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THE STILLNESS AND THE SILENCE OF UNIVERSAL DEATH (p. 98).

THE POISON BELT

PY By

ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

“THE WHITE COMPANY,” ETC,

Being an account of another adventure
of Prof. George E. Challenger, Lord
John Roxton, Prof. Summerlee, and
Mr. E. D. Malone, the discoverers of
vie “The Lost World”

aint

With 16 Illustrations by
HARRY ROUNTREE

TORONTO
HODDER AND STOUGHTON LIMITED

CONTENTS |

CHAPTER I
® PAGE
THE BLURRING OF THE LINES : 3 3
CHAPTER II
THe TIDE OF DEATH . 4 ; 5 41

CHAPTER III

SUBMERGED 3 s ; » ¥ 79
CHAPTER IV

A Diary oF THE DyING z 3 3 et 7
CHAPTER V

THe DrEsap WorLD : : A » 145
CHAPTER VI

Tue GREAT AWAKENING : A a legs:

ot ‘a
ie
ME

vie La

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE STILLNESS AND THE SILENCE oF UNI-
VERSAL DEATH

*““HeE ran Younc ALEC SIMPSON, OF THE

*CourIeR,’ A MILE DowN THE HicH
Roap ” :

. ° e ° e

WE NEARLY HAD COLLISIONS WITH OTHER
EQUALLY Erratic VEHICLES

FoR THE REST OF OUR JOURNEY HE ENTER-
TAINED—OR FAILED TO ENTERTAIN—US

BY A SUCCESSION OF BrrpD AND ANIMAL
CRIES

. . . . .

“Iv Is, IN MY Opinion, THE END oF THE
Woriw.”* ,

““ CATHEDRAL AND CHURCHES FULL TO OvER-

FLOWING. THE DEAD OUTNUMBER THE
LivINc’’* .

. . . . .

*“ ONCE FAIRLY OUT ON A RownpD, IT wouLp

TAKE THE CRACK OF Doom TO STOP A TRUE
GOLFER” ,

° . ° . e

“ THaT Poor DEVIL OFA CHAUFFEUR OF YouRS
DOWN IN THE YARD THERE HAS MADE HIS
Last JOURNEY ” .

° . .

A VISION OF STRANGE HAPPENINGS

Vii

, ‘ g Frontispiece

PAGE

80
97

Illustrations

“ You CAN SEE IT FOR YOURSELVES,’ HE KEPT
REPEATING s 5 ; ; a

Ir was THis Grim HusH, AND THE TALL
CLOUDS OF SMOKE WHICH ROSE HERE AND
THERE OVER THE COUNTRY-SIDE FROM
SMOULDERING BUILDINGS, WHICH CAST A
CHILL INTO OUR HEARTS $ .

A SHIP WAS BLAZING BRIGHTLY ALONGSIDE
ONE OF THE WHARVES NEAR THE BRIDGE,
AND THE AIR WAS FULL OF DRIFTING SMUTS
AND OF A HEAvy ACRID SMELL OF BuRN-
TING) ee 5 : , : :

On A Broap Lamp PEDESTAL, IN THE CENTRE
OF THE Roapway, A BuRLY POLICEMAN
WAS STANDING, LEANING HIS BaAcK
AGAINST THE Post IN sO NATURAL AN
ATTITUDE THAT IT WAS HARD TO
REALIZE THAT HE WAS NOT ALIVE .

THe Younc MAN ... LEANING OUT OF
THE WINDOW IN SOME EXCITEMENT AND
SHOUTING A DIRECTION i A A

THERE WERE THE GoLtrerRs. WAS IT
POSSIBLE THAT THEY WERE GOING ON
WITH THEIR GAME? ... THE REAPERS
WERE SLOWLY TROOPING BACK TO THEIR
Work . 3

Mrs. CHALLENGER .. . THREW HERSELF INTO
THE BEAR-HUG OF HER HUSBAND :

PAGE.

112:

129

144

161

176

184

192

“THE BLURRING OF THE
LINES ”

“HE RAN YOUNG ALEC SIMPSON, OF THE ‘ COURIER,’ A
(p. 6).

MILE DOWN THE HIGH ROAD

Chapter I

THE BLURRING OF THE LINES

Ir is imperative that now at once, while
these stupendous events are still clear
in my mind, I should set them down
with that exactness of detail which time
may blur. But even as I do so, I am
overwhelmed by the wonder of the fact
that it should be our little group of the
“Lost World ”—Professor Challenger,
Professor Summerlee, Lord John Roxton,
and myself—who have passed through
this amazing experience.

When, some years ago, I chronicled
in the Daily Gazette our epoch-making
journey in South America, I little thought
that it should ever fall to my lot to tell
an even stranger personal experience,
one which is unique in all human annals,
and must stand out in the records of his-

4 The Poison Belt

tory as a great peak among the humble
foothills which surround it. The event
itself will always be marvellous, but the
circumstances that we four were together
at the time of this extraordinary episode
came about in a most natural and, indeed,
inevitable fashion. I will explain the
events which led up to it as shortly and
as clearly as I can, though I am well
aware that the fuller the detail upon such
a subject the more welcome it will be to
the reader, for the public curiosity has
been and still is insatiable.

It was upon Friday, the twenty-seventh
of August—a date for ever memorable
in the history of the world—that I went
down to the office of my paper and asked
for three days’ leave of absence from Mr.
McArdle, who still presided over our
news department. The good old Scotch-
man shook his head, scratched his dwin-
dling fringe of ruddy fluff, and finally
put his reluctance into words.

“I was thinking, Mr. Malone, that

The Blurring of the Lines 5

we could employ you to advantage these
days. I was thinking there was a story
that you are the only man that could
handle as it should be handled.”

“ T am sorry for that,”’ said I, trying to
hide my disappointment. ‘* Of course if I
am needed, there is an end of the matter.
But the engagement was important and
intimate. If I could be spared i

‘“* Well, I don’t see that you can.”

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

“Then I’ll think no more of it,” said
I, with as much cheerfulness as I could
assume at so short a notice. ‘‘ What was
it that you wanted me to do?”

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

“You don’t mean Professor Chal-
lenger ? ”’ I cried. |

*“* Aye, it’s just him that I do mean.

6 The Poison Beli

He ran young Alec Simpson, of the
Courier, a mile down the high road last
week by the collar of his coat and the
slack of his breeches. You'll have read
of it, likely, in the police report. Our
boys would as soon interview a_ loose
alligator in the Zoo. But you could do
it, ’'m thinking—an old friend like you.”

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

‘“‘Capital!’’ cried McArdle, rubbing
his hands and beaming through his
glasses. ‘“‘ Then you will be able to get
his opeenions out of him. In any other
man I would say it was all moonshine,
but the fellow has made good once, and
who knows but he may again!”

eee

The Blurring of the Lines 7

“ Get what out of him?” I asked.
‘¢ What has he been doing ? ”’

‘“‘ Haven’t you seen his letter on ‘ Scien-
tific Possibeelities ’ in to-day’s Times ? ”

‘No.’

McArdle dived down and picked a
copy from the floor.

‘Read it aloud,” said he, indicating
a column with his finger. “I'd be glad
to hear it again, for I am not sure now
that I have the man’s meaning clear in
my head.”

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

“ SCIENTIFIC POSSIBILITIES ”

‘¢ Str,—I have read with amusement,
not wholly unmixed with some less com-
plimentary emotion, the complacent and
wholly fatuous letter of James Wilson Mac-
Phail, which has lately appeared in your
columns upon the subject of the blurring
of Frauenhofer’s lines in the spectra both
of the planets and of the fixed stars. He

8 The Poison Belt

dismisses the matter as of no significance.
To a wider intelligence it may well seem
of very great possible importance—so
great as to involve the ultimate welfare
of every man, woman, and child upon this
planet. I can hardly hope, by the use
of scientific language, to convey any
sense of my meaning to those ineffectual
people who gather their ideas from the
columns of a daily newspaper. I will
endeavour, therefore, to condescend to
their limitations, and to indicate the
situation by the use of a homely analogy
which will be within the limits of the
intelligence of your readers.”

** Man, he’s a wonder—a living wonder !
said McArdle, shaking his head reflec-
tively. ‘‘He’d put up the feathers of
a sucking-dove and set up a riot in a
Quakers’ meeting. No wonder he has
made London too hot for him. It’s a
peety, Mr. Malone, for it’s a grand brain !
Well, let’s have the analogy.”

“We will suppose,” I read, ‘‘ that a

WE NEARLY HAD COLLISIONS WITH OTHER EQUALLY ERRATIC VEHICLES (p. 19).

The Blurring of the Lines 9

small bundle of connected corks was
launched in a sluggish current upon a
voyage across the Atlantic. The corks
drift slowly on from day to day with the
same conditions all round them. If the
corks were sentient we could imagine
that they would consider these conditions
to be permanent and assured. But we,
with our superior knowledge, know that
many things might happen to surprise
the corks. They might possibly float
up against a ship, or a sleeping whale,
or become tangled in seaweed. In any
case, their voyage would probably end by
their being thrown up on the rocky coast
of Labrador. But what could they know
of all this while they drifted so gently
day by day in what they thought was
a limitless and homogeneous ocean ?
“Your readers will possibly compre-
hend that the Atlantic, in this parable,
stands for the mighty ocean of ether
through which we drift, and that the
bunch of corks represents the little and

10 The Poison Belt

obscure planetary system to which we
belong. A third-rate sun, with its rag-
tag and bobtail of insignificant satellites,
we float under the same daily conditions
towards some unknown end, some squalid
catastrophe which will overwhelm us
at the ultimate confines of space, where
we are swept over an etheric Niagara,
or dashed upon some_ unthinkable
Labrador. I see no room here for the
shallow and ignorant optimism of your
correspondent, Mr. James Wilson Mac-
Phail, but many reasons why we should
watch with a very close and interested
attention every indication of change in
those cosmic surroundings upon which
our own ultimate fate may depend.”

‘* Man, he’d have made a grand meen-
ister,” said McArdle. ‘It just booms
like an organ. Let’s get doun to what
it is that’s troubling him.”

““The general blurring and shifting
of Frauenhofer’s lines of the spectrum
point, in my opinion, to a widespread

Fhe Blurring of the Lines 11

cosmic change of a subtle and singular
character. Light from a planet is the
reflected light of the sun. Light from a
star is a self-produced light. But the
spectra both from planets and stars have,
in this instance, all undergone the same
change. Is it, then, a change in those
planets and stars? To me such an idea
is inconceivable. What common change
could simultaneously come upon them
all? Is it a change in our own atmo-
sphere? It is possible, but in the highest
degree improbable, since we see no signs
of it around us, and chemical analysis has
failed to reveal it. What, then, is the third
possibility ? That it may be a change
in the conducting medium, in that in-
finitely fine ether which extends from
star to star and pervades the whole uni-
verse. Deep in that ocean we are floating
upon a slow current. Might that current
not drift us into belts of ether which
are novel and have properties of which
we have never conceived ? There is a

12 The Poison Belt

change somewhere. This cosmic disturb-
ance of the spectrum proves it. It may
be a good change. It may be an evil one.
It may bea neutral one. Wedonot know.
Shallow observers may treat the matter as
one which can be disregarded, but one who
like myself is possessed of the deeper in-
telligence of the true philosopher will
understand that the possibilities of the
universe are incalculable and that the
wisest man is he who holds himself ready
for the unexpected. To take an obvious
example, who would undertake to say
that the mysterious and universal out-
break of illness, recorded in your columns
this very morning as having broken out
among the indigenous races of Sumatra,
has no connection with some cosmic
change to which they may respond more
quickly than the more complex 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,
but it is an unimaginative numskull whois

The Blurring of the Lines 13

too dense to perceive that it is well within
the bounds of scientific possibility.
“Yours faithfully,
‘* GEORGE EpwarD CHALLENGER.

“Tur Briars, ROTHERFIELD.”

“It’s a fine, steemulating letter,” said
McArdle, thoughtfully, fitting a cigarette
into the long glass tube which he used
asa holder. ‘‘ What’s your opeenion of
it, Mr. Malone ? ”’

I had to confess my total and humili-
ating ignorance of the subject at issue.
What, for example, were Frauenhofer’s
lines? McArdle had just been studying
the matter with the aid of our tame
scientist at the office, and he picked from
his desk two of those many-coloured
spectral bands which bear a general re-
semblance to the hat-ribbons of some
young and ambitious cricket club. He
pointed out to me that there were certain
black lines which formed cross-bars upon
the series of brilliant colours extending

14 The Poison Belt

from the red at one end, through gra-
dations of orange, yellow, green, blue,
and indigo, to the violet at the other.

‘* Those dark bands are Frauenhofer’s
lines,” said he. ‘“‘ The colours are just
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 that
count, because they vary according to
what it may be that produces the light.
It is these lines that have been blurred
instead of clear this last week, and all
the astronomers have been quarrelling
over the reason. Here’s a photograph of
the blurred lines for our issue to-morrow.
The public have taken no interest in the
matter up to now, but this letter of Chal-
lenger’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 nigger in
Sumatra. And yet the chiel has shown
us once before that he knows what he’s

FOR THE REST OF OUR JOURNEY HE ENTERTAINED—OR FAILED TO ENTERTAIN
—US BY A SUCCESSION OF BIRD AND ANIMAL CRIES (p. 30).

The Blurring of the Lines 15

talking about. There is some queer
illness down yonder, that’s beyond all
doubt, and to-day there’s a cable just
come in from Singapore that the light-
houses are out of action in the Straits
of Sudan, and two ships on the beach in
consequence. Anyhow, it’s good enough
for you to interview Challenger upon.
If you get anything definite, let us have
a column by Monday.”

I was coming out from the news editor’s
room, turning over my new mission in
my mind, when I heard my name called
from the waiting-room below. It was
a telegraph-boy with a wire which had
been forwarded from my lodgings at
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 elephantine

————————————————————

16 The Poison, Beli

sense of humour capable of the most
clumsy and unwieldy gambollings. Was
this one of those jokes which used to
reduce him to uproarious laughter, when
his eyes would disappear, and he was
all gaping mouth and wagging beard,
supremely indifferent to the gravity of all
around him? I turned the words over,
but could make nothing even remotely
jocose out of them. Then surely it was
a concise order—though a very strange
one. He was the last man in the world
whose deliberate command I should care
to disobey. Possibly some chemical ex-
periment was afoot; possibly Well, it
was no business of mine to speculate upon
why he wanted it. I must get it. There
was nearly an hour before I should catch
the train at Victoria. I took a taxi,
and having ascertained the address from
the telephone book, I made for the Oxygen
Tube Supply Company in Oxford Street.

As I alighted on the pavement at my
destination, two youths emerged from

The Blurring of the Lines bes

the door of the establishment carrying
an iron cylinder, which, with some trouble,
they hoisted into a waiting motor-car.
An elderly man was at their heels scolding
and directing in a creaky, sardonic voice.
He turned towards me. There was no
mistaking those austere features and that
goatee beard. It was my old cross-
grained companion, Professor Summerlee.

‘* What!” he cried. ‘‘Don’t tell me
that you have had one of these prepos-
terous telegrams for oxygen ?”’

I exhibited it.

** Well, well! I have had one, too, and,
as you see, very much against the grain,
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 the usual means of
supply and encroach upon the time of those
who are really busier than himself. Why
could he not order it direct ? ”’

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

ee —————
18 The Poison Belt

“Or thought he did, which is quite
another matter. But it is superfluous
now 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 his motor-car,
for he had offered me a lift to Victoria.

I turned away to pay off my taxi, the
driver of which was very cantankerous
and abusive over his fare. As I came
back to Professor Summerlee, he was
having a furious altercation with the
men who had carried down the oxygen,
his little white goat’s beard jerking with
indignation. One of the fellows called
him, I remember, “a silly old bleached
cockatoo,”? which so enraged his chauffeur
that he bounded out of his seat to take
the part of his insulted master, and it

The Blurring of the Lines 19

was all we could do to prevent a riot in
the street.

These little things may seem trivial to
relate, and passed as mere incidents at
the time. Itis only now, as I look back,
that I see their relation to the whole
story which I have to unfold.

The chauffeur must, as it seemed to
me, have been a novice or else have lost
his nerve in this disturbance, for he drove
vilely on the way to the station. Twice
we nearly had collisions with other equally
erratic vehicles, and I remember remarking
to Summerlee that the standard of driving
in London had very much declined. Once
we brushed the very edge of 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 clumsy
driving, and one fellow sprang upon the
step and waved a stick above our heads.
I pushed him off, but we were glad when
we had got clear of them and safe out of
the park. These little events, coming one

20 Fhe Poison Belt

after the other, left me very jangled in
my nerves, and I could see from my com-
panion’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
for us upon the platform, his tall, thin
figure clad in a yellow tweed shooting-
suit. His keen face, with those unfor-
gettable eyes, so fierce and yet so humor-
ous, flushed with pleasure at the sight
of us. His ruddy hair was shot with
grey, and the furrows upon his brow had
been cut a little deeper by Time’s chisel,
but in all else he was the Lord John who
had been our good comrade in the past.

“Hullo, Herr Professor! Hullo, young
fellah !”’? he shouted as he came towards us.

He roared with amusement when he
saw the oxygen cylinders upon the porter’s
trolly behind us.

‘““So you’ve got them, too!” he cried.
‘* Mine is in the van. Whatever can the
old dear be after ? ”’

The Blurring of the Lines 21

‘* 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 Summer-
lee again, with quite unnecessary violence.

We had all got into a first-class smoker,
and he had already lit the short and
charred old brier pipe which seemed to
singe the end of his long, aggressive nose.

‘‘ Friend Challenger is a clever man,”
said he, with great vehemence. ‘“‘ No
one can deny it. It’s a fool that denies
it. Look at his hat. There’s a sixty
ounce brain inside it—a big engine, run-
ning smooth, and turning out clean work.
Show me the engine-house and [ll tell
you the size of the engine. But he is
a born charlatan—you’ve heard me tell
him so to his face—a born charlatan,
with a kind of dramatic trick of Jumping

22 The Poison Belt

into the limelight. Things are quiet,
so friend Challenger sees a chance to set
the public talking about him. You don’t
imagine that he seriously believes all this
nonsense about a change in the ether and
a danger to the human race? Was ever
such a cock-and-bull story in this life ? ”’

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

A wave of anger passed through me
as I listened to Summerlee. It was dis-
graceful that he should speak thus of
the leader who had been the source of all
our fame and given us such an experience
as no men have ever enjoyed. I had
opened my mouth to utter some hot retort,
when Lord John 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, Professor Sum-
merlee, he’s beyond your class, and the
best you can do with him is to walk wide
and leave him alone.”’

ee ————
Te

The Blurring of the Lines 23

“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’t believe he ever speaks evil of
his comrades behind their backs.”

“ Well said, young fellah my lad,” said
Lord John Roxton. Then, with a kindly
smile, he slapped ProfessorSummerleeupon
his shoulder. ‘Come, Herr Professor,
we’re not going to quarrel at this time
of day. We've seen too much together.
But keep off the grass when you get near
Challenger, for this young fellah and Ihave
a bit of a weakness for the old dear.”

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

“As to you, Lord John Roxton,”’ he
creaked, ‘“‘ your opinion upon a matter
of science is of as much value in my eyes
as my views upon a new type of shot-gun
would be in yours. I have my own
judgment, sir, and I use it in my own way.

AER ATEN Sh Me RANE Wks ede RS POSS Mase ee ak Na
24 The Poison Belt

Because it has misled me once, is that
any reason why I should accept without
criticism anything, however far-fetched,
which this man may care to put forward ?
Are we to have a Pope of science, with
infallible decrees laid down ex cathedré,
and accepted without question by the poor
humble public? I tell you, sir, that I
have a brain of my own, and that I should
feel myself to be a snob and a slave if I
did not use it. If it pleases you to be-
lieve this rigmarole about ether and
Frauenhofer’s lines upon the spectrum,
do so by all means, but do not ask one
who is older and wiser than yourself
to share in your folly. Is it not evident
that if the ether were affected to the
degree which he maintains, and if it were
obnoxious to human health, the result of
it would already be apparent upon our-
selves ?”’ Here he laughed with up-
roarious triumph over his own argument.
“Yes, sir, we should already be very far
from our normal selves, and instead of

The Blurring of the Lines 25

sitting quietly discussing scientific prob-
lems in a railway train we should be
showing actual symptoms of the poison
which was working within us. Where
do we see 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 and aggres-
sive in Summerlee’s demeanour.

‘“‘T think that if you knew more about
the facts you might be less positive in
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 ? ”’

‘‘T mean that when I was leaving the
office the news editor told me that a
telegram had come in confirming the
general illness of the Sumatra natives,
and adding that the lights had not been
lit in the Straits of Sunda.”

EE —————————
26 The Poison Belt

*“ Really, there should be some limits
to human folly!” cried Summerlee, in
a positive fury. “Is it possible that you
do not realize that ether, if for a moment
we adopt Challenger’s preposterous sup-
position, is a universal substance which
is the same here as at the other side
of the world? Do you for an instant
Suppose that there is an English ether
and a Sumatran ether? Perhaps you
imagine that the ether of Kent is in
some way superior to the ether of Surrey,
through which this train is now bearing
us. There really are no bounds to the
credulity and ignorance of the average
layman. Is it conceivable that the ether
in Sumatra should be so deadly as to
cause total insensibility at the very time
when the ether here has had no appre-
ciable effect upon us whatever? Person-
ally, I can truly say that I never felt
stronger in body or better balanced in
mind in my life.”

“That may be. I don’t profess to

The Blurring of the Lines 27

be a scientific man,” said I, ‘‘ though I
have heard somewhere that the science
of one generation is usually the fallacy
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 some local conditions in vari-
ous parts of the world, and might show
an effect over there which would only
develop later with us.”

‘**With ‘might’ and ‘may’ you can prove
anything,” cried Summerlee furiously.
“Pigs may fly. Yes, sir, pigs may fly
—but they don’t. Itis not worth arguing
with you. Challenger has filled you with
his nonsense and you are both incapable
of reason. I had as soon lay arguments
before those railway cushions.”

‘“*IT must say, Professor Summerlee,
that your manners do not seem to have
improved since I last had the pleasure
of meeting you,”’ said Lord John, severely.

““ You lordlings are not accustomed
to hear the truth,’’ Summerlee answered,

28 The Poison Belt

with a bitter smile. ‘‘ It comes as a bit
of a shock, does it not, when someone
makes you realize that your title leaves
you none the less a very ignorant
man ?”

““ Upon my word, sir,” said Lord John,
very stern and rigid, “if you were a
younger 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 goatee beard.

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

For a moment Lord John’s eyes Bleed
and then, with a tremendous effort, he
mastered his anger and leaned back in
his seat with arms folded and a bitter
smile upon his face. To me all this was
dreadful and deplorable. Like a wave

SNe Ee

The Blurring of the Lines 29

the memory of the past swept over me,
the good comradeship, the happy, ad-
venturous days—all that we had suffered
and worked for and won. That it should
have come to this—to insults and abuse !
Suddenly I was sobbing—sobbing in loud,
gulping, uncontrollable sobs which refused
to be concealed. My companions looked
at mein surprise. I covered my face with
my hands.

“ It’s all right,” said I. ‘‘ Only—only
it ts such 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, shak-
ing his head. “I also did not fail to
observe your strange manner the moment
we met. You need not waste your
sympathy, Lord John. These tears are
purely alcoholic. The man has been
drinking. By the way, Lord John, I
called you a coxcomb just now, which

eee.

30 The Poison Belt

SR LOI Aa NN SN SN CONLAIE WHA ALANS,
was, perhaps, unduly severe. But the
word reminds me of a small accomplish-
ment, trivial but amusing, which I used
to possess. You know me as the austere
man of science. Can you believe that I
once had a well-deserved reputation in
several nurseries as a farmyard imitator ?
Perhaps I can help you to pass the time
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 would not
amuse me.” |

“* My imitation of the clucking hen who
had just laid an egg was also considered
rather above the average. Might I ven-
ture’? ;”

INO, Sir: no—certainly not.’

_ But, in spite of this earnest prohibition,
Professor Summerlee laid down his pipe
and for the rest of our journey he enter-
tained—or failed to entertain—us by a
succession of bird and animal cries which
seemed so absurd that my tears were

eee
‘““ The Blurring of the Lines” 31

suddenly changed into boisterous laughter,
which must have become quite hysterical
as I sat opposite this grave Professor and
saw him—or rather heard him—in the
character of the uproarious rooster or the
puppy whose tail had been trodden upon.
Once Lord John passed across his news-
paper, upon the margin of which he had
written in pencil, ‘‘ Poor devil! Mad
as a hatter.”’> No doubt it was very
eccentric, and yet the performance struck
me as extraordinarily clever and amusing.

Whilst this was going on Lord John
leaned forward and told me some inter-
minable story about a buffalo and an
Indian rajah, which seemed to me to have
neither beginning nor end. Professor
Summerlee had just begun to chirrup 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 the station for Rotherfield.

And there was Challenger to meet us.
His appearance was glorious. Not all

—eanaPeEeEeEeeooeeeeeECOEC— —
3h The Poison Belt

the turkey-cocks in creation could match
the slow, high-stepping dignity with
which he paraded his own railway station,
and the benignant smile of condescending
encouragement with which he regarded
everybody around him. If he had changed
in anything since the days of old, it was
that his points had become accentuated.
The huge head and broad sweep of fore-
head, with its plastered lock of black
hair, seemed even greater than before.
His black beard poured forward in a more
impressive cascade, and his clear grey eyes,
with their insolent and sardonic eyelids,
were even more masterful than of yore.

He gave me the amused hand-shake
and encouraging smile which the head
master bestows upon the small boy, and,
having greeted the others and helped to
collect their bags and their cylinders of
oxygen, he stowed us and them away
in a large motor-car which was driven
by the same impassive Austin, the man
of few words, whom I had seen in the

“IT IS, IN MY OPINION,

The Blurring of the Lines it 4 33

character of butler upon the occasion of
my first eventful visit to the Professor.
Our journey led us up a winding hill
through beautiful country. I sat in front
with the chauffeur, but behind me my
three comrades seemed to me to be all
talking together. Lord John was still
struggling with his buffalo story, so far
as I could make out, while once again I
_ heard, as of old, the deep rumble of Chal-
lenger and the insistent accents of Sum-
merlee, as their brains locked in high and .
fierce scientific debate. Suddenly Austin —
slanted his mahogany face towards mewith- ©
out taking his eyes from his steering-wheel..

‘*T’m under notice,”’ said he.

“Dear me!” said I.

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

‘“‘ It’s forty-seven times,’
reflectively.

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

’ said Austin,

34 The Poison Belt

“I don’t go,” said Austin.

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

“If I was to go, who would look after
"im ?’’? He jerked his head towards his
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 run down
like a watch with the mainspring out.
I’m telling you because you’re ’is friend,
and you ought to know. If I was to take
"im at *is word—but there, I wouldn’t
have the ’eart. ’E and the missus would
be like two babes left out in a bundle.
I’m just everything. And then ’e goes
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 clever man,
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 this morning.”

The Blurring of the Lines 35

*“ What did he do?”

Austin bent over to me.

“°E bit the ’ousekeeper,’’ said he,
in a hoarse whisper.

eit her?”

“Yes, sir. Bit ’er on the leg. I saw
er with my own eyes startin’ a Marathon
from the ’all-door.”’

““Good gracious!”

*“So you'd say, sir, if you could see
some of the goings-on. ’E don’t make
friends with the neighbours. 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 what they say. But I’ve served
"1m 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 honour to 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.”

€

86 The Poison Belt

The car on its lowest speed had ground
its way up a steep, curving ascent. 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 and arresting :-—

WARNING.

Visitors, Pressmen, and Mendicants
are not encouraged.

G. E. CHALLENGER,

“No, it’s not what you might call
’earty,” said Austin, shaking his head and
glancing up at the deplorable placard.
‘Tt wouldn’t look well in a Christmas-
card. I beg your pardon, sir, for I haven’t
spoke as much as this for many a long
year, but to-day my feelings seem to
"ave got the better of me. ’E can sack
me till ’e’s blue in the face, but I ain’t
going, and that’s flat. I’m ‘is man and

The Blurring of the Lines 37

’e’s my master, and so it will be, 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, picked out with
white woodwork, very comfortable and
pretty. Mrs. Challenger, a small, dainty,
smiling figure, stood in the open doorway
to welcome us.

‘Well, my dear,” said Challenger, bus-
tling out of the car, “‘ here are our visitors.
It is something new for us to have visitors,
is it not? No love lost between us and
our neighbours, is there? If they could
get rat poison into our baker’s cart, I
expect it would be there.”

“© Tt’s dreadful—dreadful!”’ cried the
lady, between laughter and tears. * George
is always quarrelling with everyone. We
haven’t a friend on the countryside.”

‘““It enables me to concentrate my
attention upon my incomparable wife,”
said Challenger, passing his short, thick

88 The Poison Belt

arm round her waist. Picture a gorilla
and a gazelle, and you have the pair
of them. ‘‘ Come, come, these gentlemen
are tired from the journey, and luncheon
should be ready. Has Sarah returned ?”’

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

‘* Austin,” he cried, ‘‘ when you have
put up the car you will kindly help your
mistress to lay the lunch. Now, gentle-
men, will you please step into my study,
for there are one or two very urgent things
which I am anxious to say to you.”

THE TIDE OF DEATH

ss ee

Chapter II

THE TIDE OF DEATH

As we crossed the hall the telephone-bell
rang, and we were the involuntary audi-
tors of Professor Challenger’s end of the
ensuing dialogue. I say “we,” but no
one within a hundred yards could have
failed to hear the booming of that mon-
strous voice, which reverberated through
the house. His answers lingered in my
mind.

‘“* Yes, yes, of course, it SeL Ye. PGS
certainly, the Professor Challenger, the
famous Professor, who else? ... Of
course, every word of it, otherwise I should
not have written it. . . . I shouldn’t be
surprised. . . . There is every indication
of it. ... Within a day or so at the
furthest. . . . Well, I can’t help that, can
I? ... Very unpleasant, no doubt, but I

42 - The Poison Belt

rather fancy it will affect more important
people than you. There is no use whining
about it. ... No, I couldn’t possibly.
You must take your chance. . . . That’s
enough, sir. Nonsense! I have something
more important to do than to listen to
such twaddle.”’

He shut off with a crash and led us up-
stairs into a large, airy apartment which
formed his study. On the great maho-
gany desk seven or eight unopened tele-
grams were lying.

** Really,’’ he said, as he gathered them
up, “I begin to think that it would save
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 and bellowed in
a paroxysm of laughter, his hands shaking
so that he could hardly open the envelopes.

““Noah! Noah!” he gasped, with a
face of beetroot, while Lord John and I

eee

The Tide of Death 43

smiled in sympathy, and Summerlee,
like a dyspeptic goat, wagged his head
in sardonic disagreement. Finally Chal-
lenger, still rumbling and exploding, began
to open his telegrams. The three of us
stood in the bow window and occupied our-
selves in admiring the magnificent view.
It was certainly worth looking at. The
road in its gentle curves had really brought
us to a considerable elevation—seven
hundred feet, as we afterwards discovered.
Challenger’s house was on the very edge
of the hill, and from its southern face,
in which was the study window, one
looked across the vast stretch of the weald
to where the gentle curves of the South
Downs formed an undulating horizon.
In a cleft of the hills a haze of smoke
marked the position of Lewes. Immedi-
ately at our feet there lay a rolling plain
of heather, with the long, vivid green
stretches of the Crowborough golf course,
all dotted with the players. A little to
the south, through an opening in the woods,

A OL Dh ade ONT ees Pie a
44, The Poison Belt

we could see a section of the main line
from London to Brighton. In the imme-
diate foreground, under our very noses, was
a small enclosed yard, in which stood the
car which had brought us from the station.

An ejaculation from Challenger caused
ustoturn. He had read his telegrams and
had arranged them in a little methodical
pile upon his desk. His broad, rugged
face, or aS much of it as was visible over
the matted beard, was still deeply flushed,
and he seemed to be under the influence
of some strong excitement.

“Well, gentlemen,” he said, in a voice
as if he were addressing a public meeting,
“this is indeed an interesting reunion,
and it takes place under extraordinary—
I may say unprecedented—circumstances.
May I ask if you have observed anything
upon your journey from town ? ”’

“The only thing which I observed,”
said Summerlee, with a sour smile, ‘“* was
that our young friend here has not im-
proved in his manners during the years

eee

The Tide of Death 45

that have passed. I am sorry to state
that I have had to seriously complain
of his conduct in the train, and I should
be wanting in frankness if I did not say
that it has left a most unpleasant impres-
sion in my mind.”

“Well, well, we all get a bit prosy
sometimes,” said Lord John. ant Waite
young fellah meant no real harm. After
all, he’s an International, so if he takes half
an hour to describe a game of football
he has more right to do it than most folky)

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

‘‘T can hardly judge which of you was
the most utterly wearisome,” said Sum-
merlee. ‘I declare to you, Challenger,
that I never wish to hear of football or
of buffaloes so long as I live.”

“T have never said one word to-day
about football,” I protested.

Sac EnnTINnSiesesseeeesesssss er]
A6 The Poison Beli

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 sat there
in sad but thoughtful silence——”

“In silence!’ cried Lord John. “ Why,
you were doin’ a music-hall turn of imi-
tations 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 of vinegar.

“Why, dash it all, this is clear mad-
ness,’ cried Lord John. “Each of us
seems to know what the others did and
none of us knows what he did himself.
Let’s put it all together from the first.
We got into a first-class smoker, that’s
clear, ain’tit? Then we began to quarrel
over friend Challenger’s letter in the
Times.”

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

The Tide of Death AT

“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 I
ask with what arguments the great and
famous Professor Summerlee proceeded
to demolish the humble individual who
had ventured to express an opinion upon
a matter of scientific possibility ? Perhaps
before he exterminates that unfortunate
nonentity he will condescend to give
some reasons for the adverse views which
he has formed.”

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

** The reason was simple enough,” said
the dogged Summerlee. ‘I contended
that, if the ether surrounding the earth
was so toxic in one quarter that it
produced dangerous symptoms, it was
hardly likely that we three in the

SE EERO IOAY RAVAN URI AL CUNY MOR ANERUOEEE
48 The Poison .Belt

railway carriage should be entirely un-
affected.”

The explanation only brought up-
roarious merriment from Challenger.
He laughed until everything in the room
seemed to rattle and quiver.

** Our worthy Summerlee is, not for the
first time, somewhat out of touch with
the facts of the situation,” said he at last,
mopping his heated brow. ‘‘ Now, gentle-
men, I cannot make my point better than
by detailing to you what I have myself
done this morning. You will the more
easily condone any mental aberration
upon your own part when you realize
that even I have had moments when
my balance has been disturbed. We
have had for some years in this household
a housekeeper—one Sarah, with whose
second name I have never attempted to
burden my memory. She is a woman of
a severe and forbidding aspect, prim and
demure in her bearing, very impassive
in her nature, and never known within

** CATHEDRAL AND CHURCHES FULL TO OVERFLOWING. THE DEAD OUTNUMBER
THE LIVING” (p. 64),

The Tide of Death 49
our experience to show signs of any emo-
tion. As I sat alone at my breakfast—
Mrs. Challenger is in the habit of keeping her
room of a morning—it suddenly entered
my head that it would be entertaining
and instructive to see whether I could
find any limits to this woman’s imper-
turbability. I devised a simple but
effective experiment. Having upset a
small vase of flowers which stood in 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 to the study. As
I had expected, she approached and leaned
over the table to replace the vase. I
had a vision of a cotton stocking and an
_ elastic-sided boot. Protruding my head,
I sank my teeth into the calf of her leg.
The experiment was successful beyond
belief. For some moments she stood
paralysed, staring down at my head.
Then with a shriek she tore herself free
and rushed from the room. I pursued

50 The Poison Belt

her with some thoughts of an explanation,
but she flew down the drive, and some
minutes afterwards I was able to pick
her out with my field-glasses travelling
very rapidly in a south-westerly direction.
I tell you the anecdote for what it is worth.
I drop it into your brains and await its
germination. Is it illuminative? Has it
conveyed anything to your minds? What
do you think of it, Lord John?”

Lord John shook his head gravely.

‘* You'll be gettin’ into serious trouble
some of these days if you don’t put a
brake on,” said he.

‘* Perhaps you have some observation
to make, Summerlee ? ”

“You should drop all work instantly,
Challenger, and take three months in a
German watering-place,”’ said he.

‘Profound! profound!” cried Chal-
lenger. ‘“‘ Now, my young friend, is it
possible that wisdom may come from

you where your seniors have so signally
failed ?” °

ES
The Tide of Death 51

And it did. I say it with all modesty,
but it did. Of course, it all seems obvious
enough to you who know what occurred,
but it was not so very clear when every-
thing was new. But it came on me
suddenly with the full force of absolute
conviction.

*“* Poison!” I cried.

Then, even as I said the word, my
_ mind flashed back over the whole morn-
ing’s experiences, past Lord John with
his buffalo, past my own hysterical tears,
past the outrageous conduct of Professor
Summerlee, to the queer happenings in
London, the row in the park, the driving
of the chauffeur, the quarrel at the oxygen
warehouse. Everything fitted suddenly
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. Our
planet has swum into the poison belt
of ether, and is now flying deeper into it

a AR RE RE

52 The Poison Belt

at the rate of some millions of miles a
minute. Our young friend has expressed
the cause of all our troubles and perplexi-
ties in a single word, ‘ Poison.’ ”’

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

‘‘There is a mental inhibition by which
such symptoms can be checked and con-
trolled,”” said Challenger. “I cannot
expect to find it developed in all of you
to the same point which it has reached
in me, for I suppose that the strength
of our different mental processes bears
some proportion to each other. But no
doubt it is appreciable even in our young
friend here. After the little outburst
of high spirits which so alarmed my
domestic I sat down and reasoned with
myself. I put it to myself that I had
never before felt impelled to bite any of
my household. The impulse had then
been an abnormal one. In an instant
I perceived the truth. My pulse upon

4 (A j ,
,

The Tide of Death 53

examination was ten beats above the
usual, and my reflexes were increased.
I called upon my higher and saner self,
the real G. E. C., seated serene and im-
pregnable behind all mere molecular dis-. .
turbance. I summoned him, I say, to
watch the foolish mental tricks which the
poison would play. I found that I was
indeed the master. I could recognize
and control a disordered mind. It was
a remarkable exhibition of the victory
of mind over matter, for it was a victory
over that particular form of matter which
is most intimately connected with mind. I
might almost say that mind was at fault,
and that personality controlled it. Thus,
when my wife came downstairs and I was
impelled to slip behind the door and
alarm her by some wild cry as she entered,
I was able to stifle the impulse and to
greet her with dignity and restraint. An
overpowering desire to quack like a duck
was met and mastered in the same fashion.
Later, when I descended to order the car

* 54 The Poison Belt

and found Austin bending over it absorbed
in repairs, I controlled my open hand even
after I had lifted it, and refrained from
giving him an experience which would
possibly have caused him to follow in the
steps of the housekeeper. On the con-
trary, I touched him on the shoulder and
ordered the car to be at the door in time
to meet your train. At the present in-
stant I am most forcibly tempted to take
Professor Summerlee by that silly old
beard of his, and to shake his head vio-
lently backwards and forwards. And yet,
as you see, I am perfectly restrained.
- Let me commend my example to you.”

‘““ Vl look out for that buffalo,” said
Lord John.

‘““And I for the football match.”

*“ It may be that you are right, Chal-
lenger,” said Summerlee, in a chastened
voice. “I am willing to admit that my
turn of mind is critical rather than con-
structive, and that I am not a ready
convert to any new theory, especially

The Tide of Death 55°

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 I reconsider the
fatuous conduct of my companions, I find
it easy to believe that some poison of
an exciting kind was responsible for their
symptoms.”

Challenger slapped his colleague good-
humouredly upon the shoulder. ‘‘ We pro-
gress,” said he. ‘‘ Decidedly we progress.”’

‘And pray, sir,” asked Summerlee,
humbly, ‘“‘ what is your opinion as to the
present outlook ? ”’

‘* With your permission I will say a
few words upon that subject.”” He seated
himself upon his desk, his short, stumpy
legs swinging in front of him. ‘“ We are
assisting at a tremendous and awful
function. It is, in my opinion, the end
of the world.”

The end of the world! Our eyes turned
to the great bow-window and we looked
out at the summer beauty of the country-

ef
wi 4s"

SSE TEASERS AION ANUP MS Sy RU SHIRE NAN OE BEST
56 The Poison Belt

side, the long slopes of heather, the great
country houses, the cosy farms, the
pleasure-seekers upon the links. The end
of the world! One had often heard the
words, but the idea that they could ever
have an immediate practical significance,
that it should not be at some vague date,
but now, to-day, that was a tremendous,
a Staggering thought. We were all struck
solemn and waited in silence for Challenger
to continue. His overpowering presence
and appearance lent such force to the
solemnity of his words that for a moment
all the crudities and absurdities of the man
vanished, and he loomed before us as
something majestic and beyond the range
of ordinary humanity. Then to me, at
least, there came back the cheering recol-
_ lection of how twice since we had entered
the room he had roared with laughter.
Surely, I thought, there are limits to
mental detachment. The crisis cannot
be so great or so pressing, after all.
‘You will conceive a bunch of grapes,”

f The Tide of Death 57

said he, “‘ which are covered by some
infinitesimal but noxious bacillus. The
gardener passes it through a disinfecting
medium. It may be that he desires his
grapes to be cleaner. It may be that he
needs space to breed some fresh bacillus
less noxious 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 the human bacillus,

the little mortal vibrio which twisted and
wriggled upon the outer rind of the earth,
will in an instant be sterilized out of
existence.”’

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

“There is one of our bacilli squeak-
ing for help,” said he, with a grim
smile. “They are beginning to realise
that their continued existence is not
really one of the necessities of the Uni-
verse.”

He was gone from the room for a minute
or two. I remember that none of us

58 The Poison Belt

spoke in his absence. The situation
seemed beyond all words or comments.

“The medical officer of health for
Brighton,’ said he, when he returned.
“The symptoms are for some reason
developing more rapidly upon the sea-
level. Ourseven hundred feet of elevation
give uS an advantage. Folk seem to
have learned that I am the first authority
upon the question. No doubt it comes
from my letter in the Times. That was
the mayor of a provincial town with whom
I talked when we first arrived. You may
have heard me upon the telephone. He
seemed to put an entirely inflated value
upon his own life. I helped him to re-
adjust his ideas.”’

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

** Challenger,” said he, earnestly, “‘ this
thing is too serious for mere futile argu-
ment. Do not suppose that I desire to
irritate you by any question I may ask.

The Tide of Death 59

But I put it to you whether there may
not be some fallacy in your information
or in your reasoning. There is the sun
shining as brightly as ever in a blue sky.
There are the heather and the flowers
and the birds. There are the folk enjoy-
ing themselves upon the golf-links, and
the labourers yonder cutting the corn.
You tell us that they and we may be upon
the very brink of destruction—that this
sunlit day may be that day of doom which
the human race has so long awaited.
So far as we know, you found this tre-
mendous judgment upon what? Upon
some abnormal lines in a spectrum—
upon rumours from Sumatra—upon some
curious personal excitement which we
have discerned in each other. This latter
symptom is not so marked but that you
and we could, by a deliberate effort,
control it. You need not stand on cere-
mony with us, Challenger. We have
all faced death together before now.
Speak out, and let us know exactly where

60 The Poison Belt

we stand, and what, in your opinion, are
our prospects for our future.”’

It was a brave, good speech, a speech
from that staunch and strong spirit which
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 to tell
us where we are. We ain’t nervous folk,
as you know well; but when it comes
to makin’ a week-end visit and finding
you’ve run full butt into the 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 sun-
shine at the window, with his brown hand
upon the shoulder of Summerlee. I was
lying back in an arm-chair, an extin-
guished cigarette between my lips, in
that sort of half-dazed state in which
impressions become exceedingly distinct.

ee i ee)
The Tide of Death 61

It may have been a new phase of the
poisoning, but the delirious promptings
had all passed away, and 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
any personal concern of mine. But here
were three strong men at a great crisis,
and it was fascinating to observe them.
Challenger bent his heavy brows and
stroked his beard before he answered.
One could see that he 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 Reuter just come
in from Singapore to the effect that the
sickness seemed to be universal in Su-
matra, and that the lighthouses had not
been lit in consequence.”

“Events have been moving somewhat
rapidly since then,” said Challenger, pick-
ing up his pile of telegrams. ‘I am in

62 The Poison Belt

close touch both with the authorities and
with the Press, so that news is converging
upon me from all parts. There is, in
fact, a general and very insistent demand
that I should come to London; but I see
no good end to be served. From the
accounts the poisonous effect begins with
mental excitement; the rioting in Paris
this morning is said to have been very
violent, and the Welsh colliers are in a
state of uproar. So far as the evidence to
hand can be trusted, this stimulative stage,
which varies much in races and in indivi-
duals, is succeeded by a certain exaltation
and mental lucidity—I seem to discern
some signs of it in our young friend here
—which, after an appreciable interval,
turns to coma, deepening rapidly into
death. I fancy, so far as my toxicology
carries me, that there are some vegetable
nerve poisons——”’

‘“‘ Datura,’ suggested Summerlee.

“Excellent!” cried Challenger. “It
would make for scientific precision if

SSS eee
The Tide of Death © 63

we named our toxic agent. Let it be
daturon. To you, my dear Summerlee,
belongs the honour—posthumous, alas!
but none the less unique—of having given
a name to the universal destroyer, the
great Gardener’s disinfectant. The symp-
toms of daturon, then, may be taken
to be such as I indicate. That it will
involve the whole world and that no life
can possibly remain behind seems to me
to be certain, since ether is a universal
medium. Up to now it has been capri-
cious in the places which it has attacked,
but the difference is only a matter of a
few hours, and it is like an advancing
tide which covers one strip of sand and
then another, running hither and thither
in irregular streams, until at last it has
submerged it all. There are laws at work
in connection with the action and dis-
tribution of daturon which would have
been of deep interest had the time at our
disposal permitted us to study them.
So far as I can trace them ’’—here he

64. The Poison Belt

glanced over his telegrams—“ the less
developed races have been the first to
respond to its influence. There are de-
plorable accounts from Africa, and the
Australian aborigines appear to have been
already exterminated. The Northern
races have as yet shown greater resisting
power than the Southern. This, you see,
is dated from Marseilles at nine-forty-
five this morning. I give it to you
verbatim :— '

*** All nightdelirious excitement through-
out Provence. Tumult of vine growers
at Nimes. Socialistic upheaval at Toulon.
Sudden illness attended by coma attacked
population this morning. Peste foud-
royant. Great numbers of dead in the
streets. Paralysis of business and uni-
versal chaos.’

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

““* We are threatened with utter ex-
termination. Cathedrals and churches full
to overflowing. The dead outnumber the

“© ONCE FAIRLY OUT ON A ROUND, IT WOULD TAKE THE CRACK OF DOOM TO STOP
A TRUE GOLFER” (p. 82).

eo
‘ The Tide of Death 65
eto AS RPE TA OY Be
living. It is inconceivable and horrible.
Decease seems to be painless, but swift
and inevitable.’
“There is a similar telegram from

Paris, where the development is not yet ™

as acute. India and Persia appear to be
utterly wiped out. The Slavonic popu-
lation of Austria is down, while the
Teutonic has hardly been affected. Speak-
_ ing generally, the dwellers upon the plains
and upon the seashore seem, so far as my
limited information goes, to have felt the
effects more rapidly than those inland
or on the heights. Even a little elevation
makes a considerable difference, and per-
haps if there be a survivor of the human
race, he will again be found upon the
summit of some Ararat. Even our own

little hill may presently prove to be a
' temporary island amid a sea of disaster.
But at the present rate of advance a few
short hours will submerge us all.”

Lord John Roxton wiped his brow.
‘““ What beats me,” said he, “is how

5 ‘

aia

4 Wr
din

66 The Poison Belt

you could sit there laughin’ with that

* _ stack of telegrams under your hand.

_ T’ve seen death as often as most folk ;

but universal death—it’s awful!”

‘As to the laughter,” said Challenger,
** you will bear in mind that, like your-
selves, I have not been exempt from the
stimulating cerebral effects of the etheric
poison. But as to the horror with which
universal death appears to inspire you,
I would put it to you that it is somewhat
exaggerated. If you were sent to sea
alone in an open boat to some unknown
destination, your heart might well sink
within you. The isolation, the uncer-
tainty, would oppress you. But if your
voyage were made in a goodly ship, which
bore within it all your relations and your
friends, you would feel that, however
uncertain your destination might still
remain, you would at least have one
common and simultaneous experience
which would hold you to the end in the
same close communion. A lonely death

The Tide of Death 67 —

may be terrible, but a universal vone,

as painless as this would appear to be,

is not, in my judgment, a matter for
apprehension. Indeed, I could sympathize
with the person who took the view that
the horror lay in the idea of surviving
when all that is learned, famous, and
exalted had passed away.”

*“ What, then, do you propose to do ? ”
asked Summerlee, who had for once
nodded his assent to the reasoning of his
brother scientist.

“To take our lunch,” said Challenger,
as the boom of a gong sounded through
the house. ‘‘We have a cook whose
omelettes are only excelled by her cutlets.
We can but trust that no cosmic dis-
turbance has dulled her excellent abilities.
My Scharzberger of ’96 must also be
rescued, so far as our earnest and united
efforts can do it, from what would be a
deplorable waste of a great vintage.” He
levered his great bulk off the desk, upon
which he had sat while he announced the

68 The Poison Belt

doom of the planet. ‘‘ Come,” said he.
‘‘ If there is little time left, there is the
more need that we should spend it in sober
and reasonable enjoyment.”

And, indeed, it proved to be a very
merry meal. It is true that we could
not forget our awful situation. The full
solemnity of the event loomed ever at the
back of our minds and tempered our
thoughts. But surely it is the soul which
has never faced Death which shies strongly
from it at the 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 strong guidance of her
mighty husband and was well content to
go whither his path might lead. The future
was with Fate. The present was our
own. We passed it in goodly comrade-
ship and gentle merriment. Our minds
were, as I have said, singularly lucid.
Even I struck sparks. at times. As to
Challenger, he was wonderful! Never
have I so realized the elemental greatness

The Tide of Death 69

of the man, the sweep and power of his
understanding. Summerlee drew him
on with his chorus of subacid criticism,
while Lord John and I laughed at the
contest; and the lady, her hand upon
his sleeve, controlled the bellowings of
the philosopher. Life, death, fate, the
destiny of man—these were the stupen-
dous subjects of that memorable hour,
made vital by the fact that as the meal
progressed strange, sudden exaltations
in my mind and tinglings in my limbs
proclaimed that the invisible tide of
Death was slowly and gently rising around
us. Once I saw Lord John put his hand
suddenly to his eyes, and once Summerlee
dropped back for an instant in his chair.
Kach breath we breathed was charged
with strange forces. And yet our minds
were happy and atease. Presently Austin
laid the cigarettes upon the table and was
about to withdraw.
** Austin! ’’ said his master.
eves sir 7”?

70 The Poison Belt

‘* T thank you for your faithful service.”

A smile stole over the servant’s gnarled
face.

‘“T’ve done my duty, sir.”

‘*’m expecting the end of the world
to-day, Austin.”

o Ves. csir.: What, time, Simdes

‘*T can’t say, Austin. Before evening.”

‘* Very good, sir.”

The taciturn Austin saluted and with-
drew. 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 also to
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 it
you have practically died.”

‘But that is a pleasant sensation.”

‘*So may death be. The worn-out
bodily machine can’t record its impression,

The Tide of Death 71

but we know the mental pleasure which
lies in a dream or a trance. Nature
may build a beautiful door and hang
it with many a gauzy and shimmering
curtain to make an entrance to the new
life for our wondering souls. In all my
probings of the actual, I have always
found wisdom and kindness at the core ;
and if ever the frightened mortal needs
tenderness, it is surely as he makes the
passage perilous from life to life. No,
Summerlee, I will have none of your
materialism, for I, at least, am too great
a thing to end in mere physical constitu-
ents, a packet of salts and three bucket-
fuls of water. Here—here’’—and he
beat his great head with his huge, hairy
fist—‘‘ there is something which uses mat-
ter, but is not of it—something which
might destroy death, but which Death
can never destroy.”

“Talkin? of death,’? said Lord John.
‘“‘ Tm a Christian of sorts, but it seems to
me there was somethin’ mighty natural in

————————————
72, The Poison Belt

those ancestors of ours, who were buried
with their axes and bows and arrows and
the like, same as if they were livin’ on
just the same as they used to. I don’t
know,” he added, looking round the
table in a shamefaced way, “that I
wouldn’t feel more homely myself if I
was put away with my old ‘450 Express
and the fowlin’-piece, the shorter one with
the rubbered stock, and a clip or two of
cartridges—just a fool’s fancy, of course,
but there it is. How does it strike you,
Herr Professor ? ”

‘““ Well,” said Summerlee, “ since you
ask my opinion, it strikes me as an inde-
fensible throwback to the Stone Age or
before it. I’m of the twentieth century
myself, and would wish to die like a reason-
able civilized man. I don’t know that I am
more afraid of death than the rest of you,
for lL am an oldish man, and, come what
may, I can’t have very much longer to live;
but it is all against my nature to sit wait-
ing without a struggle like a sheep for the

The Tide of Death 73

butcher. Is it quite certain, Challenger,
that there is nothing we can do?”

“To save us—nothing,”’ said Challenger
“To prolong our lives a few hours, and
thus to see the evolution of this mighty
tragedy before we are actually involved
in it—that may prove to be within my
powers. I have taken certain steps i

“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 a gas than there
is between oxygen and ether. They are
different planes of matter. They cannot
impinge upon one another. Come, Chal-
lenger, you could not defend such a
proposition.”

““My good Summerlee, this etheric
poison is most certainly influenced by ma-
terial agents. We see it in the methods
and distribution of the outbreak. We
should not a priort have expected it,

rel The Poison Belt

but it is undoubtedly a fact. Hence I
am strongly of opinion that a gas like
oxygen, which increases the vitality and
the resisting power of the body, would
be extremely likely to delay the action
of what you have so happily named the
daturon. It may be that I am mistaken,
but I have every confidence in the cor-
rectness of my reasoning.”

“* Well,” said Lord John, ‘if we’ve
got to sit suckin’ at those tubes like so
many iti with their bottles, I’m not
takin’ any.”

‘*'There will be no need for that,”
Challenger answered. ‘“‘ We have made
arrangements—it is to my wife that you
chiefly owe it—that her boudoir shall
be made as airtight as is practicable.
With matting and varnished paper——”’

‘“* Good heavens, Challenger, you don’t
suppose you can keep out ether with
varnished paper ? ”

‘““ Really, my worthy friend, you are
a trifle perverse in missing the point.

The Tide of Death 75

It is not to keep out the ether that we have
gone to such trouble. It is to keep in
the oxygen. I trust that if we can ensure
an atmosphere hyper-oxygenated to a
certain point, we may be able to retain
our senses. I had two tubes of the gas
and you have brought me three more. It
is not much, but it is something.”

‘*How long will they last?”

‘**T have not an idea. We will not turn
them on until our symptoms become
unbearable. Then we shall dole the gas
out as it is urgently needed. It may
give us some hours, possibly even some
days, on which we may look out upon
a blasted world. Our own fate is delayed
to that extent, and we will have the very
singular experience, we five, of being, in
all probability, the absolute rearguard of
the human race upon its march into the un-
known. Perhaps you will be kind enough
now to give me a hand with the cylinders.
It seems to me that the atmosphere already
grows somewhat more oppressive.”

Chapter III

SUBMERGED

THE chamber which was destined to be
the scene of our unforgettable experience
was a charmingly feminine sitting-room,
some fourteen or sixteen feet square. At
the end of it, divided by a curtain of red
velvet, 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 the purposes of our
experiment. One door and the window-
frame had been plastered round with
varnished paper, so as to be practically
sealed. Above the other door, which
opened on to the landing, there hung
a fanlight which could be drawn by a
cord when some ventilation became abso-

80 —-‘ The Poison Belt

lutely necessary. A large shrub in a tub
stood in each corner.

** How to get rid of our excessive car-
bonic dioxide without unduly wasting our
oxygen is a delicate and vital question,”
said Challenger, looking round him after
the five iron tubes had been laid side by
side against the wall. ‘‘ With longer time
for preparation I could have brought the
whole concentrated force of my intelligence
to bear more fully upon the problem, but
as it is we must do what we can. The
shrubs will be of some small service.
Two of the oxygen tubes are ready to be
turned on at an instant’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 a
sudden and urgent one.”’

There was a broad, low window opening
out “upon a balcony. The view beyond
was the same as that which we had already
admired from the study. Looking out,
I could see no sign of disorder anywhere.

sh
he
qt

‘ THAT POOR DEVIL OF A CHAUFFEUR OF YOURS DOWN IN THE YARD THERE

HAS MADE HIS LAST JOURNEY” (p. 95).

EE
Submerged 81

There was a road curving down the side
of the hill, under my very eyes. A cab
from the station, one of those prehistoric
survivals which are only to be found in
our country villages, was toiling slowly
up the hill. Lower down was a nurse-
girl, wheeling a perambulator and leading
a second child by the hand. The blue
reeks of smoke from the cottages gave
the whole widespread landscape an air
of settled order and homely comfort.
Nowhere in the blue heaven or on the
sunlit earth was there any foreshadowing
of a catastrophe. The harvesters were
back in the fields once more and the
golfers, in pairs and fours, were still
streaming round the links. There was
So strange a turmoil within my own head,
and such a jangling of my overstrung
nerves, that the indifference of these
people was amazing.

‘Those fellows don’t seem to feel any
ill effects,”? said I, pointing down at the
links.

— ———————

82 The Poison Belt

“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 a round,
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 had sum-
moned the Professor. He gave us the
news as it came through to him in a
few curt sentences. Such terrific items
had never been registered in the world’s
history before. The great shadow was
creeping up from the South like a rising
tide of death. Egypt had gone through
its delirium and was now comatose. Spain
and Portugal, after a wild frenzy in which
the Clericals and the Anarchists had
fought most desperately, were now fallen
silent. No cable messages were received
any longer from South America. In North
America the Southern States, after some

ne
iN

Submerged 83

terrible racial rioting, had succumbed
to the poison. North of Maryland the
effect was not yet marked, and in Canada
it was hardly perceptible. Belgium, Hol-
land, and Denmark had each in turn
been affected. Despairing messages were
flashing from every quarter to the great
centres of learning, to the chemists and
the doctors of world-wide repute, implor-.
ing their advice. The astronomers, too,
were deluged with inquiries. Nothing
could be done. The thing was universal
and beyond our human knowledge or
control. It was death—painless_ but
inevitable—death for young and old, for
weak and strong, for rich and poor, with-
out hope or possibility of escape. Such
was the news which, in scattered, dis-
tracted messages, the telephone had
brought us. The great cities already
knew their fate, and so far as we could
gather were preparing to meet it with
dignity and resignation. Yet here were
our golfers and labourers like the lambs

84 The Poison Belt

who gambol under the shadow of the
knife. It seemed amazing. And yet how
could they: know? It had all come
upon us in one giant stride. What was
there in the morning paper to alarm them ?
And now it was but three in the afternoon.
Even as we looked some rumour seemed
to have spread, for we saw the reapers
hurrying from the fields. Some of the
golfers were returning to the club-house.
They were running as if taking refuge
from ashower. Their little caddies trailed
behind them. Others were continuing
their game. The nurse had turned and
was pushing her perambulator hurriedly
up the hill again. I noticed that she
had her hand to her brow. The cab
had stopped and the tired horse, with
his head sunk to his knees, was resting.
Above there was a perfect summer sky—
one huge vault of unbroken blue, save for
a few fleecy white clouds over the distant
downs. If the human race must die to-
day, it was at least upon a glorious death-

ES
Submerged 85

bed. And yet all that gentle loveliness
of Nature made this terrific and whole-
sale destruction the more pitiable and
awful. Surely it was too goodly a resi-
dence that we should be so swiftly, so
ruthlessly, evicted from it !
But I have said that the telephone-bel
had rung once more. Suddenly I heard
Challenger’s tremendous voice from thehall.

“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 are
terrible goings-on in London. For God’s
sake, see if Professor Challenger can sug-
gest anything that can be done.”

“ He can suggest nothing, sir,” I an-
swered. “‘ He regards the crisis as uni-
versal and inevitable. We have some
oxygen here, but it can only defer our
fate for a few hours.”

“Oxygen!” cried the agonized voice.

86 The Poison Belt

‘“‘ There is no time to get any. The office
has been a perfect pandemonium ever since
you left inthe morning. Now half of the
staff are insensible. I am weighed down
with heaviness myself. From my window
I can see the people lying thick in Fleet
Street. The traffic is allheldup. Judging
by the last telegrams, the whole world——”

His voice had been sinking, and sud-
denly stopped. An instant later I heard
through the telephone a muffled thud, as
if his head had fallen forward on the desk.

‘‘Mr. McArdle!” I cried. ‘‘ Mr. Mc-
Ardle !”

There was no answer. I knew as I
replaced the receiver that I should never
hear his voice again.

_ At that instant, just as I took a step
backwards from the telephone, the thing
was on us. It was as if we were bathers,
up to our shoulders in water, who sud-
denly are submerged by a rolling wave.
An invisible hand seemed to have quietly
closed round my throat and to be gently

Submerged 87

pressing the life from me. I was conscious
of immense oppression upon my chest,
great tightness within my head, a loud
singing in my ears, and bright flashes
before my eyes. I staggered to the balus-
trades of the stair. At the same moment,
rushing and snorting like a wounded
buffalo, Challenger dashed past me, a
terrible vision, with red-purple face, en-
gorged eyes, and bristling hair. His little
wife, insensible to all appearance, was
slung over his great shoulder, and he
plundered and thundered up the stair,
scrambling and tripping, but carrying
himself and her through sheer will-force
through that mephitic atmosphere to the 4
haven of temporary safety. At the sight
of his effort I too rushed up the steps,
clambering, falling, clutching at the rail,
until I tumbled half senseless upon my
face on the upper landing. Lord John’s
fingers of steel were in the collar of my
coat, and a m nt later I was stretched
upon my back, unable to speak or move,

ee
88 The Poison Belt

on the boudoir carpet. The woman lay
beside me, and Summerlee was bunched
in a chair by the window, his head nearly
touching his knees. As in a dream I saw
Challenger, like a monstrous beetle, crawl-
ing slowly across the floor, and a moment
later I heard the gentle hissing of the
escaping oxygen. Challenger breathed
two or three times with enormous gulps,
his lungs roaring as he drew in the vital
gas.

“It works ! ”’ he cried, exultantly. ‘ My
reasoning has been justified!’ He was
up on his feet again, alert and strong.
With a tube in his hand he rushed over
to his wife and held it to her face. In a
few seconds she moaned, stirred, and sat
up. He turned to me, and I felt the tide
of life stealing warmly through my arteries.
My reason told me that it was but a little
respite, and yet, carelessly as we talk of
its value, every hour of existence now
seemed an inestimable thing. Never have
I known such a thrill of sensuous joy as

a
Submerged 89

came with that freshet of life. The weight
fell away from my lungs, the band loosened
from my brow, a sweet feeling of peace
and gentle, languid comfort stole over
me. I lay watching Summerlee revive
under the same remedy, and finally Lord
John took his turn. He sprang to his
feet and gave me a hand to rise, while
Challenger picked up his wife and laid her
on the settee.

“ Oh, George, I am so sorry you brought
me back,” she said, holding him by the
hand. ‘* The door of death is indeed,
as you said, hung with beautiful, shimmer-
ing curtains; for, once the choking feel-
ing had passed, it was all unspeakably
soothing and beautiful. Why have you
dragged me back ? ”

* Because I wish that we make the
passage together. We have been _ to-
gether so 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,

90 The Poison Belt

something very far from the bullying,
ranting, arrogant man who had alternately
amazed and offended his generation.
Here in the shadow of death was the
innermost Challenger, the man who had
won and held a woman’s love. Suddenly
his mood changed and he was our strong
captain once again.

‘* Alone of all mankind I saw and fore-
told this catastrophe,” said he, with a
ring of exultation and scientific triumph
in his voice. “‘As to you, my good
Summerlee, I trust your last doubts have
been resolved as to the meaning of the
blurring of the lines in the spectrum, and
that you will no longer contend that my
letter in the Times was based upon a
delusion.”

For once our pugnacious colleague was
deaf to a challenge. He could but sit
gasping and stretching his long, thin
limbs, as if to assure himself that he
was still really upon this planet. Chal-
lenger walked across to the oxygen tube,

Submerged 91

and the sound of the loud hissing fell
away till it was the most gentle sibilation.

‘‘ We must husband our supply of the
gas,” said he. ‘‘ The atmosphere of the
room is now strongly hyper-oxygenated,
and I take it that none of us feel any
distressing symptoms. We can only de-
termine by actual experiments what
amount added to the air will serve to
neutralize the poison. Let us see how
that will do.”

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

‘In pre-scientific days,’’ said he, ‘ they
used to keep a white mouse in every sub-
marine, as its more delicate organization
gave signs of a vicious atmosphere before
it was perceived by the sailors. You, my

92 The Poison Belt
dear, will be our white mouse. I have now
increased the supply and you are better.”’

“Yes, I am better.”

“Possibly we have hit upon the cor-
rect mixture. When we have ascertained
exactly how little will serve we shall
be able to compute how long we shall
be able to exist. Unfortunately, in resus-
citating ourselves we have already con-
sumed a considerable proportion of this
first tube.”

*“ Does it matter?” asked Lord John,
who was standing with his hands in his
pockets close to the window. “If we
have to go, what is the use of holdin’
on? You don’t suppose there’s any
chance for us?”

Challenger smiled and shook his head.

“Well, then, don’t you think tliere
is more dignity in takin’ the jump and
not waitin’ to be pushed in? If it must -
be so I’m for sayin’ our prayers, turnin’
off the gas, and openin’ the window.”

“Why not?” said the lady, bravely.

SS
Submerged 93

“Surely, George, Lord John is right
and it is better so.”

“IT most strongly object,” cried Sum-
merlee, in a querulous voice. ‘‘ When we
must die let us by all means die; but to
deliberately anticipate death seems 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. “If you
all want to see it through I am with you.
It’s doosed interestin’, and no mistake
about. that. Dve had my share of ad-
ventures 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.

94 The Poison Belt

Challenger stared at him in silent reproof.

‘* Granting the continuity of life,”
said he, in his most didactic manner,
‘“none of us can predicate what oppor-
tunities of observation one may have
from what we may call the spirit plane
to the plane of matter. It surely must be
evident to the most obtuse person”’ (here
he glared at Summerlee) “‘ that it is while
we are ourselves material that we are most
fitted to watch and form a judgment upon
material phenomena. Therefore it is only
by keeping alive for these few extra hours
that we can hope to carry on with us to
some future existence a clear conception of
the most stupendous 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 we should in any
way curtail by so much as a minute so
wonderful an experience.”’

‘‘T am strongly of the same opinion,”’
cried Summerlee.
‘ “Carried without a_ division,’’ said

ee _ ———————

Submerged 95

Lord John. ‘ By George, that poor devil
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 and would
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 resting with
closed eyes upon the settee. I remember
that the monstrous and grotesque idea
crossed my mind—the illusion may have
been heightened by the heavy stuffiness
of the air which we were breathing—that
we were in four 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 yard with
the half-cleaned motor-car standing in it.
Austin, the chauffeur, had received his

LL ———————_—_—_—_—
96 The Poison Belt

final notice at last, for he was sprawling
beside the wheel, with a great black
bruise upon his forehead where it had
struck the step or mud-guard in fall-
ing. He still held in his hand the nozzle
of the hose with which he had been wash-
ing down his machine. A couple of small
plane trees stood in the corner of the yard,
and underneath them lay several pathetic
little balls of fluffy feathers, with tiny
feet uplifted. The sweep of Death’s
scythe had included everything great
and small within its swathe.

Over the wall of the yard we looked
down upon the winding road, which led
to the station. A group of the reapers
whom we had seen running from the
fields were lying all pellmell, their bodies
crossing each other, at the bottom of it.
Farther up the nurse-girl lay with her
head and shoulders propped against the
slope of the grassy bank. She had taken
the baby from the perambulator, and it
was a motionless bundle of wraps in her

es, eS -

NGS (p. 100)

GE HAPPENI

OF STRAN

A VISION

Submerged 97

arms. Close behind her a tiny patch
upon the roadside showed where the little
boy was stretched. Still nearer to us
was the dead cab-horse kneeling between
the shafts. The old driver was hanging
over the splash-board like some grotesque
scarecrow, his arms dangling absurdly
in front of him. Through the window
we could dimly discern that a young man
was seated inside. The door was swing-
ing open, and his hand was grasping the
handle, as if he had attempted to leap
forth at the last instant. In the middle
distance lay the golf links, dotted as they
had been in the morning with the dark
figures of the golfers, lying motionless
upon the grass of the course, or among
the heather which skirted it. On one
particular green there were eight bodies
stretched where a foursome with its cad-
dies had held to their game to the last.
No bird flew in the blue vault of heaven,
no man or beast moved upon the vast
countryside which lay before us. The
ip

98 The Poison Belt

evening sun shone its peaceful radiance
across it, but there brooded over it all
the stillness and the silence of universal
-death—a death in which we were so soon
to join. At the present instant that one
frail sheet of glass, by holding in the extra
oxygen, which counteracted the poisoned
ether, shut us off from the fate of all
our kind. For a few short hours the
‘knowledge and foresight of one man could
preserve our little oasis of life in the
vast desert of death, and save us from
participation in the common catastrophe.
‘Then the gas would run low, 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 out at the tragic world.

** There is a house on fire,’’ said Chal-
lenger, at last, pointing to a column of
smoke which rose above the trees.
““There will, I expect, be many such—

THF STILLNESS AND THE SILENCE OF UNIVERSAL DEATH (p. 98).

Submerged 99

possibly whole cities in flames—when we
consider how many folk may have dropped
with lights in their hands. The fact of
combustion is in itself enough to show that
the proportion of oxygen in the atmo-
sphere is normal, and that it is the ether
which is at fault. Ah, there you see
another blaze on the top of Crowborough
Hill. Itis the golf clubhouse, or I am mis-
taken. There is the church clock chiming
the hour. It would interest our philoso-
phers to know that man-made mechanism
has survived the race who made it.”

‘** By George! ”’ cried Lord John, rising
excitedly from his chair. ‘‘ What’s that
puff of smoke? It’s a train.”

We heard the roar of it, and presently
it came flying into sight, going at what
seemed to me to be a prodigious speed.
Whence it had come, or how far, we had
no means of knowing. Only by some
miracle of luck could it have gone any
distance. But now we were to see the
terrific end of its career. A train of coal-

100 The Poison Belt

trucks stood motionless upon the line. We
held our breath as the express roared along
the same track. The crash was horrible.
Engine and carriages piled themselves into
a hill of splintered wood and twisted iron.
Red spurts of flame flickered up from
the wreckage until it was all ablaze.
For half an hour we sat with hardly a
word, stunned by the stupendous sight.

‘“* Poor, poor people!” cried Mrs. Chal-
lenger, at last, clinging with a whimper
to her husband’s arm.

‘* My dear, the passengers on that train
were no more animate than the coals into
which they crashed, or the carbon which
they have now become,” said Challenger,
stroking her hand soothingly. ‘It was
a train of the living when it left Victoria,
but it was driven and freighted by the
dead long before it reached its fate.’’

*““ All over the world the same thing
must be going on,” said I, as a vision
of strange happenings rose before me.
“Think of the ships at sea—how they

—

Submerged 101

will steam on and on, until the furnaces
die down, or until they run full tilt upon
some beach. The sailing ships, too—
how they will back and fill with their
cargoes of dead sailors, while their timbers
rot and their joints leak, till one by one
they sink below the surface. Perhaps
a century hence the Atlantic may still
be dotted with the old drifting derelicts.”’

“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 will have some
strange theories of the existence of man
in carboniferous strata.”

“IT don’t profess to know about such
things,’ remarked Lord John, “‘ but it
seems to me the earth will be ‘ To let,
empty,’ after this. When once our human
crowd is wiped off it, how will it ever
get on again?”

“The world was empty before,’’ Chal-
lenger answered, gravely. ‘“‘ Under laws
which in their inception are beyond and

102 a The Poison Belt

above us, it became peopled. Why may
the same process not happen again ?”’

‘““My dear Challenger, you can’t mean
that ?”

‘¢T am not in the habit, Professor Sum-
merlee, of saying things which I do not
mean. ‘The observation is trivial.” Out
went the beard and down came the eyelids.

“Well, you lived an obstinate dog-
matist, and you mean to die one,” said
Summerlee, sourly.

‘““And you, sir, have lived an un-
imaginative obstructionist, and never
can hope 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
our last gasp of oxygen in abusing each
other. What can it matter whether folk
come back or not? It surely won’t
be in our time.”

‘In that remark, sir, you betray your

“Submerged 103

own very pronounced limitations,” said

Challenger, severely. ‘“‘ The true scientific
mind is not to be tied down by its own
conditions of time and space. It builds.
itself an observatory erected upon the
border line of present, which separates.
the infinite past from the infinite future..
From this sure post it makes its sallies.
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 methodic fashion to the end. It dis-
regards so petty a thing as its own physical
dissolution as completely as it does alk
other limitations upon the plane of 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 third person
rather than appear to be too self-com-
placent—the ideal scientific mind should:

Pid

104 The Poison Belt

be capable of thinking out a point of
abstract knowledge in the interval be-
tween its owner falling from a balloon
and reaching the earth. Men of this strong
fibre are needed to form the conquerors
of Nature and the bodyguard of truth.”

“It strikes me Nature’s on top this
time,” said Lord John, looking out of
the window. “I’ve read some leadin’
articles about you gentlemen controllin’
her, but she’s gettin’ a bit of her own back.”

“It is but a temporary set-back,”
said Challenger, with conviction. ‘‘A few
million years, what are they in the great
cycle of time? The vegetable world has,
aS you can see, survived. Look at the
leaves of that plane tree. The birds are
dead, but the plant flourishes. From this
vegetable life in pond and in marsh will
come, in time, the tiny crawling micro-
scopic slugs which are the pioneers of that
great army of life in which for the instant
we five have the extraordinary duty of
serving as rearguard. Once the lowest

TT]

Submerged 105

form of life has established itself, the final
advent of Man is as certain as the growth
of the oak from the acorn. 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 Gulf
Stream across that mighty ocean in which
we float. Or tolerance may be established,
and life accommodate itself to a new
condition. The mere fact that with a
comparatively small hyper-oxygenation of
our blood we can hold out against it is
surely a proof in itself that no very great
change would be needed to enable animal
life to endure it.”

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

“It’s pretty awful,’ muttered Lord
John, more impressed than I had ever
seen him.

“Well, after all, what does it matter ?”’

106 The Poison Belt .

I remarked. ‘The world is dead.
Cremation is surely the best burial.”

‘** Tt would shorten us up if this house
went ablaze.”

‘*IT foresaw the danger,” said Chal-
lenger, ‘“‘and asked my wife to guard
against 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 of oxygen.

‘It’s nearly empty,” said he. “It
has lasted us some three and a half hours.
It is now close on eight o’clock. We
shall get through the night comfortably.
I should expect the end about nine o’clock
to-morrow morning. We shall see one
sunrise, which shall be all our own.”

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

Submerged 107

Coe ee ee

_“ By the way,” said he, “ man does not
live upon oxygen alone. It’s dinner-
time and over. I assure you, gentlemen,
that when I invited you to my home and
to what I had hoped would be an inter-
esting reunion, I had intended that my
kitchen should justify itself. However,
we must do what we can. I am sure
that you will agree with me that it would
be folly to consume our air too rapidly
by lighting an oil-stove. I have some
small provision of cold meats, bread, and
pickles, which, with a couple of bottles
of claret, may serve our turn. Thank
you, my dear—now as ever you are the
queen of managers.”

It was indeed wonderful how, with
the self-respect and sense of propriety of
the British housekeeper, the lady had
within a few minutes adorned the central
table with a snow-white cloth, laid the
napkins upon it, and set forth the simple
meal with all the elegance of civilization,
including an electric torch lamp in the

sanentn cerry eronameenpesnaesrtiesasaas ape! ence ecient Giese
108 The Poison Belt

centre. Wonderful, also, was it to find
that our appetites were ravenous.

““It is the measure of our emotion,”
said Challenger, with that air of conde-
scension with which he brought his scien-
‘tific mind to the explanation of humble
facts. ‘‘ We have gone through a great
crisis. That means molecular disturbance.
That in turn means the need for repair.
Great sorrow or great joy should bring
intense hunger—not abstinence from
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. Let me
give you another slice of tongue.”

“The same with savages,” said Lord
John, cutting away at the beef. “ I’ve
seen them buryin’ a chief up the Aruwimi
River, and they ate a hippo that must
have weighed as much as a tribe. There
are some of them down New Guinea way
that eat the late-lamented himself, just

Submerged iy 109

Tot aes
by way of a last tidy up. Well, of all
the funeral feasts on this earth, I suppose
the one we are takin’ is the queerest.”’

“The strange thing is,” said Mrs.
Challenger, ‘“‘ that I find it impossible to
feel grief for those who are gone. There
are my father and mother at Bedford.
I know that they are dead, and yet in
this tremendous universal tragedy 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 in
my mind’s eye, with her shawl and her
lace cap, lying back with closed eyes
in the old high-backed chair near the
window, her glasses and her book beside
her. Why should I mourn her? She
has passed and I am passing, and I may
be nearer her in some other life than
England is to Ireland. Yet I grieve to
think that that dear body is no more.”

““As to the body,” remarked Chal-
lenger, ‘“‘ we do not mourn over the parings

110 The Poi Belt
e Foison Belt,

of our nails nor the cut locks of our hair,
though they were once part of ourselves.
Neither does a one-legged man yearn
sentimentally over his missing member.
The physical body has rather been a
source of pain and fatigue to us. It is
the constant index of our limitations.
Why then should 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 must in
its nature be far less terrible than an
isolated one.”

““Same in a battle,’? remarked Lord
John. “If you saw a single man lying
on that floor with his chest knocked in
and a hole in his face it would turn you
sick. But Dve seen ten thousand on
their backs in the Soudan, and it gave me
no such feelin’, for when you are makin’
history the life of any man is too small

cE EVA a STEEN SENDA CMTE Eee OT

os Submerged 111
a thing to worry over. When a thousand
million pass over together, same as hap-
pened to-day, you can’t pick your own
partic’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’ve been
a blusterous old husband to you, dear,
but you’ll just bear in mind that G. E. C.
is as he was made and couldn’t help him-
self. After all, you wouldn’t have had
‘anyone else ? ”’

** No one in the whole wide world, dear,”
said she, and put her arms round his
bull neck. We three walked to the win-
dow, and stood amazed at the sight which
met our eyes.

Darkness had fallen and the dead
world was shrouded in gloom. But right
across the southern horizon was one
long vivid scarlet streak, waxing and
waning in vivid pulses of life, leaping

112 k The Poison Belt

suddenly to a crimson zenith and then
dying down to a glowing line of fire.

‘** Lewes is ablaze!” I cried.

‘* No, it is Brighton which is burning,”
said Challenger, stepping across to 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 be alight.”

There were several red glares at dif-
ferent points, and the pile of débris upon
the railway line was still smouldering
darkly, but they all seemed mere pin-
points of light compared to that monstrous
conflagration throbbing beyond the hills.
What copy it would all have made for
the Gazette! Had ever a journalist such
an opening and so little chance of using
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 of science could be so true
to their life’s work to the very end, why
should not I, in my humble way, be as

*““ YOU CAN SEE IT FOR YOURSELVES,” HE KEPT REPEATING (p. 119).

neers
Submerged 113

constant ? No human eye might ever
rest upon what I had done. But the long
night had to be passed somehow, and for
me, at least, sleep seemed to be out of the
question. My notes would help to pass the
weary hours and to occupy my thoughts.
Thus it is that now I have before me the
notebook with its scribbled pages, written
confusedly upon my knee in the dim,
waning light of our one electric torch.
Had I the literary touch, they might
have been worthy of the occasion. As
it is, they may still serve to bring to other
minds the long-drawn emotions and tre-
mors of that awful night.

is
hy uy
iar

A DIARY OF THE DYING

Chapter IV

A DIARY OF THE DYING

How strange the words look scribbled at
the top of the empty page of my book! How
- stranger still that it is I, Edward Malone,
who have written them—I who started
only some twelve hours ago from my
rooms in Streatham without one thought
of the marvels which the day was to bring
forth! I look back at the chain of inci-
dents, my interview with McArdle, Chal-
lenger’s first note of alarm in the Times,
the absurd journey in the train, the
pleasant luncheon, the catastrophe, and
now it has come to this—that we linger
alone upon an empty planet, and so sure
is our fate that I can regard these lines,
written from mechanical professional habit
and never to be seen by human eyes, as
the words of one who is already dead, so
117

118 The Poison Beli

closely does he stand to the shadowed
borderland over which all outside this one
little circle of friends have already gone. I
feel how wise and true were the words of
Challenger when he said that the real
tragedy would be if we were left behind
when all that is noble and good and
‘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 the poor 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 he were address-
ing his old rows of scientific sceptics in
the Queen’s Hall. He had certainly a
strange audience to harangue: his wife
perfectly acquiescent and absolutely ignor-
ant of his meaning, Summerlee seated in
the shadow, querulous and critical, but
interested, Lord John lounging in a corner
somewhat bored by the whole proceeding,

A Diary of the Dying 119

and myself beside the window watching
the scene with a kind of detached attention
as if it were all a dream or something in
which I had no personal interest what-
ever. Challenger sat at the centre table
with the electric light illuminating the
slide under the microscope which he had
brought from his dressing-room. The
- small vivid circle of white light from the
mirror left half of his rugged, bearded
face in brilliant radiance, and half in
deepest shadow. He had, it seems, been
working of late upon the lowest forms
of life, and what excited him at the pres-
ent moment was that in the microscopic
slide made up the day before he found
the ameeba to be still alive.

‘* 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-shaped things in the centre
are diatoms, and may be disregarded

120 The Poison Belt

since they are probably vegetable rather
than animal. But at the right-hand side
you will see an undoubted amceba, moving
sluggishly across the field. The upper
screw is the fine adjustment. Look at
it for yourselves.”

Summerlee did so, and acquiesced. So
did I, and perceived a little creature which
looked as if it were made of ground glass
flowing in a sticky way across the lighted
circle. Lord John was prepared to take
him on trust.

‘*T’m not troublin’ my head whether
he’s alive or dead,” said he. ‘* We don’t
so much as know each other by sight, so
why should I take it to heart? I don’t
suppose he’s worryin’ himself over the
state of our health.”

I laughed at this, and Challenger looked
in my direction with his coldest and most
supercilious stare. It was a most petri-
fying experience.

“The flippancy of the half-educated is
more obstructive to science than the

a S

A Diary of the Dying 121

obtuseness of the ignorant,’ said he.
“If Lord John Roxton would conde-
scend i

“‘ My dear George, don’t be so peppery,”’
said his wife, with her hand on the black
mane that drooped over the microscope.
** What can it matter whether the amceba
is alive or not ? ”’

‘*“ It matters a great deal,” said Chal-
lenger, 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 been too off-hand
with the thing, or hurt its feelin’s in any
way, Ill apologize.”

‘For my part,” remarked Summerlee,
in his creaky, argumentative voice, “I
can’t see why you should attach such
importance to the creature being alive.
It is in the same atmosphere as ourselves,
so naturally the poison does not act upon
it. If it were outside of this room it
would be dead, like all other animal life.”’

122 The Poison Belt

** Your remarks, my good Summerlee,”’
said Challenger, with enormous conde-
scension (oh, if I could paint that over-
bearing, arrogant face in the vivid circle
of reflection from the microscope mirror !)
—‘* your remarks show that you imper-
fectly appreciate the situation. This
specimen was mounted yesterday and is
hermetically sealed. None of our oxygen
can reach it. But the ether, of course,
has penetrated to it, as to every other
point upon the universe. Therefore, it
has survived the poison. Hence, we may
argue that every ameceba outside this
room, instead of being dead, as you have
erroneously stated, has really survived
the catastrophe.”

‘* Well, even now I don’t feel inclined
to hip-hurrah about it,” said Lord John.
** What does it matter ? ”’

** Tt 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 forward from this one fact,

A Diary of the Dying 123

and you would see some few millions
of years hence—a mere passing moment
in the enormous flux of the ages—the
whole world teeming once more with the
animal and human life which will spring
from this tiny root. You have seen a
prairie fire, where the flames have swept
every trace of grass or plant from the
surface of the earth and left only a black-
ened waste. You would think that it
must be for ever desert. Yet the roots
of growth have been left behind, and
when you pass the place a few 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 time remove every trace of this in-
comparable crisis in which we are now
involved.”’

*¢ Dooced interestin’ ! ’ said Lord John,
lounging across and looking through
the microscope. ‘‘ Funny little chap to

124 The Poison Belt

hang number one among the family
portraits. Got a fine big shirt-stud on
him!”

** The dark object is his nucleus,”’ said
Challenger, with the air of a nurse teaching
letters to a baby.

*“ Well, we needn’t feel lonely,” said
Lord John, laughing. ‘‘ There’s some-
body livin’ besides us on the earth.”

“You seem to take it for granted,
Challenger,’’ said Summerlee, “‘ that the
object for which this world was created
was that it should produce and sustain
human life.”

*“ Well, sir, and what object do you
suggest ?” asked Challenger, bristling at
the least hint of contradiction.

** Sometimes I think that it is only the
monstrous conceit of mankind which
makes 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 have ventured
to call monstrous conceit we can surely

A Diary of the Dying “125

say that we are the highest thing in
Nature.”

** The highest of which we have cogniz-
ance.”

““ That, sir, goes without saying.”

*“* Think of all the millions and possibly
billions of years that the earth swung
empty through space—or, if not empty,
at least without a sign or thought of the
human race. Think of it, washed by the
rain and scorched by the sun, and swept
by the wind for those unnumbered ages.
Man only came into being yesterday so
far as geological time goes. Why, then,
should it be taken for granted that all
this stupendous preparation was for his
benefit ? ”

“For whose then—or for what?”

Summerlee shrugged his shoulders.

“How can we tell? For some reason
altogether beyond our conception—and
man may have been a mere accident, a
by-product evolved in the process. It is
asif the scum upon the surface of the ocean

126 The Poison Belt

imagined that the ocean was created in
order to produce and sustain it, or a mouse
in a cathedral thought that the building
was its own proper ordained residence.”

I have jotted down the very words of
their argument; but now it degenerates
into a mere noisy wrangle with much
polysyllabic scientific jargon upon each
side. It is no doubt a privilege to hear
two such brains discuss the _ highest
questions ; but as they are in perpetual
disagreement plain folk lke Lord John
and I get little that is positive from
the exhibition. They neutralize each
other and we are left as they found us.
Now the hubbub has ceased, and Sum-
merlee is coiled up in his chair, while
Challenger, still fingering the screws of his
microscope, is keeping up a continual low,
deep, inarticulate growl like the sea after
a storm. Lord John comes over to me,
and we look out together into the night.

There is a pale new moon—the last
moon that human eyes will ever rest upon

A Diary of the Dying 127

—and the stars are most brilliant. Even
in the clear plateau air of South America
I have never seen them brighter. Pos-
sibly this etheric change has some effect
upon light. The funeral pyre of Brighton
is still blazing, and there is a very distant
patch of scarlet in the western sky, which
may mean trouble at Arundel or Chichester,
possibly even at Portsmouth. I sit and
muse and make an occasional note. There
is a sweet melancholy in the air. Youth
and beauty and chivalry and love—is this
to be the end of it all? The starlit earth
looks a dreamland of gentle peace. Who
would imagine it as the terrible Golgotha
strewn with the bodies of the human race ?
Suddenly, I find myself laughing.

“ Halloa, young fellah!” says Lord
John, staring at me in surprise. ‘‘ We
could do with a joke in these hard times.
What was it, then?”

“IT was thinking of all the great un-
solved questions,” I answer; ‘the ques-
tions that we spent so much labour and

128 . The Poison Belt

thought over. Think of Anglo-German
competition, for example—or the Persian
Gulf that my old chief was so keen about.
Whoever would have guessed, when we
fumed and fretted so, how they were to be
eventually solved ? ”

We fall into silence again. I fancy
that each of us is thinking of friends that
have gone before. Mrs. Challenger is
sobbing quietly, and her husband is whis-
pering to her. My mind turns to all
the most unlikely people, and I see each
of them lying white and rigid as poor
Austin does in the yard. There is Mc-
Ardle, forexample. 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 is lying upon
the blue-and-red Turkey carpet which
adorned his sanctum. And the fellows
in the reporters’ room—Macdonna and
Murray and Bond. They had certainly
died hard at work on their job, with note-

IT WAS THIS GRIM HUSH, AND THE TALL CLOUDS OF SMOKE WHICH ROSE HERE
AND THERE OVER THE COUNTRY-SIDE FROM SMOULDERING BUILDINGS, WHICH

CAST A CHILL INTO OUR HEARTS (p. 160).

eee
A Diary of the Dying 129

books full of vivid impressions and strange
happenings in their hands. I could just
imagine how this one would have been
packed off to do the doctors, and that
other to Westminster, and yet a third
to St. Paul’s. What glorious rows of
head-lines they must have seen as a last
vision beautiful, never destined to mate-
rialize in printer’s ink! I could see Mac-
donna among the doctors— Hope in
Harley Street ”—Mac had always a weak- |
ness for alliteration. ‘‘ Interview with
Mr. Soley Wilson.” ‘‘ Famous Specialist
says ‘Never despair!’” ‘Our Special
Correspondent found the eminent scientist
seated upon the roof, whither he had re-
treated to avoid the crowd of terrified
patients who had stormed his dwelling.
With a manner which plainly showed
his appreciation of the immense gravity
of the occasion, the celebrated physician
refused to admit that every avenue of
hope had been closed.”” That’s how Mac
would start. Then there was Bond;
9

180 ; The Poison Belt

he would probably 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, and
looking down upon that packed mass
of despairing humanity, grovelling at
this 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 entreaty and terror,
such a shuddering cry for help to the
Unknown, that——” and so forth.

Yes, it would be a great end for a re-
porter, though, like myself, he would 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 weary time.
Mrs. Challenger has gone to the inner
dressing-room, and the Professor says
that she is asleep. He is making notes
and consulting books at the central table,

A Diary of the Dying 131

as calmly as if years of placid work lay
before him. He writes with a very noisy
quill pen, which seems to be screeching
scorn at all who disagree with him.
Summerlee has dropped off in his chair,
and gives from time to time a peculiarly
exasperating snore. Lord John lies back
with his hands in his pockets, and his
eyes closed. How people can sleep under
such conditions is more than I can imagine.
Three-thirty a.m. I have just wakened
with a start. It was five minutes past
eleven when I made my last entry. I
remember winding up my watch and
noting the time. So I have wasted some
five hours out of the little span still left to
us. Who would have believed it possible?
But I feel very much fresher, and ready
for my fate—or try to persuade myself
that Iam. And yet, the fitter a man is,
and the higher his tide of life, the more
must he shrink from death. How wise and
how merciful is that provision of Nature
by which his earthly anchor is usually

——_—<——:.:00 OO

182 The Poison. Belt

loosened by many little imperceptible
tugs, until his consciousness has drifted
out of its untenable earthly harbour into
the great sea beyond!

Mrs. Challenger is still in the dressing-
room. Challenger has fallen asleep in
his chair. What a picture! His enor-
mous frame leans back, his huge, hairy
hands are clasped across his waistcoat,
and his head is so tilted that I can see
nothing above his collar save a tangled
pristle of luxuriant 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 a basket-chair. The first
cold light of dawn is Just stealing into the
room, and everything is grey andmournful.

I look out at the sunrise—that fateful
sunrise which will shine upon an unpeopled
world. The human race is gone, eX
tinguished in a day, but the planets
swing round and the tides rise or fall,

ON
A Diary of the Dying 133

and the wind whispers, and all Nature goes
her way, down, as it would seem, to the
very amceba, with never a sign that he
who styled himself the lord of creation
had ever blessed or cursed the universe
with his presence. Down in the yard lies
Austin with sprawling limbs, his face
glimmering white in the dawn, and the
hose-nozzle still projecting from his dead
hand. The whole of human kind is typi-
fied in that one half-ludicrous and _half-
pathetic figure, lying so helpless beside
the machine which it used to control.

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

Some chokiness in my throat made me_
look at the oxygen cylinders, and I was
startled at what I saw. The sands of our
lives were running very low. At some
period in the night Challenger had switched

134 The Poison Belt

the tube from the third to the fourth
cylinder. Now it was clear that this also
was nearly exhausted. That horrible
feeling of constriction was closing in upon
me. I ran across and, unscrewing the
nozzle, I changed it to our last supply.
Even as I did so my conscience pricked
me, for I felt that perhaps if I had held
my hand all of them might have passed
in their sleep. The thought was banished,
however, by the voice of the lady from
the inner room, crying :—

“George, George, I am stifling ! ”’

“Jt is all right, Mrs. Challenger,” I
answered, as the others started to their
feet. “I have just turned on a fresh
supply.”

Even at such a moment I could not
help smiling at Challenger, who with a
ereat hairy fist in each eye was like a
huge, bearded baby, new wakened out
of sleep. Summerlee was shivering like
a man with the ague, human fears, as he
realized his position, rising for an instant

A Diary of the Dying 135

above the stoicism of the man of science.
Lord John, however, was as cool and alert
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 on your knee.”

“‘ Just a few notes to pass the time.”

‘* Well, I don’t believe anyone but an
Irishman would have done that. I ex-
pect you'll have to wait till little brother
amceba gets grown up before you'll find
a reader. He don’t seem to take much
stock of things just at present. Well,
Herr Professor, what are the prospects ? ”’

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

“It might be a winding-sheet,”’ said
Mrs. Challenger, who had entered in her
dressing-gown. ‘‘ There’s that song of

186 The Poison Belt

yours, George, ‘Ring out the old, ring
in the new.’ It was prophetic. But
you are shivering, my poor dear friends.
I have been warm under a coverlet all
night, and you cold in your chairs. But
I'll soon set you right.”

The brave little creature hurried away,
and presently we heard the sizzling of a
kettle. She was back soon with five
steaming cups of cocoa upon 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 had
cigarettes. It steadied our nerves, I
think, but it was a mistake, for it made
a dreadful atmosphere in that stuffy
room. Challenger had to open the ven-
tilator.

‘** How long, Challenger ? ’”? asked Lord
John.

‘* Possibly three hours,’? he answered,
with a shrug.

‘“IT used to be frightened,” said his

A Diary of the Dying 137

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 in whatever
Fate may send me—a cheerful acqui-
escence. The highest religion and the
highest science seem to unite on that.”

‘I cannot truthfully describe my men-
tal attitude as acquiescence, and far less
cheerful acquiescence,’’ grumbled Sum-
merlee, over his pipe. ‘‘I submit be-
cause I have to. I confess that I should
have liked another year of life to finish
my classification of the chalk fossils.”

“Your unfinished work is a small
thing,” said Challenger, pompously,
““when weighed against the fact that
my own magnum opus, ‘The Ladder of
Life,’ is still in the first stages. My
brain, my reading, my experience—in
fact, my whole unique equipment—were

ese

138 The Poison Belt

to be condensed into that epoch-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 ?”

‘‘T was working at a book of verses,”
I answered.

‘Well, the world has escaped that,
anyhow,” said Lord John. “* There’s
always 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 promised Meri-
vale to go to Tibet for a snow-leopard in
the spring. But it’s hard on 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 for one
last walk together in the fresh morning
air upon those beautiful downs!”

Our hearts re-echoed her words. The
sun had burst through the gauzy mists

A Diary of the Dying 139

which veiled it, and the whole broad
Weald was washed in golden light. Sit-
ting in our dark and poisonous atmosphere
that glorious, clean, windswept country-
side seemed a very dream of beauty.
Mrs. Challenger held her hand stretched
out to it in her longing. We drew up
chairs and sat in a semicircle in the win-
dow. The atmosphere was already very
close. It seemed to me that the shadows
of death were drawing in upon us—the
last of our race. It was like an invisible
curtain closing down upon every side.

‘“‘ That cylinder is not lastin’ too well,”
said Lord John, with a long gasp for
breath.

‘The amount contained is variable,’
said Challenger, ‘‘ depending upon the
pressure and care with which it has been
bottled. I am inclined to agree with you,
Roxton, that this one is defective.”

““So we are to be cheated out of the
last hour of our lives,’ Summerlee re-
marked, bitterly. ‘‘ An excellent final

140 The Poison Belt

illustration of the sordid age in which
we have lived. Well, Challenger, now
is your time if you wish to study the
subjective phenomena of physical dis-
solution.”’ ;

*“* Sit on the stool at my knee and give
me your hand,” said Challenger to his
wife. ‘‘ I think, my friends, that a further
delay in this insufferable 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.

““Tve 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 worst of it. I’m
all for a header and have done with it.”

‘You would open the window and face
thevether.? 7

‘‘ Better be poisoned than stifled.”

Summerlee nodded his reluctant ac-

A Diary of the Dying 141

quiescence, and held out his thin hand
to Challenger.

‘“ We’ve had our quarrels in our time,
but that’s all over,’’ said he. ‘‘ We were
good friends and had a respect for each
other under the surface. Good-bye!”

** Good-bye, 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, while she 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!”
he shouted in his voice of thunder, and
at the words he hurled the field-glass
through the window.

Full in our flushed faces, before the
last tinkle of falling fragments had died
away, there came the wholesome breath
of the wind, blowing strong and sweet.

142 The Poison Belt

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

‘*We are back in normal conditions,”’
he cried. ‘‘ The world has cleared the
poison belt, but we alone of all mankind
are saved.”’

THE DEAD WORLD

A SHIP WAS BLAZING BRIGHTLY ALONGSIDE ONE OF THE WHARVES NEAR THE
BRIDGE, AND THE AIR WAS FULL OF DRIFTING SMUTS AND OF A HEAVY ACRID
SMELL OF BURNING (p. 168),

eeeeeeeeeeEeEEEEEEEoooo————————————
Chapter V

THE DEAD WORLD

I REMEMBER that we all sat gasping in
our chairs, with that sweet, wet south-
western breeze, fresh from the sea, flap-
ping the muslin curtains and cooling our
flushed faces. I wonder how long we
sat! None of us afterwards could agree
at all upon that point. We were be-
wildered, stunned, semi-conscious. We
had all braced our courage for death,
but this fearful and sudden new fact—
that we must continue to live after we
had survived the race to which we belonged
—struck us with the shock of a physical
blow, and left us prostrate. Then grad-
ually the suspended mechanism began to
move once more; the shuttles of memory
worked ; ideas weaved themselves together
10 145

146 The Poison Belt

in our minds. We saw, with vivid, merci-
less clearness, the relations between the
past, the present, and the future—the
lives that we had led and the lives which
we would have to live. Our eyes turned
in silent horror upon those of our com-
panions and found the same answering
look in theirs. Instead of the joy which
men might have been expected to feel who
had so narrowly escaped an imminent
death, a terrible wave of darkest depres-
sion submerged us. Everything on earth
that we loved had been washed away into
the great, infinite, unknown ocean, and
here were we marooned upon this desert
island of a world, without companions,
hopes, or aspirations. A few years’ skulk-
ing like jackals among the graves of the
human race and then our own belated and
lonely 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 feel as if

The Dead World 147

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 out-
stretched hand of his wife. I had ob-
served that she always held out her
arms to him in trouble as a child would
to its mother.

““ Without being a fatalist to the point
of non-resistance,’”’ said he, ‘I have
always found that the highest wisdom
lies in an acquiescence with the actual.”
He spoke slowly, and there was'a vibration
of feeling in his sonorous voice.

“I do not acquiesce,” said Summerlee,
firmly.

“I don’t see that it matters a row of
pins whether you acquiesce or whether you
don’t,”? remarked Lord John. ‘‘ You’ve
got to take it, whether you take it fightin’
or take it lyin’ down, so what’s the odds
whether you acquiesce or not? I can’t
remember that anyone asked our per-

148 The Poison Belt

mission before the thing began, and no-
body’s likely to ask it now. So what
difference can it make what we may think
of it?”

“It is just all the difference between
happiness and misery,” said Challenger,
with an abstracted face, still patting his
wife’s hand. ‘‘ You can swim with the
tide and have peace in mind and soul, or
you can thrust against it and be bruised
and weary. This business is beyond us,
so let us accept it as it stands and say
no more.”

‘* But what in the world are we to do
with our lives?” I asked, appealing in
desperation to the blue, empty heaven.
‘‘ What am I to do, for example ? There
are no newspapers, so there’s an end
of my vocation.”

“And there’s nothin’ left to shoot,
and no more soldierin’, so there’s an end
of mine,” said Lord John.

‘¢ And there are no students, so there’s
an end of mine,” cried Summerlee.

The Dead World 149

“But I have my husband and my
house, so I can thank Heaven that there
is no end of mine,” said the lady.

‘* Nor is there an end of mine,’’ remarked
Challenger, ‘‘ for science is not dead, and
this catastrophe in itself will offer us many
most absorbingproblemsfor investigation.”

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

‘*TLet me _ consider,’? he continued.
‘*Tt was about three, or a little after,
yesterday afternoon that the world finally
entered the poison belt to the extent of
being completely submerged. It is now
nine o’clock. The question is, at what
hour did we pass out from it?”

‘‘The air was very bad at daybreak,”
said I.

‘“‘Later than that,’ said Mrs. Chal-
lenger. ‘‘ As late as eight o’clock I dis-
tinctly felt the same choking at my
throat which came at the outset.”

‘Then we shall say that it passed just

150 The Poison Beli

after eight o’clock. For seventeen hours
the world has been soaked in the poison-
ous ether. For that length of time
the Great Gardener has sterilized the
human mould which had grown over the
surface of His fruit. Is it possible that
the work is incompletely done—that
others may have survived besides our-
selves ? ”

‘“* That’s what I was wonderin’, said
Lord John. ‘‘Why should we be the
only pebbles on the beach ? ”

“It is absurd to suppose that anyone
besides ourselves can possibly have sur-
vived,” said Summerlee, with convic-
tion. “Consider that the poison was
so virulent that even a man who is as
strong as an ox, and has not a nerve in
his body, like Malone here, could hardly
get up the stair before he fell uncon-
scious. Is it likely that anyone could
stand seventeen minutes of it, far less
hours ? ”

‘Unless someone saw it coming and

en —

The Dead World 151

made preparation, same as old friend
Challenger did.”

“That, I think, is hardly probable,”
said Challenger, projecting his beard and
sinking his eyelids. ‘‘ The combination
of observation, inference, and anticipatory
imagination which enabled me to foresee —
the danger is what one can siete expect
twice in the same generation.”

““Then your conclusion is that every-
one is certainly dead ? ”

‘‘There can be little doubt of that.
We have to remember, however, that the
poison worked from below upwards, and
would possibly be less virulent in the
higher strata of the atmosphere. It is
strange, indeed, that it should be so;
but it presents one of those features
which will afford us in the future a
fascinating field for study. One could
imagine, therefore, that if one had to
search for survivors one would turn
one’s eyes with best hopes of success to
some Tibetan village or some Alpine

152 The Poison Beli

farm, many thousands of feet above the
sea-level.”

‘“‘ Well, considerin’ that there are no
railroads and no steamers you might
as well talk about survivors in the moon,”
said Lord John. ‘ But what I’m askin’
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 and fine,’ said he,
in a very dubious voice; ‘but so it did
yesterday. I am by 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 world
has undergone this experience before,
which is not outside the range of pos-
sibility, it was certainly a very long time
ago. Therefore, we may reasonably hope
that it will be very long before it occurs
again.”

* That’s all very well,”’ said Lord John ;

The Dead World 1538

“but if you get an earthquake shock 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 while we have the chance. Since
our oxygen is exhausted we may just as
well be caught outside as in.”

It was strange the absolute lethargy
which had come upon us as a reaction
after our tremendous emotions of the last
twenty-four hours. It was both mental
and physical, a deep-lying feeling that
nothing mattered and that everything
was a weariness and a profitless exertion.
Even Challenger had succumbed to it,
and sat in his chair, with his great head
leaning upon his hands, and his thoughts
far away, until Lord John and I, catching
him by each arm, fairly lifted him on
to his feet, receiving only the glare
and growl of an angry mastiff for our
trouble. However, once we had got out
of our narrow haven of refuge into the
wider atmosphere of everyday life, our

154 The Poison Belt

normal energy came gradually back to
us once more.

But what were we to begin to do in
that graveyard of a world? Could ever
men have been faced with such a question
since the dawn of time? It is true that
our own physical needs, and even our
luxuries, were assured for the future. All
the stores of food, all the vintages of
wine, all the treasures 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 their respective
beds. They seemed to have died without
suffering, one in the chair by the fire, the
other upon the scullery floor. Then we ,:
carried in poor Austin from the yard. His
muscles were set as hard as a board in
the most exaggerated rigor mortis, while
the contraction of the fibres had drawn
his mouth into a hard sardonic grin.
This symptom was prevalent among all

The Dead World 155

who had died from the poison. Wherever
we went we were confronted by those
grinning faces, which seemed to mock
at our dreadful position, smiling silently
and grimly at the ill-fated survivors of
their race.

** Look here,’’ said Lord John, who had
paced restlessly about the dining-room
whilst we partook of some food, “‘ I don’t
know how you fellows feel about it, but
for my part, I simply can’t sit here and
do nothin’.”’

** Perhaps,’’ Challenger answered, ‘‘ you
would have the kindness to suggest what
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 all that
this place can teach us.”

‘““ Where should we go, then?”

“To London ! ”’

‘* That’s all very well,’’ grumbled Sum-

156 The Poison Belt

merlee. ‘‘ You may be equal to a forty-
mile walk, but I’m not so sure about
Challenger, with his stumpy legs, and I
am perfectly sure about myself.”

Challenger was very much annoyed.

“‘ If you could see your way, sir, to con-
fining your remarks to your own physical
peculiarities, you would find that you
had an ample field for comment,’ he
cried.

‘“‘T had no intention to offend you, my
dear Challenger,” cried our tactless friend.
“You can’t be held responsible for your
own physique. If Nature has given youa
short, heavy body you cannot possibly
help having stumpy legs.”

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

“You talk of walking. Why should we
walk ?” said: he.

““Do you suggest taking the train?”
asked Challenger, still simmering.

~5*

The Dead World 157

** What’s the matter with the motor-
car? Why should we not go in that?”

‘*T am not an expert,”’ said Challenger,
pulling at his beard, reflectively. ‘* At
the same time, you are right in supposing
that the human intellect in its higher
manifestations should be _ sufficiently
flexible to turn itself to anything. Your
idea is an excellent one, Lord John. I
myself will drive 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 you remember
how you crashed through the gate of the
garage.”

‘* It was a momentary want of concen-
tration,’’ said Challenger, complacently.
‘*'You can consider the matter settled.
I will certainly drive you all to London.”

The situation was relieved by Lord
John. «

‘** What’s the car?” he asked.

‘* A twenty-horse Humber.”’

*
ah

SS
158 The Poison Belt a

“Why, I’ve driven one for years,” said
he. ‘ By George!’ he added. ‘“ I never
thought I’d live to take the whole human
race in one load. There’s just room for
five, as I remember it. Get your things
on, and I'll be ready at the door by ten
o’clock,”” ‘

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

You are to picture the loveliness of
Nature upon that August day, the fresh-
ness of the morning air, the golden glare
of the summer sunshine, the cloudless sky,
the luxuriant green of the Sussex woods,
and the deep purple of the heather-clad

ae
downs. As you looked round upon the
many-coloured beauty of the scene all
thought of a vast catastrophe would
have passed from your mind had it not
been for one sinister sign—the solemn,
all-embracing silence. There is a gentle
hum of life which pervades a closely-
settled country, so deep and constant that
one ceases to observe it as the dweller by
the sea loses all sense of the constant
murmur of the waves. The twitter of
birds, the buzz of insects, the far-off echo
of voices, the lowing of cattle, the distant
barking of dogs, roar of trains, and rattle
of carts—all these form one low, unremit-
ting note, striking unheeded upon the ear.
We missed it now. This deadly silence
was appalling. So solemn was it, so im-
pressive, that the buzz and rattle of our
motor-car seemed an unwarrantable in-
trusion, an indecent disregard of this
reverent stillness which lay like a pall over
and round the ruins of humanity. It was
this grim hush, and the tall clouds of

The Dead World 159

160 The Poison Belt

smoke which rose here and there over the
country-side from smouldering buildings,
which cast a chill into our hearts as we
gazed round at the glorious panorama of
the Weald.

And then there were the dead! At
first those endless groups of drawn and
grinning faces filled us with a shuddering
horror. So vivid and mordant was the
impression that I can live over again that
slow descent of the Station Hill, the passing
by the nurse-girl with the two babes, the
sight of the old horse on his knees between
the shafts, the cabman twisted across his
seat, and the young man inside with his
hand upon the open door in the very act
of springing out. Lower down were six
reapers all in a litter, their limbs crossing,
their dead, unwinking eyes gazing upwards
at the glare of heaven. These things I
see as in a photograph. But soon, by the
merciful provision of Nature, the over-
excited nerve ceased to respond. The
very vastness of the horror took away from

ON A BROAD LAMP PEDESTAL, IN THE CENTRE OF THE ROADWAY, A BURLY
POLICEMAN WAS STANDING, LEANING HIS BACK AGAINST THE POST IN SO NATURAL
AN ATTITUDE THAT IT WAS HARD TO REALIZE THAT HE WAS NOT ALIVE (p. 171).

v *",
settee TLS Bead Wald 161

its pon! appeal. Individuals merged
into groups, groups into crowds, crowds
into a universal phenomenon which one
soon accepted as the inevitable detail of
every scene. Only here and there, where
some particularly brutal or grotesque in-
cident caught the attention did the mind
come back with a sudden shock to the
personal and human meaning of it all.

Above all there was the fate of the
children. That, I remember, filled us
with the strongest sense of intolerable ae.
injustice. We could have wept—Mrs. te
Challenger did weep—when we passed a ihe :
great Council school and saw the long trail
of tiny figures scattered down the road
which led from it. They had been dis-
missed by their terrified teachers, and were
speeding for their homes when the poison
caught them in its net. Great numbers
of people were at the open windows of the
houses. In Tunbridge Wells there was
hardly one which had not its staring,
smiling face. At the last instant the need

a ,

’

Oe:

162 The Poison Belt ’
of air, that very craving for oxygen which
we alone had been able to satisfy, had sent
them flying to the window. The side
walks, too, were littered with men and
women, hatless and bonnetless, who had
rushed out of the houses. Many of them
had fallen in the roadway. It was a lucky
thing that in Lord John we had found an
expert driver, for it was no easy matter
to pick one’s way. Passing through the
villages or towns we could only go at a
walking pace, and once, I remember,
opposite the school at Tonbridge, we had
to halt some time while we carried aside
the bodies which blocked our path,

A few small, definite pictures stand out

im my memory from amid that long

panorama of death upon the Sussex and
Kentish high roads. One was that of a
great, glittering motor-car standing out-
side the inn at the village of Southborough.
It bore, as I should guess, some pleasure
party upon their return from Brighton or
from Eastbourne. There were three gaily

The Dead World 168
4
dressed women, all young and beautiful,
_ one of them with a Peking spaniel upon her
lap. With them were a rakish-looking
elderly man and a young aristocrat, his
eyeglass still in his eye, his cigarette burned
down to the stub between the fingers of his
begloved hand. Death must have come
on them in an instant and fixed them as
they sat. Save that the elderly man 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 with some broken glasses beside a
tray was huddled near the step. On the
other two very ragged tramps, a man and

a woman, lay where they had fallen, the

man with his long, thin arm still out- |

stretched, even as he had asked for alms
in his lifetime. One instant of time had
put aristocrat, waiter, tramp, and dog
upon one common footing of inert and
dissolving protoplasm.

I remember another singular picture,
some miles on the London side of Seven-

————

164 The Poison Belt

oaks. There is a large convent upon the
left, with a long, green slope in front of it.
Upon this slope were assembled a great
number of school children, all kneeling at
prayer. In front of them was a fringe of
nuns, and higher up the slope, facing to-
wards them, a single figure whom we took
to be the Mother Superior. Unlike the
pleasure-seekers in the motor-car, these
people seemed to have had warning of
their danger, and 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 vainly for means of
expression by which I can reproduce the

‘emotions which we felt. Perhaps it is best

and wisest not to try, but merely to indi-
cate the facts. Even Summerlee and Chal-
lenger were crushed, and we heard nothing
of our companions behind us save an oc-
casional whimper from the lady. As to
Lord John, he was too intent upon his
wheel and the difficult task of threading

The Dead World 165
A LE PN SEATS SBN A EOLA: AAMT RE

his way along such roads to have time or
inclination for conversation. One phrase
he used with such wearisome iteration that
it stuck in my memory, and at last almost
made me laugh as a comment upon the
day of doom.

‘“‘ Pretty doin’s! What!”

That was his ejaculation as each fresh
tremendous combination of death and
disaster displayed itself before us.
‘“‘ Pretty doin’s! What!’ he cried, as
we descended the Station Hill at Rother-
field, and it was still ‘‘ Pretty doin’s!
What!” as we picked our way through a
wilderness of death in the High Street of
Lewisham and the Old Kent Road.

It was here that we received a sudden
and amazing shock. Out of the window
of a humble corner house there appeared a
fluttering handkerchief waving at the
end of a long, thin human arm. Never

had the sight of unexpected death caused
our hearts to stop and then throb so wildly
as did this amazing indication of life.

166 The Poison Belt

Lord John ran the motor to the kerb, and
in an instant we had rushed through the
open door of the house and up the stair-
case to the second-floor front room from
which the signal proceeded.

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

** | feared that I was abandoned here for
ever,’’ said she, ‘‘ for I am an invalid and
cannot stir.”

“Well, madam,” Challenger answered,
‘it is a lucky chance that we happened to
pass.”

““I have one all-important question
to ask you,”’ said she. ‘‘ Gentlemen, I
beg that you will be frank with me. What
effect will these events have upon London |
and North-Western Railway shares ? ”’

We should have laughed had it not been

PTR Se ee ee ee a ON Ee

The Dead World 167

for the tragic eagerness with which she
listened for ouranswer. Mrs. Burston, for
that was her name, was an aged widow
whose whole income depended upon a
small holding of this stock. Her life had
been regulated by the rise or fall of the
dividend, and she could form no conception
of existence save as it was affected by the
quotation of her shares. In vain we
pointed out to her that all the money in
the world was hers for the taking, and was
useless when taken. Her old mind would
not adapt itself to the new idea, and she
wept 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 lived where
the whole great forest had fallen. She
was a confirmed invalid and an asthmatic.
Oxygen had been prescribed for her
malady, and a tube was in her room at the
moment of the crisis. She had naturally
inhaled some as had been her habit when

168 The Poison Belt

there was a difficulty with her breathing.
It had given her relief, and by doling out
her supply she had managed to survive
the night. Finally she had fallen asleep
and been awakened by the 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 com-
municate with her in a couple of days at
the latest. So we left her, still weeping
bitterly over her vanished stock.

As we approached the Thames the block
in the streets became thicker and the
obstacles more bewildering. It was with
difficulty that. we made our way across
London Bridge. The approaches to it
upon the Middlesex side were choked from
end to end with frozen traffic which made
all further advance in that direction im-
possible. A ship was blazing brightly
alongside one of the wharves near the
bridge, and the air was full of drifting
smuts and of a heavy acrid smell of burn-
ing. There was a cloud of dense smoke

GEC re Rt Fy es ee a CET ne a Se eee

The Dead World 169

somewhere near the Houses of Parliament,
but it was impossible from where we were
to see what was on fire.

**T don’t know how it strikes you,”
Lord John remarked, as he brought his
engine to a standstill, “ but it seems to me
the country is more cheerful than the town.
Dead London is gettin’ on my nerves. I’m
for a cast round and then gettin’ back to
Rotherfield.”

** T confess that I do not see what we can
hope for here,” said Professor Summerlee.

‘* At the same time,”’ said Challenger, his
great voice booming strangely amid the
silence, ‘‘ it is difficult for us to conceive
that out of seven millions of people there is
only this one old woman who by some
peculiarity of constitution or some acci-
dent of occupation has managed to survive
this catastrophe.”

‘** If there should be others, how can we
hope to find them, George ?”’ asked the
lady. ‘‘ And yet I agree with you that
we cannot go back until we have tried.”

170 The Poison Belt

Getting out of the car, and leaving it by
the kerb, we walked with some difficulty
along the crowded pavement of King
William Street, and entered the open door
of a large insurance office. It was a
corner house, and we chose it as com-
manding a view in every direction. As-
cending the stair, we passed through what
I suppose to have been the board-room, for
eight elderly men were seated round a
long table in the centre of it. The high
window was open and we all stepped out
upon the balcony. From it we could see
the crowded City streets radiating in every
direction, while below us the road was
black from side to side with the tops of
the motionless taxis. All, or nearly all,
had their heads pointed outwards, showing
how the terrified men of the City had at
the last moment made a vain endeavour
to rejoin their families in the suburbs or
the country. Here and there amid the
humbler cabs towered the great brass-
spangled motor-car of some wealthy mag-

nate, wedged hopelessly amongst the
dammed stream of arrested traffic. Just
beneath us there was such a one of great
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 a last effort to break through the
press.

A dozen motor-buses towered up like
islands in this flood, the passengers who
crowded the roofs lying all huddled to-
gether and across each others’ laps like a
child’s toys in a nursery. Ona broad lamp
pedestal, in the centre of the roadway, a
burly policeman was standing, leaning his
back against the post in so natural an
attitude that it was hard to realize that
he was not alive, while at his feet there lay
a ragged newsboy with his bundle of papers
on the ground beside him. A paper-cart
had got blocked in the crowd, and we could
read in large letters, black upon yellow,

The Dead World 171

172 The Poison Belt

“Scene at Lord’s. County match in-
terrupted.’? This must have been the
earliest edition, for there were other plac-
ards bearing the legend, ‘‘ Is it the End ?
Great Scientist’s Warning.”’ And another,
“Is Challenger Justified ? Ominous
Rumours.” |

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

“In the limelight to the last, Chal-
lenger,”” he remarked.

‘So it would appear,” he answered,
complacently. ‘‘ Well,’ he added, as hee
looked down the long vista of the radiating
streets, all silent and all choked up with
death, ‘‘I really see no purpose to be

The Dead World 1738

served by our staying any longer in Lon-
don. I suggest that we return at once
to Rotherfield, and then take counsel
as to how we shall most pea employ
the years which lie before us.’

Only one other picture shall I give of
the scenes which we carried back in our
memories from the dead City. It is a
glimpse which we had of the interior of
the old church of St. Mary’s, which is at
the very point where our car was awaiting
us. Picking our way among the prostrate
figures upon the steps, we pushed open
the swing door and entered. It was
a wonderful ‘sight. The church was
crammed from end to end with kneeling
figures in every posture of supplication and
abasement. At the last dreadful moment,
brought suddenly face to face with the
realities of life, those terrific realities
which hang over us even while we follow
the shadows, the terrified people had
rushed into those old City churches which
for generations had hardly ever held

ences eeseeeseneeseeeeeeee
174 The Poison Belt

a congregation. There they huddled as
close as they could kneel, many of them
in their agitation still wearing their hats,
while above them in the pulpit a young
man in lay dress had apparently been ad-
dressing them when he and they had been
overwhelmed by the same fate. He lay »
now, like Punch in his booth, with his
head and two limp arms hanging over
the ledge of the pulpit. It was a night-
mare, the grey, dusty church, the rows
of agonized figures, the dimness 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 the door,
stood the ancient font, and behind it a
deep recess in which there hung the ropes
for the bellringers. Why should we not
send a message out over London which
would attract to us anyone who might
still be alive? I ran across, and pulling
at the list-covered rope I was surprised

The Dead World 175

to find how difficult it was to swing the
bell. Lord John had followed me.

‘“By George, young fellah!” said he,
pulling off his coat. ‘ You’ve hit on a
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 Challenger and Sum-
merlee had added their weight to ours
that we heard the roaring and clanging
above our heads which told us that the
great clapper was ringing out its music.
Far over dead London resounded our
message of comradeship, and hope to any
fellow-man surviving. It cheered our
own hearts, that strong, metallic call,
and we turned the more earnestly to our
work, dragged two feet off the earth with
each upward jerk of the rope, but all
straining together on the downward heave,
Challenger the lowest of all, bending all
his great strength to the task, and flopping
up and down like a monstrous bull-frog,
croaking with every pull. It was at

176 The Poison Beli

that moment that an artist might have
taken a picture of the four adventurers,
the comrades of many strange perils
in the past, whom Fate had 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 the exertion. Then we went out
into the portico of the church, and looked _
eagerly up and down the silent, crowded
streets. Not a sound, not a motion, in
answer to our summons.

“‘Tt’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, silent City would
drive me mad.”

We got into the car without another
word. Lord John backed her round and
turned her to the South. To us the
chapter seemed closed. Little did we
foresee the strange new chapter which
was to open.

THE YOUNG MAN... LEANING OUT OF THE WINDOW IN SOME EXCITEMENT AND
SHOUTING A DIRECTION”’ (p. 184).

THE GREAT AWAKENING

Chapter VI

THE GREAT AWAKENING

AND now I come to the end of this ex-
traordinary incident so overshadowing in
its importance, not only in our own small,
individual lives, but in the general history
of the human race. As I said when I
began my narrative, when that history
comes to be written this occurrence will
surely stand out among all other events
like a mountain towering among its foot-
hills. Our generation has been reserved
for a very special fate since it has been
chosen to experience so wonderful a thing.
How long its effect may last—how long
mankind may preserve the humility and
reverence which this great shock has
taught it, can only be shown by the future.
I think it is safe to say that things can
never be quite the same again. Never
179

180 The Poison Belt

can one realize how powerless and ignorant
one is, and how one is upheld by an unseen
hand, until for an instant that hand has
seemed to close and to crush. Death
has been imminent upon us. We know
that at any moment it may be again.
That grim presence shadows our lives, but
who can deny that in that shadow the
sense of duty, the feeling of sobriety and
responsibility, the appreciation of the
gravity and of the objects of life, the
earnest desire to develop and improve,
have grown and become real with us to
a degree that has leavened our whole
society from end to end? It is something
beyond sects and beyond dogmas. It is
rather an alteration of perspective, a
shifting of our sense of proportion, a vivid
realization that we are insignificant and
evanescent creatures, existing on suffer-
ance and at the mercy of the first chill
wind from the unknown. But if the
world has grown graver with this know-
ledge it is not, I think, a sadder place

The Great Awakening 181

in consequence. Surely we are agreed
that the more sober and _ restrained
pleasures of the present are deeper as
well as wiser than the noisy, foolish hustle
which passed so often for enjoyment in
the days of old—days so recent and yet
already so inconceivable. Those empty
_ lives which were wasted in aimless visiting
and being visited, in the worry of great
and unnecessary households, in the arrang-
ing and eating of elaborate and tedious
meals, have now found rest and health
in the reading, the music, the gentle
family communion which comes from
a simpler and saner division of their
time. With greater health and greater
pleasure they are richer than before,
even after they have paid those increased
contributions to the common 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 great awakening. It
is generally agreed that, apart from the

rR TE ETI

182 The Poison Belt

difference of clocks, there may have been
local causes which influenced the action
of the poison. Certainly, in each separate
district the resurrection was practically
simultaneous. There are numerous wit-
nesses that Big Ben pointed to ten minutes
past six at themoment. The Astronomer
Royal has fixed the Greenwich time at
twelve past six. On the other hand,
Laird Johnson, a very capable East Anglia
observer, has recorded six-twenty as the
hour. In the Hebrides it was as late as
seven. In our own case there can be
no doubt whatever, for I was seated in
Challenger’s study with his carefully-
tested chronometer in front of me at the
moment. The hour was a quarter-past
Six.

An enormous depression was weighing
upon my spirits. The cumulative effect of
all the dreadful sights which we had seen
upon our journey was heavy upon my
soul. With my abounding animal health
and great physical energy any kind of

The Great Awakening 183

mental clouding was a rare event. I had
the Irish faculty of seeing some gleam of
humour in every darkness. But now the
obscurity was appalling and unrelieved.
The others were downstairs making their
plans for the future. I sat by the open
window, my chin resting 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
to ask myself. Was it possible to exist
upon a dead world? Just as in physics
the greater body draws to itself the lesser,
would we not feel an overpowering at-
traction from that vast body of humanity
which had passed into the unknown?
How would the end come? Would it be
from a return of the poison? Or would
the earth be uninhabitable from the
mephitic products of universal decay ?
Or, finally, might our awful situation
prey upon and unbalance our minds i
A group of insane folk upon a dead world !
My mind was brooding upon this last

PERE SEE AA | eRe) Rc. bake
184 The Poison Belt

dreadful idea when some slight noise
caused me to look down upon the road
beneath me. The old cab-horse was
coming up the hill! .

I was conscious at the same instant of
the twittering of birds, of someone cough-
ing in the yard below, and of a background
of movement in the landscape. And yet
I remember that it was that absurd,
emaciated, superannuated cab-horse which
held my gaze. Slowly and wheezily it
was climbing the slope. Then my eye
travelled to the driver sitting hunched up
upon the box, and finally to the young man
who was leaning out of the window in
some excitement and shouting a direction.
They were all indubitably, aggressively
alive !

Everybody was alive once more! Had it
all been a delusion? Was it conceivable
that this whole poison belt incident had
been an elaborate dream? For an in-
stant my startled brain was really ready to
believe it. Then I looked down, and there

THERE WERE THE GOLFERS. WAS IT POSSIBLE THAT THEY WERE GOING ON WITII
THEIR GAME? ... THE REAPERS WERE SLOWLY TROOPING BACK TO THEIR WORK
(p. 185).

The Great Awakening 185

was the rising blister on my hand where it
was 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 an instant full tide to the
planet. Now, as my eyes wandered all
over the great landscape, I saw it in every
direction—and moving, to my amazement,
in the very same groove in which it had
halted. There were the 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 upon
the green were surely putting for the hole.
The reapers were slowly trooping back
to their work. The nurse-girl slapped one
of her charges and then began to push
the perambulator up the hill. Everyone
had unconcernedly taken up the thread at
the very point where they had dropped it.

I rushed downstairs, but the hall door
was open, and I heard the voices of my
companions, loud in astonishment and
congratulation, in the yard. How we all

186 The Poison Belt

shook hands and laughed as we came to-
gether, and how Mrs. Challenger kissed us
all in her emotion, before she finally threw
herself into the bear-hug of her husband !

‘* But they could not have been asleep !”
cried Lord John. ‘‘ Dash it all, Chal-
lenger, you don’t mean me to believe that
those folk were asleep with their staring
eyes and stiff limbs, and that awful death-
grin on their faces! ’’.

‘‘It can only have been the condition
that is called catalepsy,” said Challenger.
‘“It has been a rare phenomenon in the
past and has constantly been mistaken for
death. While it endures the temperature
falls, the respiration disappears, the heart-
beat is indistinguishable—in fact, it is
death, save that it is evanescent. Even
the most comprehensive mind ’’—here he
closed his eyes and simpered—“ could
hardly conceive a universal outbreak of it
in this fashion.”

‘“* You may label it catalepsy,”’ remarked
Summerlee, “‘ but, after all, that is only a

The Great Awakening 187

name, and we know as little of the result as
we do of the poison which has caused it.
The most we can say is that the vitiated
ether has produced a temporary death.”

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

**T don’t know what’s amiss with me,”’
continued Austin, staggering to his feet.
*“*T expect I came over queer when I was
hosing her down. I seem to remember
flopping over by the step. But I'll swear
I never left those lubricator taps on.”

In a condensed narrative the astonished

188 The Poison Belt

“ Austin was told what had happened to him-
self and the world. The mystery of the
dripping lubricators was also explained to
him. He listened with an air of deep
distrust when told how an amateur had
driven his car, and with absorbed interest
to the few sentences in which our experi-
ences of the sleeping City were recorded.
I can remember his comment when the
story was concluded.

““Was you outside the Bank of Eng-
land, sir 7°”

“Yes, Austins

“With all them millions inside and
everybody asleep ? ”

‘That was so.”

‘““ And I not there!’ he groaned, and
turned dismally once more to the hosing of
his car.

There was a sudden grinding of wheels
upon gravel. The old cab had actually
pulled up at Challenger’s door. I saw the
young occupant step out from it. An
instant later the maid, who looked as

The Great Awakening 189

tousled and bewildered as if she had that
instant been roused from the deepest
sleep, appeared with a card upon a tray.
Challenger snorted ferociously as he looked
at it, and his thick black hair seemed to
bristle up in his wrath.

‘“*A Pressman!’ he growled. Then,
with a deprecating smile: ‘‘ After all, it is
natural that the whole world should hasten
to know what I think of such an episode.”’

‘* That can hardly be his errand,” said
Summerlee, ‘* for he was on the road in his
cab before ever the crisis came.”’

I looked at the card: ‘‘ James Baxter,
London Correspondent, New York Moni-
tors"

** You'll see him ? ”’ said I.

<Not 1.”

‘**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, ob-
stinate head.

190 The Poison Belt

‘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 you won’t be rude
to him.”

“ Well, well,’’ he grumbled, ‘‘ you come
with me and do the talking. I protest in
advance against any such outrageous in-
vasion of my private life.””, Muttering and
mumbling, he came rolling after me like
an angry and rather ill-conditioned mastiff.

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

‘*T came down, sir,”’ said he, ‘* because
our people in America would very much
like to hear more about this danger which
is, IN your opinion, pressing upon the
world.”’

The Great Awakening 191

‘*T know of no danger which is now
pressing upon the world,” Challenger an-
swered, gruffly.

The Pressman looked at him in mild
surprise.

**T meant, sir, the chances that the world
might run into a belt of poisonous ether.”

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

The Pressman looked even more per-
plexed.

“*’You are Professor Challenger, are you
not ? ” he asked.

Yes, sit; that is my name.’

*“I cannot understand, then, how you
can say that there is no such danger. Iam
alluding to your own letter, published
above your name in the London Times
of this morning.”

It was Challenger’s turn to look sur-
prised.

“line mnorning 2°?) said)! he, iy No
London Times was published this morn-
ing.”

192 The Poison Belt

_“ Surely, sir,” said the American, in
mild remonstrance, ‘‘ you must admit that
the London Times is a daily paper.”” He
drew out a copy from his inside pocket.
** Here is the letter to which I refer.”

Challenger chuckled and rubbed his
hands.

‘*T begin to understand,” said he.
**So you read this letter this morning? ”’

Nes) . sits?’

‘** 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 generally human
than I have ever seen them. The baggage
man set out to tell me a funny story, and
that’s a new experience for me in this
country.”

‘* Nothing else ? ”’

““Why, no, sir, not that I can recall.”

‘* Well, new, what hour did you leave
Victoria ? ”

MRS. CHALLENGER ... THREW HERSELF INTO THE BEAR-HUG OF HER HUSBAND
(p. 186).

193

The Great Awakening

The American smiled.

““I came here to interview you, Pro-
fessor, but it seems to be a case of
‘Is this nigger fishing, or is this fish
niggering?’ You’re doing most of the
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 7?’

“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.”

194 The Poison Belt

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 back to me
that I wanted to say something to the
driver, and that I couldn’t make him heed
me. I guess it was the heat, but I felt
swimmy for a moment. That’s all.”

‘© So it is with the whole human race,”
said Challenger to me. ‘‘ They have all
felt swimmy for a moment. None of
them have as yet any comprehension of
what has occurred. Each will go on with
his interrupted job as Austin has snatched
up his hose-pipe or the golfer continued his
game. Your editor, Malone, will con-
tinue the issue of his papers, and very

The Great Awakening 195

much amazed he will be at finding that an
issue is missing. Yes, my young friend,”
he added, to the American reporter, with
a sudden mood of amused geniality, ‘‘ it
may interest you to know that the world
has swum safely through the poisonous
current which swirls like the Gulf Stream
_ through the ocean of ether. You will also
kindly note for your own future con-
venience that to-day is not Friday, August
the twenty-seventh, but Saturday, August
the twenty-eighth, and that you sat sense-
less in your cab for twenty-eight hours
upon the Rotherfield Hill.”

And “right here,” as my American
colleague would say, I may bring this
narrative to an end. It is, as you are
probably aware, only a fuller and more
detailed version of the account which
appeared in the Monday edition of the
Daily Gazette—an account which has been
universally admitted to be the greatest
journalistic scoop of all time, which sold
no fewer than three-and-a-half million

———=_=_=_[_=_=£_£=_«x«xX«—K—X———_=_[__*__

196 The Poison Belt

Meee eee ree e eee eee ee eee ee a ea |

copies of the paper. Framed upon the
wall of my sanctum I retain those mag-
nificent 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 of narrative, in
which appeared the first, last, and only
account of the history of the planet, so far
as one observer could draw it, during one
long day of its existence. Challenger and
Summerlee have treated the matter in a
joint scientific paper, but to me alone was

The Great Awakening 197

left the popular account. Surely I can
sing ‘‘ Nunc Dimittis.” What is left but
anti-climax in the life of a journalist after
that !

But let me not end on sensational head-
lines and a merely personal triumph.
Rather let me quote the sonorous passages
in which the greatest of daily papers
ended its admirable leader upon the sub-
ject—a leader which might well be filed
for reference by every thoughtful man.

** It has been a well-worn truism,” said
the Times, ‘‘ that our human race are a
feeble folk before the infinite latent forces
which surround us. From the prophets
of old and from the philosophers of our
own time the same message and warning
have reached us. But, like all oft-repeated
truths, it has in time lost something of
its actuality and cogency. A lesson, an
actual experience, was needed to bring
it home. It is from that salutary but
terrible ordeal that we have just emerged,
with minds which are still stunned by the

198 The Poison Belt

suddenness of the blow, and with spirits
which are chastened by the realization
of our own limitations and impotence.
The world has paid a fearful price for its
schooling. Hardly yet have we learned
the full tale of disaster, but the destruction
by fire of New York, of Orleans, and of
Brighton constitutes in itself one of the
greatest tragedies in the history of our
race. When the account of the railway
and shipping accidents has been com-
pleted, it will furnish grim reading, al-
though there is evidence to show that
in the vast majority of cases the drivers of
trains and engineers of steamers succeeded
in shutting off their motive power before
succumbing to the poison. But the
material damage, enormous as it is both
in life and in property, is not the considera-
tion which will be uppermost in our minds
to-day. All this may in time be forgotten.

But what will not be forgotten, and what
- will and should continue to obsess our
imaginations, is this revelation of the

ee
The Great Awakening’ 199

possibilities of the universe, this destruc-
tion of our ignorant self-complacency, and
this demonstration of how narrow is the
path of our material existence, and what
abysses may lie upon either side of it.
Solemnity and humility are at the base of
all our emotions to-day. May they be the
foundations upon which a more earnest
and reverent race may build a more worthy
temple.”

THE END

Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.

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