“How long will they last?”

“I have not an idea.  We will not turn them on until our symptoms become unbearable.  Then we shall dole the gas out as it is urgently needed.  It may give us some hours, possibly even some days, on which we may look out upon a blasted world.  Our own fate is delayed to that extent, and we will have the very singular experience, we five, of being, in all probability, the absolute rear guard of the human race upon its march into the unknown.  Perhaps you will be kind enough now to give me a hand with the cylinders.  It seems to me that the atmosphere already grows somewhat more oppressive.”

Chapter III

SUBMERGED

The chamber which was destined to be the scene of our unforgettable experience was a charmingly feminine sitting-room, some fourteen or sixteen feet square.  At the end of it, divided by a curtain of red velvet, was a small apartment which formed the Professor’s dressing-room.  This in turn opened into a large bedroom.  The curtain was still hanging, but the boudoir and dressing-room could be taken as one chamber for the purposes of our experiment.  One door and the window frame had been plastered round with varnished paper so as to be practically sealed.  Above the other door, which opened on to the landing, there hung a fanlight which could be drawn by a cord when some ventilation became absolutely necessary.  A large shrub in a tub stood in each corner.

“How to get rid of our excessive carbon dioxide without unduly wasting our oxygen is a delicate and vital question,” said Challenger, looking round him after the five iron tubes had been laid side by side against the wall.  “With longer time for preparation I could have brought the whole concentrated force of my intelligence to bear more fully upon the problem, but as it is we must do what we can.  The shrubs will be of some small service.  Two of the oxygen tubes are ready to be turned on at an instant’s notice, so that we cannot be taken unawares.  At the same time, it would be well not to go far from the room, as the crisis may be a sudden and urgent one.”

There was a broad, low window opening out upon a balcony.  The view beyond was the same as that which we had already admired from the study.  Looking out, I could see no sign of disorder anywhere.  There was a road curving down the side of the hill, under my very eyes.  A cab from the station, one of those prehistoric survivals which are only to be found in our country villages, was toiling slowly up the hill.  Lower down was a nurse girl wheeling a perambulator and leading a second child by the hand.  The blue reeks of smoke from the cottages gave the whole widespread landscape an air of settled order and homely comfort.  Nowhere in the blue heaven or on the sunlit earth was there any foreshadowing of a catastrophe.  The harvesters were back in the fields once more and the golfers, in pairs and fours, were still streaming round the links.  There was so strange a turmoil within my own head, and such a jangling of my overstrung nerves, that the indifference of those people was amazing.