第21章

They had certainly died hard at work on their job, with 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 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; 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, groveling 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 reporter, 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, 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 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 I am.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 loosened by many little imperceptible tugs, until his consciousness has drifted out of its untenable earthly harbor into the great sea beyond!

Mrs.Challenger is still in the dressing room.Challenger has fallen asleep in his chair.What a picture! His enormous 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 bristle 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 and mournful.

I look out at the sunrise--that fateful sunrise which will shine upon an unpeopled world.The human race is gone, extinguished in a day, but the planets swing round and the tides rise or fall, and the wind whispers, and all nature goes her way, down, as it would seem, to the very amoeba, with never a sign that he who styled himself the lord of creation 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 typified 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 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.Iran 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!"

"It 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 great 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 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.