<SPAN name="chap02"></SPAN>
<h3> Chapter II </h3>
<h3> THE TIDE OF DEATH </h3>
<p>As we crossed the hall the telephone-bell rang, and we were the
involuntary auditors 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 monstrous voice, which reverberated
through the house. His answers lingered in my mind.</p>
<p>"Yes, yes, of course, it is I.... Yes, certainly, <i>the</i> 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 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."</p>
<p>He shut off with a crash and led us upstairs into a large airy apartment
which formed his study. On the great mahogany desk seven or eight
unopened telegrams were lying.</p>
<p>"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."</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>"Noah! Noah!" he gasped, with a face of beetroot, while Lord John and I
smiled in sympathy and Summerlee, like a dyspeptic goat, wagged his head
in sardonic disagreement. Finally Challenger, still rumbling and
exploding, began to open his telegrams. The three of us stood in the bow
window and occupied ourselves in admiring the magnificent view.</p>
<p>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. Immediately 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, we could see a
section of the main line from London to Brighton. In the immediate
foreground, under our very noses, was a small enclosed yard, in which
stood the car which had brought us from the station.</p>
<p>An ejaculation from Challenger caused us to turn. 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.</p>
<p>"Well, gentlemen," he said, in a voice as if he was 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?"</p>
<p>"The only thing which I observed," said Summerlee with a sour smile, "was
that our young friend here has not improved in his manners during the
years 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 impression
in my mind."</p>
<p>"Well, well, we all get a bit prosy sometimes," said Lord John. "The
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 folk."</p>
<p>"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."</p>
<p>"I can hardly judge which of you was the most utterly wearisome," said
Summerlee. "I declare to you, Challenger, that I never wish to hear of
football or of buffaloes so long as I live."</p>
<p>"I have never said one word to-day about football," I protested.</p>
<p>Lord John gave a shrill whistle, and Summerlee shook his head sadly.</p>
<p>"So early in the day too," said he. "It is indeed deplorable. As I sat
there in sad but thoughtful silence——"</p>
<p>"In silence!" cried Lord John. "Why, you were doin' a music-hall turn of
imitations all the way—more like a runaway gramophone than a man."</p>
<p>Summerlee drew himself up in bitter protest.</p>
<p>"You are pleased to be facetious, Lord John," said he with a face of
vinegar.</p>
<p>"Why, dash it all, this is clear madness," 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't it? Then we began to quarrel
over friend Challenger's letter in the Times."</p>
<p>"Oh, you did, did you?" rumbled our host, his eyelids beginning to droop.</p>
<p>"You said, Summerlee, that there was no possible truth in his contention."</p>
<p>"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."</p>
<p>He bowed and shrugged and spread open his hands as he spoke with his
elaborate and elephantine sarcasm.</p>
<p>"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
railway carriage should be entirely unaffected."</p>
<p>The explanation only brought uproarious merriment from Challenger. He
laughed until everything in the room seemed to rattle and quiver.</p>
<p>"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, gentlemen, 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 our experience to show
signs of any emotion. 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 inperturbability. 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 paralyzed, staring down at my head. Then with a shriek she
tore herself free and rushed from the room. I pursued 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 traveling
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
<i>you</i> think of it, Lord John?"</p>
<p>Lord John shook his head gravely.</p>
<p>"You'll be gettin' into serious trouble some of these days if you don't
put a brake on," said he.</p>
<p>"Perhaps you have some observation to make, Summerlee?"</p>
<p>"You should drop all work instantly, Challenger, and take three months in
a German watering-place," said he.</p>
<p>"Profound! Profound!" cried Challenger. "Now, my young friend, is it
possible that wisdom may come from you where your seniors have so
signally failed?"</p>
<p>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 everything was new. But it came on me suddenly with the
full force of absolute conviction.</p>
<p>"Poison!" I cried.</p>
<p>Then, even as I said the word, my mind flashed back over the whole
morning'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.</p>
<p>"Of course," I cried again. "It is poison. We are all poisoned."</p>
<p>"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 at the rate of some millions of miles a minute. Our young friend
has expressed the cause of all our troubles and perplexities in a single
word, 'poison.'"</p>
<p>We looked at each other in amazed silence. No comment seemed to meet the
situation.</p>
<p>"There is a mental inhibition by which such symptoms can be checked and
controlled," 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 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 impregnable behind all mere molecular disturbance.
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.</p>
<p>"Later, when I descended to order the car 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 contrary, I
touched him on the shoulder and ordered the car to be at the door in time
to meet your train. At the present instant I am most forcibly tempted to
take Professor Summerlee by that silly old beard of his and to shake his
head violently backwards and forwards. And yet, as you see, I am
perfectly restrained. Let me commend my example to you."</p>
<p>"I'll look out for that buffalo," said Lord John.</p>
<p>"And I for the football match."</p>
<p>"It may be that you are right, Challenger," said Summerlee in a chastened
voice. "I am willing to admit that my turn of mind is critical rather
than constructive and that I am not a ready convert to any new theory,
especially when it happens to be so unusual and fantastic as this one.
However, as I cast my mind back over the events of the morning, and as 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."</p>
<p>Challenger slapped his colleague good-humouredly upon the shoulder. "We
progress," said he. "Decidedly we progress."</p>
<p>"And pray, sir," asked Summerlee humbly, "what is your opinion as to the
present outlook?"</p>
<p>"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."</p>
<p>The end of the world! Our eyes turned to the great bow-window and we
looked out at the summer beauty of the country-side, the long slopes of
heather, the great country-houses, the cozy farms, the pleasure-seekers
upon the links.</p>
<p>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 recollection 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.</p>
<p>"You will conceive a bunch of grapes," 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."</p>
<p>Again there was silence. It was broken by the high trill of the
telephone-bell.</p>
<p>"There is one of our bacilli squeaking for help," said he with a grim
smile. "They are beginning to realize that their continued existence is
not really one of the necessities of the universe."</p>
<p>He was gone from the room for a minute or two. I remember that none of
us spoke in his absence. The situation seemed beyond all words or
comments.</p>
<p>"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. Our seven 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 readjust his ideas."</p>
<p>Summerlee had risen and was standing by the window. His thin, bony hands
were trembling with his emotion.</p>
<p>"Challenger," said he earnestly, "this thing is too serious for mere
futile argument. Do not suppose that I desire to irritate you by any
question I may ask. 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 the blue sky. There are the heather and
the flowers and the birds. There are the folk enjoying themselves upon
the golf-links and the laborers 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 tremendous 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
ceremony with us, Challenger. We have all faced death together before
now. Speak out, and let us know exactly where we stand, and what, in
your opinion, are our prospects for our future."</p>
<p>It was a brave, good speech, a speech from that stanch and strong spirit
which lay behind all the acidities and angularities of the old zoologist.
Lord John rose and shook him by the hand.</p>
<p>"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?"</p>
<p>He stood, tall and strong, in the sunshine at the window, with his brown
hand upon the shoulder of Summerlee. I was lying back in an armchair, an
extinguished cigarette between my lips, in that sort of half-dazed state
in which impressions become exceedingly distinct. 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.</p>
<p>"What was the last news when you left London?" he asked.</p>
<p>"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 Sumatra and that the lighthouses had not been lit in
consequence."</p>
<p>"Events have been moving somewhat rapidly since then," said Challenger,
picking up his pile of telegrams. "I am in 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
individuals, 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——"</p>
<p>"Datura," suggested Summerlee.</p>
<p>"Excellent!" cried Challenger. "It would make for scientific precision
if 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 symptoms 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 capricious 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 distribution 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 glanced over his telegrams—"the less developed
races have been the first to respond to its influence. There are
deplorable 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:—</p>
<p>"'All night delirious excitement throughout Provence. Tumult of vine
growers at Nimes. Socialistic upheaval at Toulon. Sudden illness
attended by coma attacked population this morning. <i>peste foudroyante</i>.
Great numbers of dead in the streets. Paralysis of business and
universal chaos.'</p>
<p>"An hour later came the following, from the same source:—</p>
<p>"'We are threatened with utter extermination. Cathedrals and churches
full to overflowing. The dead outnumber the living. It is inconceivable
and horrible. Decease seems to be painless, but swift and inevitable.'</p>
<p>"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
population of Austria is down, while the Teutonic has hardly been
affected. Speaking 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 perhaps 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."</p>
<p>Lord John Roxton wiped his brow.</p>
<p>"What beats me," said he, "is how you could sit there laughin' with that
stack of telegrams under your hand. I've seen death as often as most
folk, but universal death—it's awful!"</p>
<p>"As to the laughter," said Challenger, "you will bear in mind that, like
yourselves, 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 uncertainty, 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 may be terrible, but a universal one, 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."</p>
<p>"What, then, do you propose to do?" asked Summerlee, who had for once
nodded his assent to the reasoning of his brother scientist.</p>
<p>"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 disturbance 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 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."</p>
<p>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 our fate. The present was our own. We
passed it in goodly comradeship 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 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 stupendous 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. Each breath we breathed was
charged with strange forces. And yet our minds were happy and at ease.
Presently Austin laid the cigarettes upon the table and was about to
withdraw.</p>
<p>"Austin!" said his master.</p>
<p>"Yes, sir?"</p>
<p>"I thank you for your faithful service." A smile stole over the
servant's gnarled face.</p>
<p>"I've done my duty, sir."</p>
<p>"I'm expecting the end of the world to-day, Austin."</p>
<p>"Yes, sir. What time, sir?"</p>
<p>"I can't say, Austin. Before evening."</p>
<p>"Very good, sir."</p>
<p>The taciturn Austin saluted and withdrew. Challenger lit a cigarette,
and, drawing his chair closer to his wife's, he took her hand in his.</p>
<p>"You know how matters stand, dear," said he. "I have explained it also
to our friends here. You're not afraid are you?"</p>
<p>"It won't be painful, George?"</p>
<p>"No more than laughing-gas at the dentist's. Every time you have had it
you have practically died."</p>
<p>"But that is a pleasant sensation."</p>
<p>"So may death be. The worn-out bodily machine can't record its
impression, 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 constituents, a
packet of salts and three bucketfuls of water. Here—here"—and he beat
his great head with his huge, hairy fist—"there is something which uses
matter, but is not of it—something which might destroy death, but which
death can never destroy."</p>
<p>"Talkin' of death," said Lord John. "I'm a Christian of sorts, but it
seems to me there was somethin' mighty natural in 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?"</p>
<p>"Well," said Summerlee, "since you ask my opinion, it strikes me as an
indefensible throwback to the Stone Age or before it. I'm of the
twentieth century myself, and would wish to die like a reasonable
civilized man. I don't know that I am more afraid of death than the rest
of you, for I 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 waiting
without a struggle like a sheep for the butcher. Is it quite certain,
Challenger, that there is nothing we can do?"</p>
<p>"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——"</p>
<p>"The oxygen?"</p>
<p>"Exactly. The oxygen."</p>
<p>"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, Challenger, you
could not defend such a proposition."</p>
<p>"My good Summerlee, this etheric poison is most certainly influenced by
material agents. We see it in the methods and distribution of the
outbreak. We should not <i>a priori</i> have expected it, 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 correctness of my reasoning."</p>
<p>"Well," said Lord John, "if we've got to sit suckin' at those tubes like
so many babies with their bottles, I'm not takin' any."</p>
<p>"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."</p>
<p>"Good heavens, Challenger, you don't suppose you can keep out ether with
varnished paper?"</p>
<p>"Really, my worthy friend, you are a trifle perverse in missing the
point. 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."</p>
<p>"How long will they last?"</p>
<p>"I 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 rear guard of the human race upon its march
into the unknown. 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."</p>
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