ads of
pale humanity feverishly clinging to them. The public-houses were
crowded. The slight tension that the threat of the Blue Disease produced
in people filled the bars with men and women, seeking the relaxation of
alcohol. There was in the air that liveliness, that tendency to collect
into small crowds, that is evident whenever the common safety of the
great herd is threatened. In the Park a crowd surrounded the platform of
an agitator. In a voice like that of a delirious man, he implored the
crowd to go down on its knees and repent ... the end of the world was at
hand ... the Blue Disease was the pouring out of one of the vials of
wrath ... repent!... repent!... His voice rang in our ears and drove us
away. We crossed the damp grass. I stumbled over a sleeping man. There
was something familiar in his appearance and I stooped down and turned
him over. It was Mr. Herbert Wain. He seemed to be fast asleep.... We
walked to King's Cross, and I put Alice without regret in the train for
Cambridge.

CHAPTER XIX

THE MEETING AT THE QUEEN'S HALL

The same night a vast meeting of medical men had been summoned at the
Queen's Hall, with the object of discussing the nature of the strange
visitation, and the measures that should be adopted. Doctors came from
every part of the country. The meeting began at eight o'clock, and Sir
Jeremy Jones, the President of the Royal College of Physicians, opened
the discussion with a paper in which the most obvious features of the
disease were briefly tabulated.

The great Hall was packed. Sarakoff and I got seats in the front row of
the gallery. Sir Jeremy Jones, a large bland man, with beautiful silver
grey hair, wearing evening dress, and pince-nez, stood up on the
platform amid a buzz of talk. The short outburst of clapping soon ceased
and Sir Jeremy began.

The beginnings of the disease were outlined, the symptoms described,
and then the physician laid down his notes, and seemed to look directly
up at me.

"So far," he said, in suave and measured tones, "I have escaped the Blue
Disease, but at any moment I may find myself a victim, and the fact does
not disquiet me. For I am convinced that we are witnessing the sudden
intrusion and the swift spread of an absolutely harmless organism--one
that has been, perhaps, dormant for centuries in the soil, or has
evolved to its present form in the deep waters of the Elan watershed by
a process whose nature we can only dimly guess at.