The Poison Belt

ms in Streatham without one thought of the marvels which the day was to bring forth! I look back at the chain of incidents, my interview with McArdle, Challenger's first note of alarm in the Times, th

is 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

d critical but interested, Lord John lounging in a corner somewhat bored by the whole proceeding, 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 whatever. Challenger sat at the centre table with the electric light illuminating the slide under the microscope which he had

indly verify what I say? The little spindle-shaped things in the centre are diatoms and may be disregarded since they are probably vegetable rather than animal.

e which looked as if it were made of ground glass flowing in a sticky wa

n't so much as know each other by sight, so why should I take it to hea

direction with his coldest and most supercili

tive to science than the obtuseness of the ignorant

her hand on the black mane that drooped over the microsco

at deal," said Ch

e may as well talk about that as anything else. If you think I've been too

such importance to the creature being alive. It is in the same atmosphere as ourselves, so naturally the

ow that you imperfectly 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

ined to hip-hurrah about it," sai

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 blackened waste. You would think that it must be forever desert. Yet the roots of growth have been left behind, and when

ng through the microscope. "Funny little chap to hang number on

said Challenger with the air of

d Lord John laughing. "There's some

mmerlee, "that the object for which this world was cre

uggest?" asked Challenger, bristling

conceit of mankind which makes him think that a

what you have ventured to call monstrous conceit we ca

f which we hav

goes witho

ght 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 b

e then-or

hrugged his

evolved in the process. It is as if the scum upon the surface of the ocean imagined that the ocean was created in order

ons; but as they are in perpetual disagreement, plain folk like 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 Summerlee is co

al 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

ing at me in surprise. "We could do with a j

nd thought over. Think of Anglo-German competition, for example-or the Persian Gulf that my old chief was so

note-books full of vivid impressions and strange happenings in their hands. I could just imagine how this one would have been packed off to 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 materialize in printer's ink! I could see Macdona among the doctors-"Hope in Harley Street"-Mac had always a weakness 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 retreated to avoid the crowd of terrified patients who had stormed

e would die with the treasures still unused. What would Bond not gi

and the Professor says that she is asleep. He is making notes and consulting books at the central table, as calmly as if years of

exasperating snore. Lord John lies back with his hands in his pockets and his ey

. Who would have believed it possible? But I feel very much fresher, and ready for my fate-or try to persuade myself that I am. And yet, the fitter a man is, and the higher his tide of life, the more must he shrink from death. How

head is so tilted that I can see nothing above his collar save a tangled bristle of luxuriant beard. He shakes with the vibration of his own snoring. Summerlee adds his occasional high tenor to Chall

r way, down, as it would seem, to the very amoeba, 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 g

ere too swift and too poignant to allow me to write, but they are

rd 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. Ev

eorge, I a

wered as the others started to their feet

wakened out of sleep. Summerlee was shivering like a man with the ague, human fears, as he realized his position, rising for an instant

. "Say, young fellah, don't tell me you've been wri

notes to pas

wait till little brother amoeba gets grown up before you'll find a reader. He don't seem t

mist which lay over the landscape. Here and there the wood

of yours, George, 'Ring out the old, ring in the new.' It was prophetic. But you are shivering, my poor dear f

tly we heard the sizzling of a kettle. She was bac

d she. "You will f

ttes. It steadied our nerves, I think, but it was a mistake, for it made a dr

allenger?" as

hours," he answe

ut the nearer I get to it, the easier it see

own ways of praying. Mine is a complete acquiescence in whatever fate may send me-a ch

uiescence," grumbled Summerlee over his pipe. "I submit because I have to. I confess that

magnum opus, 'The Ladder of Life,' is still in the first stages. My brain, my reading, my experience-in fact,

e ends stickin' out," said Lord Jo

t a book of vers

w," said Lord John. "There's always comp

out you?

Merivale to go to Tibet for a snow leopard in the spring. But it's hard

would I not give for one last walk together in t

at glorious, clean, wind-swept countryside seemed a very dream of beauty. Mrs. Challenger held her hand stretched out to it in her longing. We drew up chairs and sat in a semicircle in the win

' too well," said Lord John

upon the pressure and care with which it has been bottled. I am

"An excellent final illustration of the sordid age in which we have lived. Well, Challenge

is wife. "I think, my friends, that a further delay in this insufferable

e groan and sank her

re in, you see one or two shiverin' on the bank, envyin' the others that have taken the pl

the window and

poisoned th

nt acquiescence and held out

l over," said he. "We were good friends and had a

Lord John. "The window's pla

fe, pressing her to his breast, whil

ld-glass, Malone,

ed it

elves again!" he shouted in his voice of thunder, and at

falling fragments had died away, there came the who

zed silence. Then as in a dream, I

ied. "The world has cleared the poison be