Bab Bab 2 · THE TIDE OF DEATH

. THE TIDE OF DEATH

THE TIDE OF DEATH

As we crossed the hall the telephone-bell rang, and we were the

involuntary auditors of Professor Challenger's end of the ensuing

dialogue. I say "we," but no one within a hundred yards could have

failed to hear the booming of that monstrous voice, which reverberated

through the house. His answers lingered in my mind.

"Yes, yes, of course, it is I.... Yes, certainly, _the_ Professor

Challenger, the famous Professor, who else?... Of course, every word of

it, otherwise I should not have written it.... I shouldn't be

surprised.... There is every indication of it.... Within a day or so at

the furthest.... Well, I can't help that, can I?... Very unpleasant, no

doubt, but I rather fancy it will affect more important people than you.

There is no use whining about it.... No, I couldn't possibly. You must

take your chance.... That's enough, sir. Nonsense! I have something

more important to do than to listen to such twaddle."

He shut off with a crash and led us upstairs into a large airy apartment

which formed his study. On the great mahogany desk seven or eight

unopened telegrams were lying.

"Really," he said as he gathered them up, "I begin to think that it would

save my correspondents' money if I were to adopt a telegraphic address.

Possibly 'Noah, Rotherfield,' would be the most appropriate."

As usual when he made an obscure joke, he leaned against the desk and

bellowed in a paroxysm of laughter, his hands shaking so that he could

hardly open the envelopes.

"Noah! Noah!" he gasped, with a face of beetroot, while Lord John and I

smiled in sympathy and Summerlee, like a dyspeptic goat, wagged his head

in sardonic disagreement. Finally Challenger, still rumbling and

exploding, began to open his telegrams. The three of us stood in the bow

window and occupied ourselves in admiring the magnificent view.

It was certainly worth looking at. The road in its gentle curves had

really brought us to a considerable elevation--seven hundred feet, as we

afterwards discovered. Challenger's house was on the very edge of the

hill, and from its southern face, in which was the study window, one

looked across the vast stretch of the weald to where the gentle curves of

the South Downs formed an undulating horizon. In a cleft of the hills a

haze of smoke marked the position of Lewes. Immediately at our feet

there lay a rolling plain of heather, with the long, vivid green

stretches of the Crowborough golf course, all dotted with the players. A

little to the south, through an opening in the woods, we could see a

section of the main line from London to Brighton. In the immediate

foreground, under our very noses, was a small enclosed yard, in which

stood the car which had brought us from the station.

An ejaculation from Challenger caused us to turn. He had read his

telegrams and had arranged them in a little methodical pile upon his

desk. His broad, rugged face, or as much of it as was visible over the

matted beard, was still deeply flushed, and he seemed to be under the

influence of some strong excitement.

"Well, gentlemen," he said, in a voice as if he was addressing a public

meeting, "this is indeed an interesting reunion, and it takes place under

extraordinary--I may say unprecedented--circumstances. May I ask if you

have observed anything upon your journey from town?"

"The only thing which I observed," said Summerlee with a sour smile, "was

that our young friend here has not improved in his manners during the

years that have passed. I am sorry to state that I have had to seriously

complain of his conduct in the train, and I should be wanting in

frankness if I did not say that it has left a most unpleasant impression

in my mind."

"Well, well, we all get a bit prosy sometimes," said Lord John. "The

young fellah meant no real harm. After all, he's an International, so if

he takes half an hour to describe a game of football he has more right to

do it than most folk."

"Half an hour to describe a game!" I cried indignantly. "Why, it was you

that took half an hour with some long-winded story about a buffalo.

Professor Summerlee will be my witness."

"I can hardly judge which of you was the most utterly wearisome," said

Summerlee. "I declare to you, Challenger, that I never wish to hear of

football or of buffaloes so long as I live."

"I have never said one word to-day about football," I protested.

Lord John gave a shrill whistle, and Summerlee shook his head sadly.

"So early in the day too," said he. "It is indeed deplorable. As I sat

there in sad but thoughtful silence----"

"In silence!" cried Lord John. "Why, you were doin' a music-hall turn of

imitations all the way--more like a runaway gramophone than a man."

Summerlee drew himself up in bitter protest.

"You are pleased to be facetious, Lord John," said he with a face of

vinegar.

"Why, dash it all, this is clear madness," cried Lord John. "Each of us

seems to know what the others did and none of us knows what he did

himself. Let's put it all together from the first. We got into a

first-class smoker, that's clear, ain't it? Then we began to quarrel

over friend Challenger's letter in the Times."

"Oh, you did, did you?" rumbled our host, his eyelids beginning to droop.

"You said, Summerlee, that there was no possible truth in his contention."

"Dear me!" said Challenger, puffing out his chest and stroking his beard.

"No possible truth! I seem to have heard the words before. And may I

ask with what arguments the great and famous Professor Summerlee

proceeded to demolish the humble individual who had ventured to express

an opinion upon a matter of scientific possibility? Perhaps before he

exterminates that unfortunate nonentity he will condescend to give some

reasons for the adverse views which he has formed."

He bowed and shrugged and spread open his hands as he spoke with his

elaborate and elephantine sarcasm.

"The reason was simple enough," said the dogged Summerlee. "I contended

that if the ether surrounding the earth was so toxic in one quarter that

it produced dangerous symptoms, it was hardly likely that we three in the

railway carriage should be entirely unaffected."

The explanation only brought uproarious merriment from Challenger. He

laughed until everything in the room seemed to rattle and quiver.

"Our worthy Summerlee is, not for the first time, somewhat out of touch

with the facts of the situation," said he at last, mopping his heated

brow. "Now, gentlemen, I cannot make my point better than by detailing

to you what I have myself done this morning. You will the more easily

condone any mental aberration upon your own part when you realize that

even I have had moments when my balance has been disturbed. We have had

for some years in this household a housekeeper--one Sarah, with whose

second name I have never attempted to burden my memory. She is a woman

of a severe and forbidding aspect, prim and demure in her bearing, very

impassive in her nature, and never known within our experience to show

signs of any emotion. As I sat alone at my breakfast--Mrs. Challenger is

in the habit of keeping her room of a morning--it suddenly entered my

head that it would be entertaining and instructive to see whether I could

find any limits to this woman's inperturbability. I devised a simple but

effective experiment. Having upset a small vase of flowers which stood

in the centre of the cloth, I rang the bell and slipped under the table.

She entered and, seeing the room empty, imagined that I had withdrawn to

the study. As I had expected, she approached and leaned over the table

to replace the vase. I had a vision of a cotton stocking and an

elastic-sided boot. Protruding my head, I sank my teeth into the calf of

her leg. The experiment was successful beyond belief. For some moments

she stood paralyzed, staring down at my head. Then with a shriek she

tore herself free and rushed from the room. I pursued her with some

thoughts of an explanation, but she flew down the drive, and some minutes

afterwards I was able to pick her out with my field-glasses travelling

very rapidly in a south-westerly direction. I tell you the anecdote for

what it is worth. I drop it into your brains and await its germination.

Is it illuminative? Has it conveyed anything to your minds? What do

_you_ think of it, Lord John?"

Lord John shook his head gravely.

"You'll be gettin' into serious trouble some of these days if you don't

put a brake on," said he.

"Perhaps you have some observation to make, Summerlee?"

"You should drop all work instantly, Challenger, and take three months in

a German watering-place," said he.

"Profound! Profound!" cried Challenger. "Now, my young friend, is it

possible that wisdom may come from you where your seniors have so

signally failed?"

And it did. I say it with all modesty, but it did. Of course, it all

seems obvious enough to you who know what occurred, but it was not so

very clear when everything was new. But it came on me suddenly with the

full force of absolute conviction.

"Poison!" I cried.

Then, even as I said the word, my mind flashed back over the whole

morning's experiences, past Lord John with his buffalo, past my own

hysterical tears, past the outrageous conduct of Professor Summerlee, to

the queer happenings in London, the row in the park, the driving of the

chauffeur, the quarrel at the oxygen warehouse. Everything fitted

suddenly into its place.

"Of course," I cried again. "It is poison. We are all poisoned."

"Exactly," said Challenger, rubbing his hands, "we are all poisoned. Our

planet has swum into the poison belt of ether, and is now flying deeper

into it at the rate of some millions of miles a minute. Our young friend

has expressed the cause of all our troubles and perplexities in a single

word, 'poison.'"

We looked at each other in amazed silence. No comment seemed to meet the

situation.

"There is a mental inhibition by which such symptoms can be checked and

controlled," said Challenger. "I cannot expect to find it developed in

all of you to the same point which it has reached in me, for I suppose

that the strength of our different mental processes bears some proportion

to each other. But no doubt it is appreciable even in our young friend

here. After the little outburst of high spirits which so alarmed my

domestic I sat down and reasoned with myself. I put it to myself that I

had never before felt impelled to bite any of my household. The impulse

had then been an abnormal one. In an instant I perceived the truth. My

pulse upon examination was ten beats above the usual, and my reflexes

were increased. I called upon my higher and saner self, the real G. E.

C., seated serene and impregnable behind all mere molecular disturbance.

I summoned him, I say, to watch the foolish mental tricks which the

poison would play. I found that I was indeed the master. I could

recognize and control a disordered mind. It was a remarkable exhibition

of the victory of mind over matter, for it was a victory over that

particular form of matter which is most intimately connected with mind.

I might almost say that mind was at fault and that personality controlled

it. Thus, when my wife came downstairs and I was impelled to slip behind

the door and alarm her by some wild cry as she entered, I was able to

stifle the impulse and to greet her with dignity and restraint. An

overpowering desire to quack like a duck was met and mastered in the same

fashion.

"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.

"My sentiment to a tick," said he. "Now, Challenger, it's up to you to

tell us where we are. We ain't nervous folk, as you know well; but when

it comes to makin' a week-end visit and finding you've run full butt into

the Day of Judgment, it wants a bit of explainin'. What's the danger,

and how much of it is there, and what are we goin' to do to meet it?"

He stood, tall and strong, in the sunshine at the window, with his brown

hand upon the shoulder of Summerlee. I was lying back in an armchair, an

extinguished cigarette between my lips, in that sort of half-dazed state

in which impressions become exceedingly distinct. It may have been a new

phase of the poisoning, but the delirious promptings had all passed away

and were succeeded by an exceedingly languid and, at the same time,

perceptive state of mind. I was a spectator. It did not seem to be any

personal concern of mine. But here were three strong men at a great

crisis, and it was fascinating to observe them. Challenger bent his

heavy brows and stroked his beard before he answered. One could see that

he was very carefully weighing his words.

"What was the last news when you left London?" he asked.

"I was at the Gazette office about ten," said I. "There was a Reuter

just come in from Singapore to the effect that the sickness seemed to be

universal in Sumatra and that the lighthouses had not been lit in

consequence."

"Events have been moving somewhat rapidly since then," said Challenger,

picking up his pile of telegrams. "I am in close touch both with the

authorities and with the press, so that news is converging upon me from

all parts. There is, in fact, a general and very insistent demand that I

should come to London; but I see no good end to be served. From the

accounts the poisonous effect begins with mental excitement; the rioting

in Paris this morning is said to have been very violent, and the Welsh

colliers are in a state of uproar. So far as the evidence to hand can be

trusted, this stimulative stage, which varies much in races and in

individuals, is succeeded by a certain exaltation and mental lucidity--I

seem to discern some signs of it in our young friend here--which, after

an appreciable interval, turns to coma, deepening rapidly into death. I

fancy, so far as my toxicology carries me, that there are some vegetable

nerve poisons----"

"Datura," suggested Summerlee.

"Excellent!" cried Challenger. "It would make for scientific precision

if we named our toxic agent. Let it be daturon. To you, my dear

Summerlee, belongs the honour--posthumous, alas, but none the less

unique--of having given a name to the universal destroyer, the Great

Gardener's disinfectant. The symptoms of daturon, then, may be taken to

be such as I indicate. That it will involve the whole world and that no

life can possibly remain behind seems to me to be certain, since ether is

a universal medium. Up to now it has been capricious in the places which

it has attacked, but the difference is only a matter of a few hours, and

it is like an advancing tide which covers one strip of sand and then

another, running hither and thither in irregular streams, until at last

it has