ound
among them, and scarcely one that was not repulsively deformed with
the signs of lust, cunning, and debauch. At evening there were
incessant fires of crumbling buildings, and fat women made horrible
attempts at revelry. There seemed to be no power of thought in these
creatures. The civilisation of ages had fallen from them like a
worthless rag from off their backs. Europeans were as bestial as
Hottentots, and the noblest thing they ever did was to fight. For
sometimes a fierce desire of battle seized them, and then they tore
each other passionately with teeth and nails.

I cannot understand it even now. Surely there should have been some
Puritans somewhere, or some Philosophers waiting to die with dignity
and honour. Was it that there was no work to do? Or that there were no
children to love? Or that there was nothing young in the World? Or
that all beautiful souls perished in the garden?

I think it must have been the terrible thought of approaching
extinction that obsessed these distracted men. And perhaps they were
not totally depraved. There was a rough fellowship among them, a
desire to herd together; and for all that they fought so much, they
fought in groups. They never troubled to look after the sick and the
wounded, but what could they do?

One day I began to feel that I too was one of them--I, who had held
aloof in secret ways so long, joined the gruesome company in their
nightly dance, and sat down to eat and drink their interminable meal.
Suddenly a huge, wild, naked man appeared in front of the firelight, a
prophet, as it appeared, who prophesied not death but life. He flung
out his lean arms and shouted at us: "In vain have you schemed and
lingered and died, O Last Generation of the Damned. For the cities
shall be built again, and the mills shall grind anew, and the church
bells shall ring, and the Earth be repeopled with new miseries in
God's own time."

I could not bear to hear this fellow speak. Here was one of the old
sort of men, the men that talked evil, and murmured about God.
"Friends," I said, turning to the Feasters, "we will have no skeletons
like that at our feast." So saying I seized a piece of flaming wood
from the fire, and rushed at the man. He struggled fiercely, but he
had no weapon, and I beat him about the head till he fell, and death
rattled in his throat--rattled with what seemed to me a most familiar
sound. I stood aghast; then wiped the blood from the man's eyes and
looke