why, then,should it be taken for granted that all this stupendous preparation wasfor his benefit?"

"For whose then—or for what?"

Summerlee shrugged his shoulders.

"How can we tell? For some reason altogether beyond our conception—andman may have been a mere accident, a by-product evolved in the process.It is as if the scum upon the surface of the ocean imagined that theocean was created in order to produce and sustain it, or a mouse in acathedral thought that the building was its own proper ordainedresidence."

I have jotted down the very words of their argument, but now itdegenerates into a mere noisy wrangle with much polysyllabic scientificjargon upon each side. It is no doubt a privilege to hear two suchbrains discuss the highest questions; but as they are in perpetualdisagreement, plain folk like Lord John and I get little that is positivefrom the exhibition. They neutralize each other and we are left as theyfound us. Now the hubbub has ceased, and Summerlee is coiled up in hischair, while Challenger, still fingering the screws of his microscope, iskeeping up a continual low, deep, inarticulate growl like the sea after astorm. Lord John comes over to me, and we look out together into thenight.

There is a pale new moon—the last moon that human eyes will ever restupon—and the stars are most brilliant. Even in the clear plateau air ofSouth America I have never seen them brighter. Possibly this ethericchange has some effect upon light. The funeral pyre of Brighton is stillblazing, and there is a very distant patch of scarlet in the western sky,which may mean trouble at Arundel or Chichester, possibly even atPortsmouth. I sit and muse and make an occasional note. There is asweet melancholy in the air. Youth and beauty and chivalry and love—isthis to be the end of it all? The starlit earth looks a dreamland ofgentle peace. Who would imagine it as the terrible Golgotha strewn withthe bodies of the human race? Suddenly, I find myself laughing.

"Halloa, young fellah!" says Lord John, staring at me in surprise. "Wecould do with a joke in these hard times. What was it, then?"

"I was thinking of all the great unsolved questions," I answer, "thequestions that we spent so much labor and thought over. Think ofAnglo-German competition, for example—or the Persian Gulf that my oldchief was so keen about. Whoever would have guessed, when we fumed andfretted so, how they were to be eventually solved?"

We fall into silence again. I fancy that each of us is thinking offriends that have gone before. Mrs. Challenger is sobbing quietly, andher husband is whispering to her. My mind turns to all the most unlikelypeople, and I see each of them lying white and rigid as poor Austin doesin the yard. There is McArdle, for example, I know exactly where he is,with his face upon his writing desk and his hand on his own telephone,just as I heard him fall. Beaumont, the editor, too—I suppose he islying upon the blue-and-red Turkey carpet which adorned his sanctum. Andthe fellows in the reporters' room—Macdona and Murray and Bond. Theyhad certainly died hard at work on their job, with note-books full ofvivid impressions and strange happenings in their hands. I could justimagine how this one would have been packed off to the doctors, and thatother to Westminster, and yet a third to St. Paul's. What glorious rowsof head-lines they must have seen as a last vision beautiful, neverdestined to materialize in printer's ink! I could see Macdona among thedoctors—"Hope in Harley Street"—Mac had always a weakness foralliteration. "Interview with Mr. Soley Wilson." "Famous Specialist says'Never despair!'" "Our Special Correspondent found the eminent scientistseated upon the roof, whither he had retreated to avoid the crowd ofterrified patients who had stormed his dwelling. With a manner whichplainly showed his appreciation of the immense gravity of the occasion,the celebrated physician refused to admit that every avenue of hope hadbeen closed." That's how Mac would start. Then there was Bond; he wouldprobably do St. Paul's. He fancied his own literary touch. My word,what a theme for him! "Standing in the little gallery under the dome andlooking down upon that packed mass of despairing humanity, groveling atthis last instant before a Power which they had so persistently ignored,there rose to my ears from the swaying crowd such a low moan of entreatyand terror, such a shuddering cry for help to the Unknown, that——" andso forth.

Yes, it would be a great end for a reporter, though, like myself, hewould die with the treasures still unused. What would Bond not give,poor chap, to see "J. H. B." at the foot of a column like that?

But what drivel I am writing! It is just an attempt to pass the wearytime. Mrs. Challenger has gone to the inner dressing-room, and theProfessor says that she is asleep. He is making notes and consultingbooks at the central table, as calmly as if years of placid work laybefore him. He writes with a very noisy quill pen which seems to bescreeching scorn at all who disagree with him.

Summerlee has dropped off in his chair and gives from time to time apeculiarly exasperating snore. Lord John lies back with his hands in hispockets and his eyes closed. How people can sleep under such conditionsis more than I can imagine.

Three-thirty a.m. I have just wakened with a start. It was five minutespast eleven when I made my last entry. I remember winding up my watchand noting the time. So I have wasted some five hours of the little spanstill left to us. Who would have believed it possible? But I feel verymuch fresher, and ready for my fate—or try to persuade myself that I am.And yet, the fitter a man is, and the higher his tide of life, the moremust he shrink from death. How wise and how merciful is that provisionof nature by which his earthly anchor is usually loosened by many littleimperceptible tugs, until his consciousness has drifted out of itsuntenable earthly harbor into the great sea beyond!

Mrs. Challenger is still in the dressing room. Challenger has fallenasleep in his chair. What a picture! His enormous frame leans back, hishuge, hairy hands are clasped across his waistcoat, and his head is sotilted that I can see nothing above his collar save a tangled bristle ofluxuriant beard. He shakes with the vibration of his own snoring.Summerlee adds his occasional high tenor to Challenger's sonorous bass.Lord John is sleeping also, his long body doubled up sideways in abasket-chair. The first cold light of dawn is just stealing into theroom, and everything is grey and mournful.

I look out at the sunrise—that fateful sunrise which will shine upon anunpeopled world. The human race is gone, extinguished in a day, but theplanets swing round and the tides rise or fall, and the wind whispers,and all nature goes her way, down, as it would seem, to the very amoeba,with never a sign that he who styled himself the lord of creation hadever blessed or cursed the universe with his presence. Down in the yardlies Austin with sprawling limbs, his face glimmering white in the dawn,and the hose nozzle still projecting from his dead hand. The whole ofhuman kind is typified in that one half-ludicrous and half-patheticfigure, lying so helpless beside the machine which it used to control.

Here end the notes which I made at the time. Henceforward events weretoo swift and too poignant to allow me to write, but they are too clearlyoutlined in my memory that any detail could escape me.

Some chokiness in my throat made me look at the oxygen cylinders, and Iwas startled at what I saw. The sands of our lives were running verylow. At some period in the night Challenger had switched the tube fromthe third to the fourth cylinder. Now it was clear that this also wasnearly exhausted. That horrible feeling of constriction was closing inupon me. I ran across and, unscrewing the nozzle, I changed it to ourlast supply. Even as I did so my conscience pricked me, for I felt thatperhaps if I had held my hand all of them might have passed in theirsleep. The thought was banished, however, by the voice of the lady fromthe inner room crying:—

"George, George, I am stifling!"

"It is all right, Mrs. Challenger," I answered as the others started totheir feet. "I have just turned on a fresh supply."

Even at such a moment I could not help smiling at Challenger, who with agreat hairy fist in each eye was like a huge, bearded baby, new wakenedout of sleep. Summerlee was shivering like a man with the ague, humanfears, as he realized his position, rising for an instant above thestoicism of the man of science. Lord John, however, was as cool andalert as if he had just been roused on a hunting morning.

"Fifthly and lastly," said he, glancing at the tube. "Say, young fellah,don't tell me you've been writin' up your impressions in that paper onyour knee."

"Just a few notes to pass the time."

"Well, I don't believe anyone but an Irishman would have done that. Iexpect you'll have to wait till little brother amoeba gets grown upbefore you'll find a reader. He don't seem to take much stock of thingsjust at present. Well, Herr Professor, what are the prospects?"

Challenger was looking out at the great drifts of morning mist which layover the landscape. Here and there the wooded hills rose like conicalislands out of this woolly sea.

"It might be a winding sheet," said Mrs. Challenger, who had entered inher dressing-gown. "There's that song of yours, George, 'Ring out theold, ring in the new.' It was prophetic. But you are shivering, my poordear friends. I have been warm under a coverlet all night, and you coldin your chairs. But I'll soon set you right."

The brave little creature hurried away, and presently we heard thesizzling of a kettle. She was back soon with five steaming cups of cocoaupon a tray.

"Drink these," said she. "You will feel so much better."

And we did. Summerlee asked if he might light his pipe, and we all hadcigarettes. It steadied our nerves, I think, but it was a mistake, forit made a dreadful atmosphere in that stuffy room. Challenger had toopen the ventilator.

"How long, Challenger?" asked Lord John.

"Possibly three hours," he answered with a shrug.

"I used to be frightened," said his wife. "But the nearer I get to it,the easier it seems. Don't you think we ought to pray, George?"

"You will pray, dear, if you wish," the big man answered, very gently."We all have our own ways of praying. Mine is a complete acquiescence inwhatever fate may send me—a cheerful acquiescence. The highest religionand the highest science seem to unite on that."

"I cannot truthfully describe my mental attitude as acquiescence and farless cheerful acquiescence," grumbled Summerlee over his pipe. "I submitbecause I have to. I confess that I should have liked another year oflife to finish my classification of the chalk fossils."

"Your unfinished work is a small thing," said Challenger pompously, "whenweighed against the fact that my own magnum opus, 'The Ladder of Life,'is still in the first stages. My brain, my reading, my experience—infact, my whole unique equipment—were to be condensed into thatepoch-making volume. And yet, as I say, I acquiesce."

"I expect we've all left some loose ends stickin' out," said Lord John."What are yours, young fellah?"

"I was working at a book of verses," I answered.

"Well, the world has escaped that, anyhow," said Lord John. "There'salways compensation somewhere if you grope around."

"What about you?" I asked.

"Well, it just so happens that I was tidied up and ready. I'd promisedMerivale to go to Tibet for a snow leopard in the spring. But it's hardon you, Mrs. Challenger, when you have just built up this pretty home."

"Where George is, there is my home. But, oh, what would I not give forone last walk together in the fresh morning air upon those beautifuldowns!"

Our hearts re-echoed her words. The sun had burst through the gauzymists which veiled it, and the whole broad Weald was washed in goldenlight. Sitting in our dark and poisonous atmosphere that glorious,clean, wind-swept countryside seemed a very dream of beauty. Mrs.Challenger held her hand stretched out to it in her longing. We drew upchairs and sat in a semicircle in the window. The atmosphere was alreadyvery close. It seemed to me that the shadows of death were drawing inupon us—the last of our race. It was like an invisible curtain closingdown upon every side.

"That cylinder is not lastin' too well," said Lord John with a long gaspfor breath.

"The amount contained is variable," said Challenger, "depending upon thepressure and care with which it has been bottled. I am inclined to agreewith you, Roxton, that this one is defective."

"So we are to be cheated out of the last hour of our lives," Summerleeremarked bitterly. "An excellent final illustration of the sordid age inwhich we have lived. Well, Challenger, now is your time if you wish tostudy the subjective phenomena of physical dissolution."

"Sit on the stool at my knee and give me your hand," said Challenger tohis wife. "I think, my friends, that a further delay in thisinsufferable atmosphere is hardly advisable. You would not desire it,dear, would you?"

His wife gave a little groan and sank her face against his leg.

"I've seen the folk bathin' in the Serpentine in winter," said Lord John."When the rest are in, you see one or two shiverin' on the bank, envyin'the others that have taken the plunge. It's the last that have the worstof it. I'm all for a header and have done with it."

"You would open the window and face the ether?"

"Better be poisoned than stifled."

Summerlee nodded his reluctant acquiescence and held out his thin hand toChallenger.

"We've had our quarrels in our time, but that's all over," said he. "Wewere good friends and had a respect for each other under the surface.Good-by!"

"Good-by, young fellah!" said Lord John. "The window's plastered up.You can't open it."

Challenger stooped and raised his wife, pressing her to his breast, whileshe threw her arms round his neck.

"Give me that field-glass, Malone," said he gravely.

I handed it to him.

"Into the hands of the Power that made us we render ourselves again!" heshouted in his voice of thunder, and at the words he hurled thefield-glass through the window.

Full in our flushed faces, before the last tinkle of falling fragmentshad died away, there came the wholesome breath of the wind, blowingstrong and sweet.

I don't know how long we sat in amazed silence. Then as in a dream, Iheard Challenger's voice once more.

"We are back in normal conditions," he cried. "The world has cleared thepoison belt, but we alone of all mankind are saved."

Chapter V

THE DEAD WORLD

I remember that we all sat gasping in our chairs, with that sweet, wetsouth-western breeze, fresh from the sea, flapping the muslin curtainsand cooling our flushed faces. I wonder how long we sat! None of usafterwards could agree at all on that point. We were bewildered,stunned, semi-conscious. We had all braced our courage for death, butthis fearful and sudden new fact—that we must continue to live after wehad survived the race to which we belonged—struck us with the shock of aphysical blow and left us prostrate. Then gradually the suspendedmechanism began to move once more; the shuttles of memory worked; ideasweaved themselves together in our minds. We saw, with vivid, mercilessclearness, the relations between the past, the present, and thefuture—the lives that we had led and the lives which we would have tolive. Our eyes turned in silent horror upon those of our companions andfound the same answering look in theirs. Instead of the joy which menmight have been expected to feel who had so narrowly escaped an imminentdeath, a terrible wave of darkest depression submerged us. Everything onearth that we loved had been washed away into the great, infinite,unknown ocean, and here were we marooned upon this desert island of aworld, without companions, hopes, or aspirations. A few years' skulkinglike jackals among the graves of the human race and then our belated andlonely end would come.

"It's dreadful, George, dreadful!" the lady cried in an agony of sobs."If we had only passed with the others! Oh, why did you save us? I feelas if it is we that are dead and everyone else alive."

Challenger's great eyebrows were drawn down in concentrated thought,while his huge, hairy paw closed upon the outstretched hand of his wife.I had observed that she always held out her arms to him in trouble as achild would to its mother.

"Without being a fatalist to the point of nonresistance," said he, "Ihave always found that the highest wisdom lies in an acquiescence withthe actual." He spoke slowly, and there was a vibration of feeling inhis sonorous voice.

"I do notacquiesce," said Summerlee firmly.

"I don't see that it matters a row of pins whether you acquiesce orwhether you don't," remarked Lord John. "You've got to take it, whetheryou take it fightin' or take it lyin' down, so what's the odds whetheryou acquiesce or not?

"I can't remember that anyone asked our permission before the thingbegan, and nobody's likely to ask it now. So what difference can it makewhat we may think of it?"

"It is just all the difference between happiness and misery," saidChallenger with an abstracted face, still patting his wife's hand. "Youcan swim with the tide and have peace in mind and soul, or you can thrustagainst it and be bruised and weary. This business is beyond us, so letus accept it as it stands and say no more."

"But what in the world are we to do with our lives?" I asked, appealingin desperation to the blue, empty heaven.

"What am I to do, for example? There are no newspapers, so there's anend of my vocation."

"And there's nothin' left to shoot, and no more soldierin', so there's anend of mine," said Lord John.

"And there are no students, so there's an end of mine," cried Summerlee.

"But I have my husband and my house, so I can thank heaven that there isno end of mine," said the lady.

"Nor is there an end of mine," remarked Challenger, "for science is notdead, and this catastrophe in itself will offer us many most absorbingproblems for investigation."

He had now flung open the windows and we were gazing out upon the silentand motionless landscape.

"Let me consider," he continued. "It was about three, or a little after,yesterday afternoon that the world finally entered the poison belt to theextent of being completely submerged. It is now nine o'clock. Thequestion is, at what hour did we pass out from it?"

"The air was very bad at daybreak," said I.

"Later than that," said Mrs. Challenger. "As late as eight o'clock Idistinctly felt the same choking at my throat which came at the outset."

"Then we shall say that it passed just after eight o'clock. Forseventeen hours the world has been soaked in the poisonous ether. Forthat length of time the Great Gardener has sterilized the human moldwhich had grown over the surface of His fruit. Is it possible that thework is incompletely done—that others may have survived besidesourselves?"

"That's what I was wonderin'," said Lord John. "Why should we be the onlypebbles on the beach?"

"It is absurd to suppose that anyone besides ourselves can possibly havesurvived," said Summerlee with conviction. "Consider that the poison wasso virulent that even a man who is as strong as an ox and has not a nervein his body, like Malone here, could hardly get up the stairs before hefell unconscious. Is it likely that anyone could stand seventeen minutesof it, far less hours?"

"Unless someone saw it coming and made preparation, same as old friendChallenger did."

"That, I think, is hardly probable," said Challenger, projecting hisbeard and sinking his eyelids. "The combination of observation,inference, and anticipatory imagination which enabled me to foresee thedanger is what one can hardly expect twice in the same generation."

"Then your conclusion is that everyone is certainly dead?"

"There can be little doubt of that. We have to remember, however, thatthe poison worked from below upwards and would possibly be less virulentin the higher strata of the atmosphere. It is strange, indeed, that itshould be so; but it presents one of those features which will afford usin the future a fascinating field for study. One could imagine,therefore, that if one had to search for survivors one would turn one'seyes with best hopes of success to some Tibetan village or some Alpinefarm, many thousands of feet above the sea level."

"Well, considerin' that there are no railroads and no steamers you mightas well talk about survivors in the moon," said Lord John. "But what I'maskin' myself is whether it's really over or whether it's only half-time."

Summerlee craned his neck to look round the horizon. "It seems clear andfine," said he in a very dubious voice; "but so it did yesterday. I amby no means assured that it is all over."

Challenger shrugged his shoulders.

"We must come back once more to our fatalism," said he. "If the worldhas undergone this experience before, which is not outside the range ofpossibility, it was certainly a very long time ago. Therefore, we mayreasonably hope that it will be very long before it occurs again."

"That's all very well," said Lord John, "but if you get an earthquakeshock you are mighty likely to have a second one right on the top of it.I think we'd be wise to stretch our legs and have a breath of air whilewe have the chance. Since our oxygen is exhausted we may just as well becaught outside as in."

It was strange the absolute lethargy which had come upon us as a reactionafter our tremendous emotions of the last twenty-four hours. It was bothmental and physical, a deep-lying feeling that nothing mattered and thateverything was a weariness and a profitless exertion. Even Challengerhad succumbed to it, and sat in his chair, with his great head leaningupon his hands and his thoughts far away, until Lord John and I, catchinghim by each arm, fairly lifted him on to his feet, receiving only theglare and growl of an angry mastiff for our trouble. However, once wehad got out of our narrow haven of refuge into the wider atmosphere ofeveryday life, our normal energy came gradually back to us once more.

But what were we to begin to do in that graveyard of a world? Could evermen have been faced with such a question since the dawn of time? It istrue that our own physical needs, and even our luxuries, were assured forthe future. All the stores of food, all the vintages of wine, all thetreasures of art were ours for the taking. But what were we to do?Some few tasks appealed to us at once, since they lay ready to our hands.We descended into the kitchen and laid the two domestics upon theirrespective beds. They seemed to have died without suffering, one in thechair by the fire, the other upon the scullery floor. Then we carried inpoor Austin from the yard. His muscles were set as hard as a board inthe most exaggerated rigor mortis, while the contraction of the fibreshad drawn his mouth into a hard sardonic grin. This symptom wasprevalent among all who had died from the poison. Wherever we went wewere confronted by those grinning faces, which seemed to mock at ourdreadful position, smiling silently and grimly at the ill-fated survivorsof their race.

"Look here," said Lord John, who had paced restlessly about thedining-room whilst we partook of some food, "I don't know how you fellowsfeel about it, but for my part, I simply can'tsit here and do nothin'."

"Perhaps," Challenger answered, "you would have the kindness to suggestwhat you think we ought to do."

"Get a move on us and see all that has happened."

"That is what I should myself propose."

"But not in this little country village. We can see from the window allthat this place can teach us."

"Where should we go, then?"

"To London!"

"That's all very well," grumbled Summerlee. "You may be equal to aforty-mile walk, but I'm not so sure about Challenger, with his stumpylegs, and I am perfectly sure about myself." Challenger was very muchannoyed.

"If you could see your way, sir, to confining your remarks to your ownphysical peculiarities, you would find that you had an ample field forcomment," he cried.

"I had no intention to offend you, my dear Challenger," cried ourtactless friend. "You can't be held responsible for your own physique.If nature has given you a short, heavy body you cannot possibly helphaving stumpy legs."

Challenger was too furious to answer. He could only growl and blink andbristle. Lord John hastened to intervene before the dispute became moreviolent.

"You talk of walking. Why should we walk?" said he.

"Do you suggest taking a train?" asked Challenger, still simmering.

"What's the matter with the motor-car? Why should we not go in that?"

"I am not an expert," said Challenger, pulling at his beard reflectively."At the same time, you are right in supposing that the human intellect inits higher manifestations should be sufficiently flexible to turn itselfto anything. Your idea is an excellent one, Lord John. I myself willdrive you all to London."

"You will do nothing of the kind," said Summerlee with decision.

"No, indeed, George!" cried his wife. "You only tried once, and youremember how you crashed through the gate of the garage."

"It was a momentary want of concentration," said Challenger complacently."You can consider the matter settled. I will certainly drive you all toLondon."

The situation was relieved by Lord John.

"What's the car?" he asked.

"A twenty-horsepower Humber."

"Why, I've driven one for years," said he. "By George!" he added. "Inever thought I'd live to take the whole human race in one load. There'sjust room for five, as I remember it. Get your things on, and I'll beready at the door by ten o'clock."

Sure enough, at the hour named, the car came purring and crackling fromthe yard with Lord John at the wheel. I took my seat beside him, whilethe lady, a useful little buffer state, was squeezed in between the twomen of wrath at the back. Then Lord John released his brakes, slid hislever rapidly from first to third, and we sped off upon the strangestdrive that ever human beings have taken since man first came upon theearth.

You are to picture the loveliness of nature upon that August day, thefreshness of the morning air, the golden glare of the summer sunshine,the cloudless sky, the luxuriant green of the Sussex woods, and the deeppurple of heather-clad downs. As you looked round upon the many-colouredbeauty of the scene all thought of a vast catastrophe would have passedfrom your mind had it not been for one sinister sign—the solemn,all-embracing silence. There is a gentle hum of life which pervades aclosely-settled country, so deep and constant that one ceases to observeit, as the dweller by the sea loses all sense of the constant murmur ofthe waves. The twitter of birds, the buzz of insects, the far-off echoof voices, the lowing of cattle, the distant barking of dogs, roar oftrains, and rattle of carts—all these form one low, unremitting note,striking unheeded upon the ear. We missed it now. This deadly silencewas appalling. So solemn was it, so impressive, that the buzz and rattleof our motor-car seemed an unwarrantable intrusion, an indecent disregardof this reverent stillness which lay like a pall over and round the ruinsof humanity. It was this grim hush, and the tall clouds of smoke whichrose here and there over the country-side from smoldering buildings,which cast a chill into our hearts as we gazed round at the gloriouspanorama of the Weald.

And then there were the dead! At first those endless groups of drawn andgrinning faces filled us with a shuddering horror. So vivid and mordantwas the impression that I can live over again that slow descent of thestation hill, the passing by the nurse-girl with the two babes, the sightof the old horse on his knees between the shafts, the cabman twistedacross his seat, and the young man inside with his hand upon the opendoor in the very act of springing out. Lower down were six reapers allin a litter, their limbs crossing, their dead, unwinking eyes gazingupwards at the glare of heaven. These things I see as in a photograph.But soon, by the merciful provision of nature, the over-excited nerveceased to respond. The very vastness of the horror took away from itspersonal appeal. Individuals merged into groups, groups into crowds,crowds into a universal phenomenon which one soon accepted as theinevitable detail of every scene. Only here and there, where someparticularly brutal or grotesque incident caught the attention, did themind come back with a sudden shock to the personal and human meaning ofit all.

Above all, there was the fate of the children. That, I remember, filledus with the strongest sense of intolerable injustice. We could havewept—Mrs. Challenger did weep—when we passed a great council school andsaw the long trail of tiny figures scattered down the road which led fromit. They had been dismissed by their terrified teachers and werespeeding for their homes when the poison caught them in its net. Greatnumbers of people were at the open windows of the houses. In TunbridgeWells there was hardly one which had not its staring, smiling face. Atthe last instant the need of air, that very craving for oxygen which wealone had been able to satisfy, had sent them flying to the window. Thesidewalks too were littered with men and women, hatless and bonnetless,who had rushed out of the houses. Many of them had fallen in theroadway. It was a lucky thing that in Lord John we had found an expertdriver, for it was no easy matter to pick one's way. Passing through thevillages or towns we could only go at a walking pace, and once, Iremember, opposite the school at Tonbridge, we had to halt some timewhile we carried aside the bodies which blocked our path.

A few small, definite pictures stand out in my memory from amid that longpanorama of death upon the Sussex and Kentish high roads. One was thatof a great, glittering motor-car standing outside the inn at the villageof Southborough. It bore, as I should guess, some pleasure party upontheir return from Brighton or from Eastbourne. There were three gailydressed women, all young and beautiful, one of them with a Peking spanielupon her lap. With them were a rakish-looking elderly man and a youngaristocrat, his eyeglass still in his eye, his cigarette burned down tothe stub between the fingers of his begloved hand. Death must have comeon them in an instant and fixed them as they sat. Save that the elderlyman had at the last moment torn out his collar in an effort to breathe,they might all have been asleep. On one side of the car a waiter withsome broken glasses beside a tray was huddled near the step. On theother, two very ragged tramps, a man and a woman, lay where they hadfallen, the man with his long, thin arm still outstretched, even as hehad asked for alms in his lifetime. One instant of time had putaristocrat, waiter, tramp, and dog upon one common footing of inert anddissolving protoplasm.

I remember another singular picture, some miles on the London side ofSevenoaks. There is a large convent upon the left, with a long, greenslope in front of it. Upon this slope were assembled a great number ofschool children, all kneeling at prayer. In front of them was a fringeof nuns, and higher up the slope, facing towards them, a single figurewhom we took to be the Mother Superior. Unlike the pleasure-seekers inthe motor-car, these people seemed to have had warning of their dangerand to have died beautifully together, the teachers and the taught,assembled for their last common lesson.

My mind is still stunned by that terrific experience, and I grope vainlyfor means of expression by which I can reproduce the emotions which wefelt. Perhaps it is best and wisest not to try, but merely to indicatethe facts. Even Summerlee and Challenger were crushed, and we heardnothing of our companions behind us save an occasional whimper from thelady. As to Lord John, he was too intent upon his wheel and thedifficult task of threading his way along such roads to have time orinclination for conversation. One phrase he used with such wearisomeiteration that it stuck in my memory and at last almost made me laugh asa comment upon the day of doom.

"Pretty doin's! What!"

That was his ejaculation as each fresh tremendous combination of deathand disaster displayed itself before us. "Pretty doin's! What!" hecried, as we descended the station hill at Rotherfield, and it was still"Pretty doin's! What!" as we picked our way through a wilderness ofdeath in the High Street of Lewisham and the Old Kent Road.

It was here that we received a sudden and amazing shock. Out of thewindow of a humble corner house there appeared a fluttering handkerchiefwaving at the end of a long, thin human arm. Never had the sight ofunexpected death caused our hearts to stop and then throb so wildly asdid this amazing indication of life. Lord John ran the motor to thecurb, and in an instant we had rushed through the open door of the houseand up the staircase to the second-floor front room from which the signalproceeded.

A very old lady sat in a chair by the open window, and close to her, laidacross a second chair, was a cylinder of oxygen, smaller but of the sameshape as those which had saved our own lives. She turned her thin,drawn, bespectacled face toward us as we crowded in at the doorway.

"I feared that I was abandoned here forever," said she, "for I am aninvalid and cannot stir."

"Well, madam," Challenger answered, "it is a lucky chance that wehappened to pass."

"I have one all-important question to ask you," said she. "Gentlemen, Ibeg that you will be frank with me. What effect will these events haveupon London and North-Western Railway shares?"

We should have laughed had it not been for the tragic eagerness withwhich she listened for our answer. Mrs. Burston, for that was her name,was an aged widow, whose whole income depended upon a small holding ofthis stock. Her life had been regulated by the rise and fall of thedividend, and she could form no conception of existence save as it wasaffected by the quotation of her shares. In vain we pointed out to herthat all the money in the world was hers for the taking and was uselesswhen taken. Her old mind would not adapt itself to the new idea, and shewept loudly over her vanished stock. "It was all I had," she wailed."If that is gone I may as well go too."

Amid her lamentations we found out how this frail old plant had livedwhere the whole great forest had fallen. She was a confirmed invalid andan asthmatic. Oxygen had been prescribed for her malady, and a tube wasin her room at the moment of the crisis. She had naturally inhaled someas had been her habit when there was a difficulty with her breathing. Ithad given her relief, and by doling out her supply she had managed tosurvive the night. Finally she had fallen asleep and been awakened bythe buzz of our motor-car. As it was impossible to take her on with us,we saw that she had all necessaries of life and promised to communicatewith her in a couple of days at the latest. So we left her, stillweeping bitterly over her vanished stock.

As we approached the Thames the block in the streets became thicker andthe obstacles more bewildering. It was with difficulty that we made ourway across London Bridge. The approaches to it upon the Middlesex sidewere choked from end to end with frozen traffic which made all furtheradvance in that direction impossible. A ship was blazing brightlyalongside one of the wharves near the bridge, and the air was full ofdrifting smuts and of a heavy acrid smell of burning. There was a cloudof dense smoke somewhere near the Houses of Parliament, but it wasimpossible from where we were to see what was on fire.

"I don't know how it strikes you," Lord John remarked as he brought hisengine to a standstill, "but it seems to me the country is more cheerfulthan the town. Dead London is gettin' on my nerves. I'm for a castround and then gettin' back to Rotherfield."

"I confess that I do not see what we can hope for here," said ProfessorSummerlee.

"At the same time," said Challenger, his great voice booming strangelyamid the silence, "it is difficult for us to conceive that out of sevenmillions of people there is only this one old woman who by somepeculiarity of constitution or some accident of occupation has managed tosurvive this catastrophe."

"If there should be others, how can we hope to find them, George?" askedthe lady. "And yet I agree with you that we cannot go back until we havetried."

Getting out of the car and leaving it by the curb, we walked with somedifficulty along the crowded pavement of King William Street and enteredthe open door of a large insurance office. It was a corner house, and wechose it as commanding a view in every direction. Ascending the stair,we passed through what I suppose to have been the board-room, for eightelderly men were seated round a long table in the centre of it. The highwindow was open and we all stepped out upon the balcony. From it wecould see the crowded city streets radiating in every direction, whilebelow us the road was black from side to side with the tops of themotionless taxis. All, or nearly all, had their heads pointed outwards,showing how the terrified men of the city had at the last moment made avain endeavor to rejoin their families in the suburbs or the country.Here and there amid the humbler cabs towered the great brass-spangledmotor-car of some wealthy magnate, wedged hopelessly among the dammedstream of arrested traffic. Just beneath us there was such a one ofgreat size and luxurious appearance, with its owner, a fat old man,leaning out, half his gross body through the window, and his podgy hand,gleaming with diamonds, outstretched as he urged his chauffeur to make alast effort to break through the press.

A dozen motor-buses towered up like islands in this flood, the passengerswho crowded the roofs lying all huddled together and across each others'laps like a child's toys in a nursery. On a broad lamp pedestal in thecentre of the roadway, a burly policeman was standing, leaning his backagainst the post in so natural an attitude that it was hard to realizethat he was not alive, while at his feet there lay a ragged newsboy withhis bundle of papers on the ground beside him. A paper-cart had gotblocked in the crowd, and we could read in large letters, black uponyellow, "Scene at Lord's. County Match Interrupted." This must havebeen the earliest edition, for there were other placards bearing thelegend, "Is It the End? Great Scientist's Warning." And another, "IsChallenger Justified? Ominous Rumours."

Challenger pointed the latter placard out to his wife, as it thrustitself like a banner above the throng. I could see him throw out hischest and stroke his beard as he looked at it. It pleased and flatteredthat complex mind to think that London had died with his name and hiswords still present in their thoughts. His feelings were so evident thatthey aroused the sardonic comment of his colleague.

"In the limelight to the last, Challenger," he remarked.

"So it would appear," he answered complacently. "Well," he added as helooked down the long vista of the radiating streets, all silent and allchoked up with death, "I really see no purpose to be served by ourstaying any longer in London. I suggest that we return at once toRotherfield and then take counsel as to how we shall most profitablyemploy the years which lie before us."

Only one other picture shall I give of the scenes which we carried backin our memories from the dead city. It is a glimpse which we had of theinterior of the old church of St. Mary's, which is at the very pointwhere our car was awaiting us. Picking our way among the prostratefigures upon the steps, we pushed open the swing door and entered. Itwas a wonderful sight. The church was crammed from end to end withkneeling figures in every posture of supplication and abasement. At thelast dreadful moment, brought suddenly face to face with the realities oflife, those terrific realities which hang over us even while we followthe shadows, the terrified people had rushed into those old city churcheswhich for generations had hardly ever held a congregation. There theyhuddled as close as they could kneel, many of them in their agitationstill wearing their hats, while above them in the pulpit a young man inlay dress had apparently been addressing them when he and they had beenoverwhelmed by the same fate. He lay now, like Punch in his booth, withhis head and two limp arms hanging over the ledge of the pulpit. It wasa nightmare, the grey, dusty church, the rows of agonized figures, thedimness and silence of it all. We moved about with hushed whispers,walking upon our tip-toes.

And then suddenly I had an idea. At one corner of the church, near thedoor, stood the ancient font, and behind it a deep recess in which therehung the ropes for the bell-ringers. Why should we not send a messageout over London which would attract to us anyone who might still bealive? I ran across, and pulling at the list-covered rope, I wassurprised to find how difficult it was to swing the bell. Lord John hadfollowed me.

"By George, young fellah!" said he, pulling off his coat. "You've hit ona dooced good notion. Give me a grip and we'll soon have a move on it."

But, even then, so heavy was the bell that it was not until Challengerand Summerlee had added their weight to ours that we heard the roaringand clanging above our heads which told us that the great clapper wasringing out its music. Far over dead London resounded our message ofcomradeship and hope to any fellow-man surviving. It cheered our ownhearts, that strong, metallic call, and we turned the more earnestly toour work, dragged two feet off the earth with each upward jerk of therope, but all straining together on the downward heave, Challenger thelowest of all, bending all his great strength to the task and flopping upand down like a monstrous bull-frog, croaking with every pull. It was atthat moment that an artist might have taken a picture of the fouradventurers, the comrades of many strange perils in the past, whom fatehad now chosen for so supreme an experience. For half an hour we worked,the sweat dropping from our faces, our arms and backs aching with theexertion. Then we went out into the portico of the church and lookedeagerly up and down the silent, crowded streets. Not a sound, not amotion, in answer to our summons.

"It's no use. No one is left," I cried.

"We can do nothing more," said Mrs. Challenger. "For God's sake, George,let us get back to Rotherfield. Another hour of this dreadful, silentcity would drive me mad."

We got into the car without another word. Lord John backed her round andturned her to the south. To us the chapter seemed closed. Little did weforesee the strange new chapter which was to open.

Chapter VI

THE GREAT AWAKENING

And now I come to the end of this extraordinary incident, soovershadowing in its importance, not only in our own small, individuallives, but in the general history of the human race. As I said when Ibegan my narrative, when that history comes to be written, thisoccurrence will surely stand out among all other events like a mountaintowering among its foothills. Our generation has been reserved for avery special fate since it has been chosen to experience so wonderful athing. How long its effect may last—how long mankind may preserve thehumility and reverence which this great shock has taught it—can only beshown by the future. I think it is safe to say that things can never bequite the same again. Never can one realize how powerless and ignorantone is, and how one is upheld by an unseen hand, until for an instantthat hand has seemed to close and to crush. Death has been imminent uponus. We know that at any moment it may be again. That grim presenceshadows our lives, but who can deny that in that shadow the sense ofduty, the feeling of sobriety and responsibility, the appreciation of thegravity and of the objects of life, the earnest desire to develop andimprove, have grown and become real with us to a degree that has leavenedour whole society from end to end? It is something beyond sects andbeyond dogmas. It is rather an alteration of perspective, a shifting ofour sense of proportion, a vivid realization that we are insignificantand evanescent creatures, existing on sufferance and at the mercy of thefirst chill wind from the unknown. But if the world has grown graverwith this knowledge it is not, I think, a sadder place in consequence.Surely we are agreed that the more sober and restrained pleasures of thepresent are deeper as well as wiser than the noisy, foolish hustle whichpassed so often for enjoyment in the days of old—days so recent and yetalready so inconceivable. Those empty lives which were wasted in aimlessvisiting and being visited, in the worry of great and unnecessaryhouseholds, in the arranging and eating of elaborate and tedious meals,have now found rest and health in the reading, the music, the gentlefamily communion which comes from a simpler and saner division of theirtime. With greater health and greater pleasure they are richer thanbefore, even after they have paid those increased contributions to thecommon fund which have so raised the standard of life in these islands.

There is some clash of opinion as to the exact hour of the greatawakening. It is generally agreed that, apart from the difference ofclocks, there may have been local causes which influenced the action ofthe poison. Certainly, in each separate district the resurrection waspractically simultaneous. There are numerous witnesses that Big Benpointed to ten minutes past six at the moment. The Astronomer Royal hasfixed the Greenwich time at twelve past six. On the other hand, LairdJohnson, a very capable East Anglia observer, has recorded six-twenty asthe hour. In the Hebrides it was as late as seven. In our own casethere can be no doubt whatever, for I was seated in Challenger's studywith his carefully tested chronometer in front of me at the moment. Thehour was a quarter-past six.

An enormous depression was weighing upon my spirits. The cumulativeeffect of all the dreadful sights which we had seen upon our journey washeavy upon my soul. With my abounding animal health and great physicalenergy any kind of mental clouding was a rare event. I had the Irishfaculty of seeing some gleam of humor in every darkness. But now theobscurity was appalling and unrelieved. The others were downstairsmaking their plans for the future. I sat by the open window, my chinresting upon my hand and my mind absorbed in the misery of our situation.Could we continue to live? That was the question which I had begun toask myself. Was it possible to exist upon a dead world? Just as inphysics the greater body draws to itself the lesser, would we not feel anoverpowering attraction from that vast body of humanity which had passedinto the unknown? How would the end come? Would it be from a return ofthe poison? Or would the earth be uninhabitable from the mephiticproducts of universal decay? Or, finally, might our awful situation preyupon and unbalance our minds? A group of insane folk upon a dead world!My mind was brooding upon this last dreadful idea when some slight noisecaused me to look down upon the road beneath me. The old cab horse wascoming up the hill!

I was conscious at the same instant of the twittering of birds, ofsomeone coughing in the yard below, and of a background of movement inthe landscape. And yet I remember that it was that absurd, emaciated,superannuated cab-horse which held my gaze. Slowly and wheezily it wasclimbing the slope. Then my eye traveled to the driver sitting hunchedup upon the box and finally to the young man who was leaning out of thewindow in some excitement and shouting a direction. They were allindubitably, aggressively alive!

Everybody was alive once more! Had it all been a delusion? Was itconceivable that this whole poison belt incident had been an elaboratedream? For an instant my startled brain was really ready to believe it.Then I looked down, and there was the rising blister on my hand where itwas frayed by the rope of the city bell. It had really been so, then.And yet here was the world resuscitated—here was life come back in aninstant full tide to the planet. Now, as my eyes wandered all over thegreat landscape, I saw it in every direction—and moving, to myamazement, in the very same groove in which it had halted. There werethe golfers. Was it possible that they were going on with their game?Yes, there was a fellow driving off from a tee, and that other group uponthe green were surely putting for the hole. The reapers were slowlytrooping back to their work. The nurse-girl slapped one of her chargesand then began to push the perambulator up the hill. Everyone hadunconcernedly taken up the thread at the very point where they haddropped it.

I rushed downstairs, but the hall door was open, and I heard the voicesof my companions, loud in astonishment and congratulation, in the yard.How we all shook hands and laughed as we came together, and how Mrs.Challenger kissed us all in her emotion, before she finally threw herselfinto the bear-hug of her husband.

"But they could not have been asleep!" cried Lord John. "Dash it all,Challenger, you don't mean to believe that those folk were asleep withtheir staring eyes and stiff limbs and that awful death grin on theirfaces!"

"It can only have been the condition that is called catalepsy," saidChallenger. "It has been a rare phenomenon in the past and hasconstantly been mistaken for death. While it endures, the temperaturefalls, the respiration disappears, the heartbeat is indistinguishable—infact, it isdeath, save that it is evanescent. Even the mostcomprehensive mind"—here he closed his eyes and simpered—"could hardlyconceive a universal outbreak of it in this fashion."

"You may label it catalepsy," remarked Summerlee, "but, after all, thatis only a name, and we know as little of the result as we do of thepoison which has caused it. The most we can say is that the vitiatedether has produced a temporary death."

Austin was seated all in a heap on the step of the car. It was hiscoughing which I had heard from above. He had been holding his head insilence, but now he was muttering to himself and running his eyes overthe car.

"Young fat-head!" he grumbled. "Can't leave things alone!"

"What's the matter, Austin?"

"Lubricators left running, sir. Someone has been fooling with the car.I expect it's that young garden boy, sir."

Lord John looked guilty.

"I don't know what's amiss with me," continued Austin, staggering to hisfeet. "I expect I came over queer when I was hosing her down. I seem toremember flopping over by the step. But I'll swear I never left thoselubricator taps on."

In a condensed narrative the astonished Austin was told what had happenedto himself and the world. The mystery of the dripping lubricators wasalso explained to him. He listened with an air of deep distrust whentold how an amateur had driven his car and with absorbed interest to thefew sentences in which our experiences of the sleeping city wererecorded. I can remember his comment when the story was concluded.

"Was you outside the Bank of England, sir?"

"Yes, Austin."

"With all them millions inside and everybody asleep?"

"That was so."

"And I not there!" he groaned, and turned dismally once more to thehosing of his car.

There was a sudden grinding of wheels upon gravel. The old cab hadactually pulled up at Challenger's door. I saw the young occupant stepout from it. An instant later the maid, who looked as tousled andbewildered as if she had that instant been aroused from the deepestsleep, appeared with a card upon a tray. Challenger snorted ferociouslyas he looked at it, and his thick black hair seemed to bristle up in hiswrath.

"A pressman!" he growled. Then with a deprecating smile: "After all, itis natural that the whole world should hasten to know what I think ofsuch an episode."

"That can hardly be his errand," said Summerlee, "for he was on the roadin his cab before ever the crisis came."

I looked at the card: "James Baxter, London Correspondent, New YorkMonitor."

"You'll see him?" said I.

"Not I."

"Oh, George! You should be kinder and more considerate to others.Surely you have learned something from what we have undergone."

He tut-tutted and shook his big, obstinate head.

"A poisonous breed! Eh, Malone? The worst weed in modern civilization,the ready tool of the quack and the hindrance of the self-respecting man!When did they ever say a good word for me?"

"When did you ever say a good word to them?" I answered. "Come, sir,this is a stranger who has made a journey to see you. I am sure that youwon't be rude to him."

"Well, well," he grumbled, "you come with me and do the talking. Iprotest in advance against any such outrageous invasion of my privatelife." Muttering and mumbling, he came rolling after me like an angryand rather ill-conditioned mastiff.

The dapper young American pulled out his notebook and plunged instantlyinto his subject.

"I came down, sir," said he, "because our people in America would verymuch like to hear more about this danger which is, in your opinion,pressing upon the world."

"I know of no danger which is now pressing upon the world," Challengeranswered gruffly.

The pressman looked at him in mild surprise.

"I meant, sir, the chances that the world might run into a belt ofpoisonous ether."

"I do not now apprehend any such danger," said Challenger.

The pressman looked even more perplexed.

"You are Professor Challenger, are you not?" he asked.

"Yes, sir; that is my name."

"I cannot understand, then, how you can say that there is no such danger.I am alluding to your own letter, published above your name in the LondonTimes of this morning."

It was Challenger's turn to look surprised.

"This morning?" said he. "No London Times was published this morning."

"Surely, sir," said the American in mild remonstrance, "you must admitthat the London Times is a daily paper." He drew out a copy from hisinside pocket. "Here is the letter to which I refer."

Challenger chuckled and rubbed his hands.

"I begin to understand," said he. "So you read this letter this morning?"

"Yes, sir."

"And came at once to interview me?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did you observe anything unusual upon the journey down?"

"Well, to tell the truth, your people seemed more lively and generallyhuman than I have ever seen them. The baggage man set out to tell me afunny story, and that's a new experience for me in this country."

"Nothing else?"

"Why, no, sir, not that I can recall."

"Well, now, what hour did you leave Victoria?"

The American smiled.

"I came here to interview you, Professor, but it seems to be a case of'Is this nigger fishing, or is this fish niggering?' You're doing most ofthe work."

"It happens to interest me. Do you recall the hour?"

"Sure. It was half-past twelve."

"And you arrived?"

"At a quarter-past two."

"And you hired a cab?"

"That was so."

"How far do you suppose it is to the station?"

"Well, I should reckon the best part of two miles."

"So how long do you think it took you?"

"Well, half an hour, maybe, with that asthmatic in front."

"So it should be three o'clock?"

"Yes, or a trifle after it."

"Look at your watch."

The American did so and then stared at us in astonishment.

"Say!" he cried. "It's run down. That horse has broken every record,sure. The sun is pretty low, now that I come to look at it. Well,there's something here I don't understand."

"Have you no remembrance of anything remarkable as you came up the hill?"

"Well, I seem to recollect that I was mighty sleepy once. It comes backto me that I wanted to say something to the driver and that I couldn'tmake him heed me. I guess it was the heat, but I felt swimmy for amoment. That's all."

"So it is with the whole human race," said Challenger to me. "They haveall felt swimmy for a moment. None of them have as yet any comprehensionof what has occurred. Each will go on with his interrupted job as Austinhas snatched up his hose-pipe or the golfer continued his game. Youreditor, Malone, will continue the issue of his papers, and very muchamazed he will be at finding that an issue is missing. Yes, my youngfriend," he added to the American reporter, with a sudden mood of amusedgeniality, "it may interest you to know that the world has swum throughthe poisonous current which swirls like the Gulf Stream through the oceanof ether. You will also kindly note for your own future convenience thatto-day is not Friday, August the twenty-seventh, but Saturday, August thetwenty-eighth, and that you sat senseless in your cab for twenty-eighthours upon the Rotherfield hill."

And "right here," as my American colleague would say, I may bring thisnarrative to an end. It is, as you are probably aware, only a fuller andmore detailed version of the account which appeared in the Monday editionof the Daily Gazette—an account which has been universally admitted tobe the greatest journalistic scoop of all time, which sold no fewer thanthree-and-a-half million copies of the paper. Framed upon the wall of mysanctum I retain those magnificent headlines:—

TWENTY-EIGHT HOURS' WORLD COMA
UNPRECEDENTED EXPERIENCE
CHALLENGER JUSTIFIED
OUR CORRESPONDENT ESCAPES
ENTHRALLING NARRATIVE
THE OXYGEN ROOM
WEIRD MOTOR DRIVE
DEAD LONDON
REPLACING THE MISSING PAGE
GREAT FIRES AND LOSS OF LIFE
WILL IT RECUR?

Underneath this glorious scroll came nine and a half columns ofnarrative, in which appeared the first, last, and only account of thehistory of the planet, so far as one observer could draw it, during onelong day of its existence. Challenger and Summerlee have treated thematter in a joint scientific paper, but to me alone was left the popularaccount. Surely I can sing "Nunc dimittis." What is left butanti-climax in the life of a journalist after that!

But let me not end on sensational headlines and a merely personaltriumph. Rather let me quote the sonorous passages in which the greatestof daily papers ended its admirable leader upon the subject—a leaderwhich might well be filed for reference by every thoughtful man.

"It has been a well-worn truism," said the Times, "that our human raceare a feeble folk before the infinite latent forces which surround us.From the prophets of old and from the philosophers of our own time thesame message and warning have reached us. But, like all oft-repeatedtruths, it has in time lost something of its actuality and cogency. Alesson, an actual experience, was needed to bring it home. It is fromthat salutory but terrible ordeal that we have just emerged, with mindswhich are still stunned by the suddenness of the blow and with spiritswhich are chastened by the realization of our own limitations andimpotence. The world has paid a fearful price for its schooling. Hardlyyet have we learned the full tale of disaster, but the destruction byfire of New York, of Orleans, and of Brighton constitutes in itself oneof the greatest tragedies in the history of our race. When the accountof the railway and shipping accidents has been completed, it will furnishgrim reading, although there is evidence to show that in the vastmajority of cases the drivers of trains and engineers of steamerssucceeded in shutting off their motive power before succumbing to thepoison. But the material damage, enormous as it is both in life and inproperty, is not the consideration which will be uppermost in our mindsto-day. All this may in time be forgotten. But what will not beforgotten, and what will and should continue to obsess our imaginations,is this revelation of the possibilities of the universe, this destructionof our ignorant self-complacency, and this demonstration of how narrow isthe path of our material existence and what abysses may lie upon eitherside of it. Solemnity and humility are at the base of all our emotionsto-day. May they be the foundations upon which a more earnest andreverent race may build a more worthy temple."

Related articles