“I mean that when I was leaving the office the news editor told me that a telegram had come in confirming the general illness of the Sumatra natives, and adding that the lights had not been lit in the Straits of Sunda.”
“Really, there should be some limits to human folly!” cried Summerlee in a positive fury. “Is it possible that you do not realize that ether, if for a moment we adopt Challenger’s preposterous supposition, is a universal substance which is the same here as at the other side of the world? Do you for an instant suppose that there is an English ether and a Sumatran ether? Perhaps you imagine that the ether of Kent is in some way superior to the ether of Surrey, through which this train is now bearing us. There really are no bounds to the credulity and ignorance of the average layman. Is it conceivable that the ether in Sumatra should be so deadly as to cause total insensibility at the very time when the ether here has had no appreciable effect upon us whatever? Personally, I can truly say that I never felt stronger in body or better balanced in mind in my life.”
“That may be. I don’t profess to be a scientific man,” said I, “though I have heard somewhere that the science of one generation is usually the fallacy of the next. But it does not take much common sense to see that, as we seem to know so little about ether, it might be affected by some local conditions in various parts of the world and might show an effect over there which would only develop later with us.”
“With ‘might’ and ‘may’ you can prove anything,” cried Summerlee furiously. “Pigs may fly. Yes, sir, pigs may fly – but they don’t. It is not worth arguing with you. Challenger has filled you with his nonsense and you are both incapable of reason. I had as soon lay arguments before those railway cushions.”
“I must say, Professor Summerlee, that your manners do not seem to have improved since I last had the pleasure of meeting you,” said Lord John severely.
“You lordlings are not accustomed to hear the truth,” Summerlee answered with a bitter smile. “It comes as a bit of a shock, does it not, when someone makes you realize that your title leaves you none the less a very ignorant man?”
“Upon my word, sir,” said Lord John, very stern and rigid, “if you were a younger man you would not dare to speak to me in so offensive a fashion.”
Summerlee thrust out his chin, with its little wagging tuft of goatee beard.
“I would have you know, sir, that, young or old, there has never been a time in my life when I was afraid to speak my mind to an ignorant coxcomb – yes, sir, an ignorant coxcomb, if you had as many titles as slaves could invent and fools could adopt.”
For a moment Lord John’s eyes blazed, and then, with a tremendous effort, he mastered his anger and leaned back in his seat with arms folded and a bitter smile upon his face. To me all this was dreadful and deplorable. Like a wave, the memory of the past swept over me, the good comradeship, the happy, adventurous days – all that we had suffered and worked for and won. That it should have come to this – to insults and abuse! Suddenly I was sobbing – sobbing in loud, gulping, uncontrollable sobs which refused to be concealed. My companions looked at me in surprise. I covered my face with my hands.
“It’s all right,” said I. “Only – only it is such a pity!”
“You’re ill, young fellah, that’s what’s amiss with you,” said Lord John. “I thought you were queer from the first.”
“Your habits, sir, have not mended in these three years,” said Summerlee, shaking his head. “I also did not fail to observe your strange manner the moment we met. You need not waste your sympathy, Lord John. These tears are purely alcoholic. The man has been drinking. By the way, Lord John, I called you a coxcomb just now, which was perhaps unduly severe. But the word reminds me of a small accomplishment, trivial but amusing, which I used to possess. You know me as the austere man of science. Can you believe that I once had a well-deserved reputation in several nurseries as a farmyard imitator? Perhaps I can help you to pass the time in a pleasant way. Would it amuse you to hear me crow like a cock?”
“No, sir,” said Lord John, who was still greatly offended, “it would not amuse me.”
“My imitation of the clucking hen who had just laid an egg was also considered rather above the average. Might I venture?”
“No, sir, no – certainly not.”
But in spite of this earnest prohibition, Professor Summerlee laid down his pipe and for the rest of our journey he entertained – or failed to entertain – us by a succession of bird and animal cries which seemed so absurd that my tears were suddenly changed into boisterous laughter, which must have become quite hysterical as I sat opposite this grave Professor and saw him – or rather heard him – in the character of the uproarious rooster or the puppy whose tail had been trodden upon. Once Lord John passed across his newspaper, upon the margin of which he had written in pencil, “Poor devil! Mad as a hatter.” No doubt it was very eccentric, and yet the performance struck me as extraordinarily clever and amusing.
Whilst this was going on, Lord John leaned forward and told me some interminable story about a buffalo and an Indian rajah which seemed to me to have neither beginning nor end. Professor Summerlee had just begun to chirrup like a canary, and Lord John to get to the climax of his story, when the train drew up at Jarvis Brook, which had been given us as the station for Rotherfield.
And there was Challenger to meet us. His appearance was glorious. Not all the turkey-cocks in creation could match the slow, high-stepping dignity with which he paraded his own railway station and the benignant smile of condescending encouragement with which he regarded everybody around him. If he had changed in anything since the days of old, it was that his points had become accentuated. The huge head and broad sweep of forehead, with its plastered lock of black hair, seemed even greater than before. His black beard poured forward in a more impressive cascade, and his clear grey eyes, with their insolent and sardonic eyelids, were even more masterful than of yore.
He gave me the amused hand-shake and encouraging smile which the head master bestows upon the small boy, and, having greeted the others and helped to collect their bags and their cylinders of oxygen, he stowed us and them away in a large motor-car which was driven by the same impassive Austin, the man of few words, whom I had seen in the character of butler upon the occasion of my first eventful visit to the Professor. Our journey led us up a winding hill through beautiful country. I sat in front with the chauffeur, but behind me my three comrades seemed to me to be all talking together. Lord John was still struggling with his buffalo story, so far as I could make out, while once again I heard, as of old, the deep rumble of Challenger and the insistent accents of Summerlee as their brains locked in high and fierce scientific debate. Suddenly Austin slanted his mahogany face toward me without taking his eyes from his steering-wheel.
“I’m under notice,” said he.
“Dear me!” said I.
Everything seemed strange today. Everyone said queer, unexpected things. It was like a dream.
“It’s forty-seven times,” said Austin reflectively.
“When do you go?” I asked, for want of some better observation.
“I don’t go,” said Austin.
The conversation seemed to have ended there, but presently he came back to it.
“If I was to go, who would look after ’im?” He jerked his head toward his master. “Who would ‘e get to serve ’im?”
“Someone else,” I suggested lamely.
“Not ’e. No one would stay a week. If I was to go, that ’ouse would run down like a watch with the mainspring out. I’m telling you because you’re ’is friend, and you ought to know. If I was to take ’im at ’is word – but there, I wouldn’t have the ’eart. ’E and the missus would be like two babes left out in a bundle. I’m just everything. And then ’e goes and gives me notice.”
“Why would no one stay?” I asked.
“Well, they wouldn’
t make allowances, same as I do. ’E’s a very clever man, the master – so clever that ’e’s clean balmy sometimes. I’ve seen ’im right off ’is onion, and no error. Well, look what ’e did this morning.”
“What did he do?”
Austin bent over to me.
“’E bit the ’ousekeeper,” said he in a hoarse whisper.
“Bit her?”
“Yes, sir. Bit ’er on the leg. I saw ’er with my own eyes startin’ a marathon from the ’all-door.”
“Good gracious!”
“So you’d say, sir, if you could see some of the goings on. ’E don’t make friends with the neighbors. There’s some of them thinks that when ’e was up among those monsters you wrote about, it was just ‘’Ome, Sweet ’Ome’ for the master, and ’e was never in fitter company. That’s what they say. But I’ve served ’im ten years, and I’m fond of ’im, and, mind you, ’e’s a great man, when all’s said an’ done, and it’s an honor to serve ’im. But ’e does try one cruel at times. Now look at that, sir. That ain’t what you might call old-fashioned ’ospitality, is it now? Just you read it for yourself.”
The car on its lowest speed had ground its way up a steep, curving ascent. At the corner a notice-board peered over a well-clipped hedge. As Austin said, it was not difficult to read, for the words were few and arresting:
WARNING.
Visitors, Pressmen, and Mendicants are not encouraged.
G. E. CHALLENGER.
“No, it’s not what you might call ’earty,” said Austin, shaking his head and glancing up at the deplorable placard. “It wouldn’t look well in a Christmas card. I beg your pardon, sir, for I haven’t spoke as much as this for many a long year, but today my feelings seem to ’ave got the better of me. ’E can sack me till ’e’s blue in the face, but I ain’t going, and that’s flat. I’m ’is man and ’e’s my master, and so it will be, I expect, to the end of the chapter.”
We had passed between the white posts of a gate and up a curving drive, lined with rhododendron bushes. Beyond stood a low brick house, picked out with white woodwork, very comfortable and pretty. Mrs. Challenger, a small, dainty, smiling figure, stood in the open doorway to welcome us.
“Well, my dear,” said Challenger, bustling out of the car, “here are our visitors. It is something new for us to have visitors, is it not? No love lost between us and our neighbors, is there? If they could get rat poison into our baker’s cart, I expect it would be there.”
“It’s dreadful – dreadful!” cried the lady, between laughter and tears. “George is always quarreling with everyone. We haven’t a friend on the countryside.”
“It enables me to concentrate my attention upon my incomparable wife,” said Challenger, passing his short, thick arm round her waist. Picture a gorilla and a gazelle, and you have the pair of them. “Come, come, these gentlemen are tired from the journey, and luncheon should be ready. Has Sarah returned?”
The lady shook her head ruefully, and the Professor laughed loudly and stroked his beard in his masterful fashion.
“Austin,” he cried, “when you have put up the car you will kindly help your mistress to lay the lunch. Now, gentlemen, will you please step into my study, for there are one or two very urgent things which I am anxious to say to you.”
Chapter II
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 today 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 h
imself 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?”
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