第9章

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.""I'll look out for that buffalo," said Lord John.

"And I for the football match."

"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."Challenger slapped his colleague good-humouredly upon the shoulder."We progress," 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-side, the long slopes of heather, the great country-houses, the cozy 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 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.

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

"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."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.

"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."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 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."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.