ad hardly ever held a congregation. There they
huddled as close as they could kneel, many of them in their agitation
still wearing their hats, while above them in the pulpit a young man in
lay dress had apparently been addressing them when he and they had been
overwhelmed by the same fate. He lay now, like Punch in his booth, with
his head and two limp arms hanging over the ledge of the pulpit. It was
a nightmare, the grey, dusty church, the rows of agonized figures, the
dimness and silence of it all. We moved about with hushed whispers,
walking upon our tip-toes.

And then suddenly I had an idea. At one corner of the church, near the
door, stood the ancient font, and behind it a deep recess in which there
hung the ropes for the bell-ringers. Why should we not send a message
out over London which would attract to us anyone who might still be
alive? I ran across, and pulling at the list-covered rope, I was
surprised to find how difficult it was to swing the bell. Lord John had
followed me.

"By George, young fellah!" said he, pulling off his coat. "You've hit on
a dooced good notion. Give me a grip and we'll soon have a move on it."

But, even then, so heavy was the bell that it was not until Challenger
and Summerlee had added their weight to ours that we heard the roaring
and clanging above our heads which told us that the great clapper was
ringing out its music. Far over dead London resounded our message of
comradeship and hope to any fellow-man surviving. It cheered our own
hearts, that strong, metallic call, and we turned the more earnestly to
our work, dragged two feet off the earth with each upward jerk of the
rope, but all straining together on the downward heave, Challenger the
lowest of all, bending all his great strength to the task and flopping up
and down like a monstrous bull-frog, croaking with every pull. It was at
that moment that an artist might have taken a picture of the four
adventurers, the comrades of many strange perils in the past, whom fate
had now chosen for so supreme an experience. For half an hour we worked,
the sweat dropping from our faces, our arms and backs aching with the
exertion. Then we went out into the portico of the church and looked
eagerly up and down the silent, crowded streets. Not a sound, not a
motion, in answer to our summons.

"It's no use. No one is left," I cried.

"We can do nothing more," said Mrs. Challenger. "For God's sake, George,
let us get