"Arthur C. Doyle - The Poison Belt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Clarke Arthur C)

He was gone from the room for a minute or two. I remember that
none of us spoke in his absence. The situation seemed beyond all
words or comments.

"The medical officer of health for Brighton," said he when he
returned. "The symptoms are for some reason developing more
rapidly upon the sea level. Our seven hundred feet of elevation
give us an advantage. Folk seem to have learned that I am the
first authority upon the question. No doubt it comes from my
letter in the _Times_. That was the mayor of a provincial town
with whom I talked when we first arrived. You may have heard me
upon the telephone. He seemed to put an entirely inflated value
upon his own life. I helped him to readjust his ideas."

Summerlee had risen and was standing by the window. His thin,
bony hands were trembling with his emotion.

"Challenger," said he earnestly, "this thing is too serious for
mere futile argument. Do not suppose that I desire to irritate
you by any question I may ask. But I put it to you whether there
may not be some fallacy in your information or in your
reasoning. There is the sun shining as brightly as ever in the
blue sky. There are the heather and the flowers and the birds.
There are the folk enjoying themselves upon the golf-links and
the laborers yonder cutting the corn. You tell us that they and
we may be upon the very brink of destruction--that this sunlit
day may be that day of doom which the human race has so long
awaited. So far as we know, you found this tremendous judgment
upon what? Upon some abnormal lines in a spectrum--upon rumours
from Sumatra--upon some curious personal excitement which we have
discerned in each other. This latter symptom is not so marked
but that you and we could, by a deliberate effort, control it.
You need not stand on ceremony with us, Challenger. We have all
faced death together before now. Speak out, and let us know
exactly where we stand, and what, in your opinion, are our
prospects for our future."

It was a brave, good speech, a speech from that stanch and
strong spirit which lay behind all the acidities and
angularities of the old zoologist. Lord John rose and shook him
by the hand.

"My sentiment to a tick," said he. "Now, Challenger, it's up to
you to tell us where we are. We ain't nervous folk, as you know
well; but when it comes to makin' a week-end visit and finding
you've run full butt into the Day of Judgment, it wants a bit of
explainin'. What's the danger, and how much of it is there, and
what are we goin' to do to meet it?"

He stood, tall and strong, in the sunshine at the window, with