e, extinguished in a day, but the
planets swing round and the tides rise or fall, and the wind whispers,
and all nature goes her way, down, as it would seem, to the very amoeba,
with never a sign that he who styled himself the lord of creation had
ever blessed or cursed the universe with his presence. Down in the yard
lies Austin with sprawling limbs, his face glimmering white in the dawn,
and the hose nozzle still projecting from his dead hand. The whole of
human kind is typified in that one half-ludicrous and half-pathetic
figure, lying so helpless beside the machine which it used to control.

Here end the notes which I made at the time. Henceforward events were
too swift and too poignant to allow me to write, but they are too clearly
outlined in my memory that any detail could escape me.

Some chokiness in my throat made me look at the oxygen cylinders, and I
was startled at what I saw. The sands of our lives were running very
low. At some period in the night Challenger had switched the tube from
the third to the fourth cylinder. Now it was clear that this also was
nearly exhausted. That horrible feeling of constriction was closing in
upon me. I ran across and, unscrewing the nozzle, I changed it to our
last supply. Even as I did so my conscience pricked me, for I felt that
perhaps if I had held my hand all of them might have passed in their
sleep. The thought was banished, however, by the voice of the lady from
the inner room crying:--

"George, George, I am stifling!"

"It is all right, Mrs. Challenger," I answered as the others started to
their feet. "I have just turned on a fresh supply."

Even at such a moment I could not help smiling at Challenger, who with a
great hairy fist in each eye was like a huge, bearded baby, new wakened
out of sleep. Summerlee was shivering like a man with the ague, human
fears, as he realized his position, rising for an instant above the
stoicism of the man of science. Lord John, however, was as cool and
alert as if he had just been roused on a hunting morning.

"Fifthly and lastly," said he, glancing at the tube. "Say, young fellah,
don't tell me you've been writin' up your impressions in that paper on
your knee."

"Just a few notes to pass the time."

"Well, I don't believe anyone but an Irishman would have done that. I
expect you'll have to wait till little brother amoeba gets grown up
before you'll find a reader. He don't seem to take much stock of thing