第26章

I remember another singular picture, some miles on the London side of Sevenoaks.There is a large convent upon the left, with a long, green slope in front of it.Upon this slope were assembled a great number of school children, all kneeling at prayer.In front of them was a fringe of nuns, and higher up the slope, facing towards them, a single figure whom we took to be the Mother Superior.Unlike the pleasure-seekers in the motor-car, these people seemed to have had warning of their danger and to have died beautifully together, the teachers and the taught, assembled for their last common lesson.

My mind is still stunned by that terrific experience, and Igrope vainly for means of expression by which I can reproduce the emotions which we felt.Perhaps it is best and wisest not to try, but merely to indicate the facts.Even Summerlee and Challenger were crushed, and we heard nothing of our companions behind us save an occasional whimper from the lady.As to Lord John, he was too intent upon his wheel and the difficult task of threading his way along such roads to have time or inclination for conversation.One phrase he used with such wearisome iteration that it stuck in my memory and at last almost made me laugh as a comment upon the day of doom.

"Pretty doin's! What!"

That was his ejaculation as each fresh tremendous combination of death and disaster displayed itself before us."Pretty doin's!

What!" he cried, as we descended the station hill at Rotherfield, and it was still "Pretty doin's! What!" as we picked our way through a wilderness of death in the High Street of Lewisham and the Old Kent Road.

It was here that we received a sudden and amazing shock.Out of the window of a humble corner house there appeared a fluttering handkerchief waving at the end of a long, thin human arm.Never had the sight of unexpected death caused our hearts to stop and then throb so wildly as did this amazing indication of life.

Lord John ran the motor to the curb, and in an instant we had rushed through the open door of the house and up the staircase to the second-floor front room from which the signal proceeded.

A very old lady sat in a chair by the open window, and close to her, laid across a second chair, was a cylinder of oxygen, smaller but of the same shape as those which had saved our own lives.She turned her thin, drawn, bespectacled face toward us as we crowded in at the doorway.

"I feared that I was abandoned here forever," said she, "for Iam an invalid and cannot stir."

"Well, madam," Challenger answered, "it is a lucky chance that we happened to pass.""I have one all-important question to ask you," said she.

"Gentlemen, I beg that you will be frank with me.What effect will these events have upon London and North-Western Railway shares?"We should have laughed had it not been for the tragic eagerness with which she listened for our answer.Mrs.Burston, for that was her name, was an aged widow, whose whole income depended upon a small holding of this stock.Her life had been regulated by the rise and fall of the dividend, and she could form no conception of existence save as it was affected by the quotation of her shares.In vain we pointed out to her that all the money in the world was hers for the taking and was useless when taken.

Her old mind would not adapt itself to the new idea, and she wept loudly over her vanished stock."It was all I had," she wailed."If that is gone I may as well go too."Amid her lamentations we found out how this frail old plant had lived where the whole great forest had fallen.She was a confirmed invalid and an asthmatic.Oxygen had been prescribed for her malady, and a tube was in her room at the moment of the crisis.She had naturally inhaled some as had been her habit when there was a difficulty with her breathing.It had given her relief, and by doling out her supply she had managed to survive the night.Finally she had fallen asleep and been awakened by the buzz of our motor-car.As it was impossible to take her on with us, we saw that she had all necessaries of life and promised to communicate with her in a couple of days at the latest.So we left her, still weeping bitterly over her vanished stock.

As we approached the Thames the block in the streets became thicker and the obstacles more bewildering.It was with difficulty that we made our way across London Bridge.The approaches to it upon the Middlesex side were choked from end to end with frozen traffic which made all further advance in that direction impossible.A ship was blazing brightly alongside one of the wharves near the bridge, and the air was full of drifting smuts and of a heavy acrid smell of burning.There was a cloud of dense smoke somewhere near the Houses of Parliament, but it was impossible from where we were to see what was on fire.

"I don't know how it strikes you," Lord John remarked as he brought his engine to a standstill, "but it seems to me the country is more cheerful than the town.Dead London is gettin'

on my nerves.I'm for a cast round and then gettin' back to Rotherfield.""I confess that I do not see what we can hope for here," said Professor Summerlee.