The Poison Belt (Professor Challenger 2)

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

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

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

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

"Lewes is ablaze!"

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

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

Chapter IV

A DIARY OF THE DYING

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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