Bab Bab 4 · A DIARY OF THE DYING

. A DIARY OF THE DYING

A DIARY OF THE DYING

How strange the words look scribbled at the top of the empty page of my

book! How stranger still that it is I, Edward Malone, who have written

them--I who started only some twelve hours ago from my rooms 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, the absurd journey in the

train, the pleasant luncheon, the catastrophe, and now it has come to

this--that we linger alone upon an empty planet, and so sure is our fate

that I can regard these lines, written from mechanical professional habit

and never to be seen by human eyes, as the words of one who is already

dead, so closely does he stand to the shadowed borderland over which all

outside this 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 and good

and 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 the

poor 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 he

were addressing his old rows of scientific sceptics in the Queen's Hall.

He had certainly a strange audience to harangue: his wife perfectly

acquiescent and absolutely ignorant of his meaning, Summerlee seated in

the shadow, querulous and 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 brought from his

dressing room. The small vivid circle of white light from the mirror

left half of his rugged, bearded face in brilliant radiance and half in

deepest shadow. He had, it seems, been working of late upon the lowest

forms of life, and what excited him at the present moment was that in the

microscopic slide made up the day before he found the amoeba to be still

alive.

"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-shaped

things in the centre are diatoms and may be disregarded since they are

probably vegetable rather than animal. But the right-hand side you will

see an undoubted amoeba, moving sluggishly across the field. The upper

screw is the fine adjustment. Look at it for yourselves."

Summerlee did so and acquiesced. So did I and perceived a little

creature which looked as if it were made of ground glass flowing in a

sticky way across the lighted circle. Lord John was prepared to take him

on trust.

"I'm not troublin' my head whether he's alive or dead," said he. "We

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

heart? 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 coldest

and most supercilious stare. It was a most petrifying experience.

"The flippancy of the half-educated is more obstructive to science than

the obtuseness of the ignorant," said he. "If Lord John Roxton would

condescend----"

"My dear George, don't be so peppery," said his wife, with her hand on

the black mane that drooped over the microscope. "What can it matter

whether 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 been

too off-hand with the thing, or hurt its feelin's in any way, I'll

apologize."

"For my part," remarked Summerlee in his creaky, argumentative voice, "I

can't see why you should attach such importance to the creature being

alive. It is in the same atmosphere as ourselves, so naturally the

poison does not act upon it. If it were outside of this room it would be

dead, like all other animal life."

"Your remarks, my good Summerlee," said Challenger with enormous

condescension (oh, if I could paint that over-bearing, arrogant face in

the vivid circle of reflection from the microscope mirror!)--"your

remarks show 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 point upon the universe. Therefore, it has survived the

poison. Hence, we may argue that every amoeba outside this room, instead

of being dead, as you have erroneously stated, has really survived the

catastrophe."

"Well, even now I don't feel inclined to hip-hurrah about it," said Lord

John. "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 forward

from this one fact, and you would see some few millions of years hence--a

mere passing moment in the enormous flux of the ages--the whole world

teeming once more with the 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 you pass the place a

few 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 time

remove every trace of this incomparable crisis in which we are now

involved."

"Dooced interestin'!" said Lord John, lounging across and looking through

the microscope. "Funny little chap to hang number one among the family

portraits. Got a fine big shirt-stud on him!"

"The dark object is his nucleus," said Challenger with the air of a nurse

teaching letters to a baby.

"Well, we needn't feel lonely," said Lord John laughing. "There's

somebody livin' besides us on the earth."

"You seem to take it for granted, Challenger," said Summerlee, "that the

object for which this world was created was that it should produce and

sustain human life."

"Well, sir, and what object do you suggest?" asked Challenger, bristling

at the least hint of contradiction.

"Sometimes I think that it is only the monstrous conceit of mankind which

makes 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 have

ventured to call monstrous conceit we can surely say that we are the

highest thing in nature."

"The highest of which we have cognizance."

"That, sir, goes without saying."

"Think of all the millions and possibly billions of years that the earth

swung empty through space--or, if not empty, at least without a sign or

thought 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 being yesterday so far as geological times goes. Why, then,

should it be taken for granted that all this stupendous preparation was

for his benefit?"

"For whose then--or for what?"

Summerlee shrugged his shoulders.

"How can we tell? For some reason altogether beyond our conception--and

man may have been a mere accident, a by-product evolved in the process.

It is as if the scum upon the surface of the ocean imagined that the

ocean was created in order to produce and sustain it, or a mouse in a

cathedral thought that the building was its own proper ordained

residence."

I have jotted down the very words of their argument, but now it

degenerates into a mere noisy wrangle with much polysyllabic scientific

jargon upon each side. It is no doubt a privilege to hear two such

brains discuss the highest questions; 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 coiled up in his

chair, while Challenger, still fingering the screws of his microscope, is

keeping up a continual low, deep, inarticulate growl like the sea after a

storm. Lord John comes over to me, and we look out together into the

night.

There is a pale new moon--the last moon that human eyes will ever rest

upon--and the stars are most brilliant. Even in the clear plateau air of

South America I have never seen them brighter. Possibly this etheric

change has some effect upon light. The funeral 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 the air. Youth and beauty and chivalry and love--is

this to be the end of it all? The starlit earth looks a dreamland of

gentle peace. Who would imagine it as the terrible Golgotha strewn with

the bodies of the human race? Suddenly, I find myself laughing.

"Halloa, young fellah!" says Lord John, staring at me in surprise. "We

could do with a joke in these hard times. What was it, then?"

"I was thinking of all the great unsolved questions," I answer, "the

questions that we spent so much labor and thought over. Think of

Anglo-German competition, for example--or the Persian Gulf that my old

chief was so keen about. Whoever would have guessed, when we fumed and

fretted so, how they were to be eventually solved?"

We fall into silence again. I fancy that each of us is thinking of

friends that have gone before. Mrs. Challenger is sobbing quietly, and

her husband is whispering to her. My mind turns to all the most unlikely

people, and I see each of them lying white and rigid as poor Austin does

in the yard. There is McArdle, for example, I know exactly where he is,

with his face upon his writing desk and his hand on his own telephone,

just as I heard him fall. Beaumont, the editor, too--I suppose he is

lying upon the blue-and-red Turkey carpet which adorned his sanctum. And

the fellows in the reporters' room--Macdona and Murray and Bond. 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. I ran 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.

"Fifthly and lastly," said he, glancing at the tube. "Say, young fellah,

don't tell me you've been writin' up your impressions in that paper on

your knee."

"Just a few notes to pass the time."

"Well, I don't believe anyone but an Irishman would have done that. I

expect you'll have to wait till little brother amoeba gets grown up

before you'll find a reader. He don't seem to take much stock of things

just at present. Well, Herr Professor, what are the prospects?"

Challenger was looking out at the great drifts of morning mist which lay

over the landscape. Here and there the wooded hills rose like conical

islands out of this woolly sea.

"It might be a winding sheet," said Mrs. Challenger, who had entered in

her dressing-gown. "There's that song of yours, George, 'Ring out the

old, ring in the new.' It was prophetic. But you are shivering, my poor

dear friends. I have been warm under a coverlet all night, and you cold

in your chairs. But I'll soon set you right."

The brave little creature hurried away, and presently we heard the

sizzling of a kettle. She was back soon with five steaming cups of cocoa

upon a tray.

"Drink these," said she. "You will feel so much better."

And we did. Summerlee asked if he might light his pipe, and we all had

cigarettes. It steadied our nerves, I think, but it was a mistake, for

it made a dreadful atmosphere in that stuffy room. Challenger had to

open the ventilator.

"How long, Challenger?" asked Lord John.

"Possibly three hours," he answered with a shrug.

"I used to be frightened," said his wife. "But the nearer I get to it,

the easier it seems. Don't you think we ought to pray, George?"

"You will pray, dear, if you wish," the big man answered, very gently.

"We all have our own ways of praying. Mine is a complete acquiescence in

whatever fate may send me--a cheerful acquiescence. The highest religion

and the highest science seem to unite on that."

"I cannot truthfully describe my mental attitude as acquiescence and far

less cheerful acquiescence," grumbled Summerlee over his pipe. "I submit

because I have to. I confess that I should have liked another year of

life to finish my classification of the chalk fossils."

"Your unfinished work is a small thing," said Challenger pompously, "when

weighed against the fact that my own _magnum opus_, 'The Ladder of Life,'

is still in the first stages. My brain, my reading, my experience--in

fact, my whole unique equipment--were to be condensed into that

epoch-making volume. And yet, as I say, I acquiesce."

"I expect we've all left some loose ends stickin' out," said Lord John.

"What are yours, young fellah?"

"I was working at a book of verses," I answered.

"Well, the world has escaped that, anyhow," said Lord John. "There's

always compensation somewhere if you grope around."

"What about you?" I asked.

"Well, it just so happens that I was tidied up and ready. I'd promised

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

on you, Mrs. Challenger, when you have just built up this pretty home."

"Where George is, there is my home. But, oh, what would I not give for

one last walk together in the fresh morning air upon those beautiful

downs!"

Our hearts re-echoed her words. The sun had burst through the gauzy

mists which veiled it, and the whole broad Weald was washed in golden

light. Sitting in our dark and poisonous atmosphere that 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 window. The atmosphere was already

very close. It seemed to me that the shadows of death were drawing in

upon us--the last of our race. It was like an invisible curtain closing

down upon every side.

"That cylinder is not lastin' too well," said Lord John with a long gasp

for breath.

"The amount contained is variable," said Challenger, "depending upon the

pressure and care with which it has been bottled. I am inclined to agree

with you, Roxton, that this one is defective."

"So we are to be cheated out of the last hour of our lives," Summerlee

remarked bitterly. "An excellent final illustration of the sordid age in

which we have lived. Well, Challenger, now is your time if you wish to

study the subjective phenomena of physical dissolution."

"Sit on the stool at my knee and give me your hand," said Challenger to

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

insufferable atmosphere is hardly advisable. You would not desire it,

dear, would you?"

His wife gave a little groan and sank her face against his leg.

"I've seen the folk bathin' in the Serpentine in winter," said Lord John.

"When the rest are in, you see one or two shiverin' on the bank, envyin'

the others that have taken the plunge. It's the last that have the worst

of it. I'm all for a header and have done with it."

"You would open the window and face the ether?"

"Better be poisoned than stifled."

Summerlee nodded his reluctant acquiescence and held out his thin hand to

Challenger.

"We've had our quarrels in our time, but that's all over," said he. "We

were good friends and had a respect for each other under the surface.

Good-by!"

"Good-by, young fellah!" said Lord John. "The window's plastered up.

You can't open it."

Challenger stooped and raised his wife, pressing her to his breast, while

she threw her arms round his neck.

"Give me that field-glass, Malone," said he gravely.

I handed it to him.

"Into the hands of the Power that made us we render ourselves again!" he

shouted in his voice of thunder, and at the words he hurled the

field-glass through the window.

Full in our flushed faces, before the last tinkle of falling fragments

had died away, there came the wholesome breath of the wind, blowing

strong and sweet.

I don't know how long we sat in amazed silence. Then as in a dream, I

heard Challenger's voice once more.

"We are back in normal conditions," he cried. "The world has cleared the

poison belt, but we alone of all mankind are saved."