THE POISON BELT . 
67 
<k THE YOUNG MAN WAS LEANING OUT OF THE WINDOW SHOUTING A DIRECTION/* 
rare event. I had the Irish faculty of seeing 
some gleam of humour in every darkness. 
But now the obscurity was appalling and 
unrelieved. The others were downstairs 
making their plans for the future. I sat 
by the open window, my chin resting upon my 
hand, and my mind absorbed in the misery 
of our situation. Could we continue to live ? 
That was the question which I had begun to 
ask myself. Was it possible to exist upon a 
dead world ? Just as in physics the greater 
body draws to itself the lesser, would we not 
feel an overpowering attraction from that vast 
bod}' of humanity which had passed into the 
unknown ? How would the end come ? 
Would it be from a return of the poison ? 
Or would the earth be uninhabitable from the 
mephitic products of universal decay ? Or, 
finally, might our awful situation prey upon 
and unbalance our minds ? A group of insane 
folk upon a dead world ! My mind was brood 
ing upon this last dreadful idea when some 
slight noise caused me to look down upon 
the road beneath me. The old cab-horse was 
coming up the hill ! 
I was conscious at the same instant of the 
