And now I come to the end of this extraordinary incident, soovershadowing in its importance, not only in our own small,individual lives, but in the general history of the human race.As I said when I began my narrative, when that history comes tobe written, this occurrence will surely stand out among all otherevents like a mountain towering among its foothills. Ourgenerationhas been reserved for a very special fate since it has beenchosento experience so wonderful a thing. How long its effect maylast--how long mankind may preserve the humility and reverencewhich this great shock has taught it--can only be shown by thefuture. I think it is safe to say that things can never be quitethe same again. Never can one realize how powerless and ignorantone is, and how one is upheld by an unseen hand, until for aninstant that hand has seemed to close and to crush. Death hasbeen imminent upon us. We know that at any moment it may beagain. That grim presence shadows our lives, but who can denythat in that shadow the sense of duty, the feeling of sobrietyand responsibility, the appreciation of the gravity and of theobjects of life, the earnest desire to develop and improve, havegrown and become real with us to a degree that has leavened ourwhole society from end to end? It is something beyond sects andbeyond dogmas. It is rather an alteration of perspective, ashifting of our sense of proportion, a vivid realization that weare insignificant and evanescent creatures, existing onsufferanceand at the mercy of the first chill wind from the unknown. Butifthe world has grown graver with this knowledge it is not, Ithink,a sadder place in consequence. Surely we are agreed that themore sober and restrained pleasures of the present are deeper aswell as wiser than the noisy, foolish hustle which passed sooften for enjoyment in the days of old--days so recent and yetalready so inconceivable. Those empty lives which were wasted inaimless visiting and being visited, in the worry of great andunnecessary households, in the arranging and eating of elaborateand tedious meals, have now found rest and health in the reading,the music, the gentle family communion which comes from a simplerand saner division of their time. With greater health andgreaterpleasure they are richer than before, even after they have paidthose increased contributions to the common fund which have soraised the standard of life in these islands.

There is some clash of opinion as to the exact hour of the greatawakening. It is generally agreed that, apart from thedifferenceof clocks, there may have been local causes which influenced theaction of the poison. Certainly, in each separate district theresurrection was practically simultaneous. There are numerouswitnesses that Big Ben pointed to ten minutes past six at themoment. The Astronomer Royal has fixed the Greenwich time attwelve past six. On the other hand, Laird Johnson, a verycapable East Anglia observer, has recorded six-twenty as thehour. In the Hebrides it was as late as seven. In our own casethere can be no doubt whatever, for I was seated in Challenger'sstudy with his carefully tested chronometer in front of me atthe moment. The hour was a quarter-past six.

An enormous depression was weighing upon my spirits. Thecumulativeeffect of all the dreadful sights which we had seen upon ourjourney was heavy upon my soul. With my abounding animal healthand great physical energy any kind of mental clouding was a rareevent. I had the Irish faculty of seeing some gleam of humor inevery darkness. But now the obscurity was appalling andunrelieved. The others were downstairs making their plans forthe future. I sat by the open window, my chin resting upon myhandand my mind absorbed in the misery of our situation. Could wecontinue to live? That was the question which I had begun to askmyself. Was it possible to exist upon a dead world? Just as inphysics the greater body draws to itself the lesser, would we notfeel an overpowering attraction from that vast body of humanitywhich had passed into the unknown? How would the end come? Wouldit be from a return of the poison? Or would the earth beuninhabitable from the mephitic products of universal decay? Or,finally, might our awful situation prey upon and unbalance ourminds? A group of insane folk upon a dead world! My mind wasbrooding upon this last dreadful idea when some slight noisecaused me to look down upon the road beneath me. The old cabhorse was coming up the hill!

I was conscious at the same instant of the twittering of birds,of someone coughing in the yard below, and of a background ofmovement in the landscape. And yet I remember that it was thatabsurd, emaciated, superannuated cab-horse which held my gaze.Slowly and wheezily it was climbing the slope. Then my eyetraveled to the driver sitting hunched up upon the box andfinally to the young man who was leaning out of the windowin some excitement and shouting a direction. They were allindubitably, aggressively alive!

Everybody was alive once more! Had it all been a delusion? Wasit conceivable that this whole poison belt incident had been anelaborate dream? For an instant my startled brain was reallyready to believe it. Then I looked down, and there was therising blister on my hand where it was frayed by the rope ofthe city bell. It had really been so, then. And yet here wasthe world resuscitated--here was life come back in an instantfull tide to the planet. Now, as my eyes wandered all over thegreat landscape, I saw it in every direction--and moving, to myamazement, in the very same groove in which it had halted. Therewere the golfers. Was it possible that they were going on withtheir game? Yes, there was a fellow driving off from a tee, andthat other group upon the green were surely putting for the hole.The reapers were slowly trooping back to their work. Thenurse-girl slapped one of her charges and then began to pushthe perambulator up the hill. Everyone had unconcernedly takenup the thread at the very point where they had dropped it.

I rushed downstairs, but the hall door was open, and I heard thevoices of my companions, loud in astonishment and congratulation,in the yard. How we all shook hands and laughed as we cametogether, and how Mrs. Challenger kissed us all in her emotion,before she finally threw herself into the bear-hug of herhusband.

"But they could not have been asleep!" cried Lord John. "Dashit all, Challenger, you don't mean to believe that those folkwere asleep with their staring eyes and stiff limbs and thatawful death grin on their faces!"

"It can only have been the condition that is called catalepsy,"said Challenger. "It has been a rare phenomenon in the past andhas constantly been mistaken for death. While it endures, thetemperature falls, the respiration disappears, the heartbeatis indistinguishable--in fact, it IS death, save that it isevanescent. Even the most comprehensive mind"--here he closedhis eyes and simpered--"could hardly conceive a universaloutbreak of it in this fashion."

"You may label it catalepsy," remarked Summerlee, "but, afterall, that is only a name, and we know as little of the resultas we do of the poison which has caused it. The most we can sayis that the vitiated ether has produced a temporary death."

Austin was seated all in a heap on the step of the car. It washis coughing which I had heard from above. He had been holdinghis head in silence, but now he was muttering to himself andrunning his eyes over the car.

"Young fat-head!" he grumbled. "Can't leave things alone!"

"What's the matter, Austin?"

"Lubricators left running, sir. Someone has been fooling withthe car. I expect it's that young garden boy, sir."

Lord John looked guilty.

"I don't know what's amiss with me," continued Austin, staggeringto his feet. "I expect I came over queer when I was hosing herdown. I seem to remember flopping over by the step. But I'llswear I never left those lubricator taps on."

In a condensed narrative the astonished Austin was told whathad happened to himself and the world. The mystery of thedripping lubricators was also explained to him. He listened withan air of deep distrust when told how an amateur had driven hiscar and with absorbed interest to the few sentences in whichour experiences of the sleeping city were recorded. I canremember his comment when the story was concluded.

"Was you outside the Bank of England, sir?"

"Yes, Austin."

"With all them millions inside and everybody asleep?"

"That was so."

"And I not there!" he groaned, and turned dismally once moreto the hosing of his car.

There was a sudden grinding of wheels upon gravel. The old cabhad actually pulled up at Challenger's door. I saw the youngoccupant step out from it. An instant later the maid, who lookedas tousled and bewildered as if she had that instant been arousedfrom the deepest sleep, appeared with a card upon a tray.Challenger snorted ferociously as he looked at it, and histhick black hair seemed to bristle up in his wrath.

"A pressman!" he growled. Then with a deprecating smile: "Afterall, it is natural that the whole world should hasten to knowwhat I think of such an episode."

"That can hardly be his errand," said Summerlee, "for he was onthe road in his cab before ever the crisis came."

I looked at the card: "James Baxter, London Correspondent,New York Monitor."

"You'll see him?" said I.

"Not I."

"Oh, George! You should be kinder and more considerate toothers. Surely you have learned something from what wehave undergone."

He tut-tutted and shook his big, obstinate head.

"A poisonous breed! Eh, Malone? The worst weed in moderncivilization, the ready tool of the quack and the hindranceof the self-respecting man! When did they ever say a goodword for me?"

"When did you ever say a good word to them?" I answered. "Come,sir, this is a stranger who has made a journey to see you. I amsure that you won't be rude to him."

"Well, well," he grumbled, "you come with me and do the talking.I protest in advance against any such outrageous invasion of myprivate life." Muttering and mumbling, he came rolling after melike an angry and rather ill-conditioned mastiff.

The dapper young American pulled out his notebook and plungedinstantly into his subject.

"I came down, sir," said he, "because our people in America wouldvery much like to hear more about this danger which is, in youropinion, pressing upon the world."

"I know of no danger which is now pressing upon the world,"Challenger answered gruffly.

The pressman looked at him in mild surprise.

"I meant, sir, the chances that the world might run into a beltof poisonousether."

"I do not now apprehend any such danger," said Challenger.

The pressman looked even more perplexed.

"You are Professor Challenger, are you not?" he asked.

"Yes, sir; that is my name."

"I cannot understand, then, how you can say that there is no suchdanger. I am alluding to your own letter, published above yourname in the London Times of this morning."

It was Challenger's turn to look surprised.

"This morning?" said he. "No London Times was published thismorning."

"Surely, sir," said the American in mild remonstrance, "you mustadmit that the London Times is a daily paper." He drew out acopy from his inside pocket. "Here is the letter to which Irefer."

Challenger chuckled and rubbed his hands.

"I begin to understand," said he. "So you read this letterthis morning?"

"Yes, sir."

"And came at once to interview me?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did you observe anything unusual upon the journey down?"

"Well, to tell the truth, your people seemed more lively andgenerally human than I have ever seen them. The baggage manset out to tell me a funny story, and that's a new experiencefor me in this country."

"Nothing else?"

"Why, no, sir, not that I can recall."

"Well, now, what hour did you leave Victoria?"

The American smiled.

"I came here to interview you, Professor, but it seems to be acase of `Is this nigger fishing, or is this fish niggering?'You're doing most of the work."

"It happens to interest me. Do you recall the hour?"

"Sure. It was half-past twelve."

"And you arrived?"

"At a quarter-past two."

"And you hired a cab?"

"That was so."

"How far do you suppose it is to the station?"

"Well, I should reckon the best part of two miles."

"So how long do you think it took you?"

"Well, half an hour, maybe, with that asthmatic in front."

"So it should be three o'clock?"

"Yes, or a trifle after it."

"Look at your watch."

The American did so and then stared at us in astonishment.

"Say!" he cried. "It's run down. That horse has broken everyrecord, sure. The sun is pretty low, now that I come to look atit. Well, there's something here I don't understand."

"Have you no remembrance of anything remarkable as you came upthe hill?"

"Well, I seem to recollect that I was mighty sleepy once.

It comes back to me that I wanted to say something to the driverand that I couldn't make him heed me. I guess it was the heat,but I felt swimmy for a moment. That's all."

"So it is with the whole human race," said Challenger to me."They have all felt swimmy for a moment. None of them have asyet any comprehension of what has occurred. Each will go on withhis interrupted job as Austin has snatched up his hose-pipe orthe golfer continued his game. Your editor, Malone, willcontinue the issue of his papers, and very much amazed he willbe at finding that an issue is missing. Yes, my young friend,"he added to the American reporter, with a sudden mood of amusedgeniality, "it may interest you to know that the world has swumthrough the poisonous current which swirls like the Gulf Streamthrough the ocean of ether. You will also kindly note for yourown future convenience that to-day is not Friday, August thetwenty-seventh, but Saturday, August the twenty-eighth, and thatyou sat senseless in your cab for twenty-eight hours upon theRotherfield hill."

And "right here," as my American colleague would say, I maybring this narrative to an end. It is, as you are probablyaware, only a fuller and more detailed version of the accountwhich appeared in the Monday edition of the Daily Gazette--anaccount which has been universally admitted to be the greatestjournalistic scoop of all time, which sold no fewer thanthree-and-a-half million copies of the paper. Framed upon thewall of my sanctum I retain those magnificent headlines:--

TWENTY-EIGHT HOURS' WORLD COMAUNPRECEDENTED EXPERIENCECHALLENGER JUSTIFIEDOUR CORRESPONDENT ESCAPESENTHRALLING NARRATIVETHE OXYGEN ROOMWEIRD MOTOR DRIVEDEAD LONDONREPLACING THE MISSING PAGEGREAT FIRES AND LOSS OF LIFEWILL IT RECUR?

Underneath this glorious scroll came nine and a half columns ofnarrative, in which appeared the first, last, and only accountof the history of the planet, so far as one observer could drawit, during one long day of its existence. Challenger andSummerlee have treated the matter in a joint scientific paper,but to me alone was left the popular account. Surely I can sing"Nunc dimittis." What is left but anti-climax in the life of ajournalist after that!

But let me not end on sensational headlines and a merelypersonal triumph. Rather let me quote the sonorous passages inwhich the greatest of daily papers ended its admirable leaderupon the subject--a leader which might well be filed forreference by every thoughtful man.

"It has been a well-worn truism," said the Times, "that ourhuman race are a feeble folk before the infinite latent forceswhich surround us. From the prophets of old and from thephilosophers of our own time the same message and warning havereached us. But, like all oft-repeated truths, it has in timelost something of its actuality and cogency. A lesson, an actualexperience, was needed to bring it home. It is from thatsalutory but terrible ordeal that we have just emerged, withminds which are still stunned by the suddenness of the blow andwith spirits which are chastened by the realization of our ownlimitations and impotence. The world has paid a fearful pricefor its schooling. Hardly yet have we learned the full tale ofdisaster, but the destruction by fire of New York, of Orleans,and of Brighton constitutes in itself one of the greatesttragedies in the history of our race. When the account of therailway and shipping accidents has been completed, it willfurnish grim reading, although there is evidence to show that inthe vast majority of cases the drivers of trains and engineersof steamers succeeded in shutting off their motive power beforesuccumbing to the poison. But the material damage, enormous asit is both in life and in property, is not the considerationwhich will be uppermost in our minds to-day. All this may intimebe forgotten. But what will not be forgotten, and what will andshould continue to obsess our imaginations, is this revelationof the possibilities of the universe, this destruction of ourignorant self-complacency, and this demonstration of how narrowis the path of our material existence and what abysses may lieupon either side of it. Solemnity and humility are at the baseof all our emotions to-day. May they be the foundations uponwhicha more earnest and reverent race may build a more worthy temple."