68 
THE STRAND MAGAZINE. 
“the golfers were going on with their g 
SLOWLY TROOPING BACK TO THE 
twittering of birds, of someone coughing in 
the yard below, and of a background of 
movement in the landscape. And yet T 
remember that it was that absurd , emaciated, 
superannuated cab - horse which held my 
gaze. Slowly and wheezily it was climbing 
the slope. Then my eye travelled to the 
driver sitting hunched up upon the box, 
and finally to the young man who was lean- 
ing out of the window in some excitement 
and shouting a direction. They were all 
indubitably aggressively alive ! 
Everybody was alive once more ! Had it 
all been a delusion ? Was it conceivable 
that this whole poison belt incident had been 
an elaborate 
dream ? For an 
instant my startled 
brain wjg really 
ready to believe 
it. Then 1 looked 
down, and there 
w as therisin g 
blister on my hand 
where it was 
frayed by the rope 
of the City bell. It 
had really been so, 
then. And yet 
here was the world 
resuscitated — here 
was life come back 
in an instant full 
tide to the planet. 
Now, as my eyes 
wandered all over 
the great land- 
scape, I sa\v it in 
every direction— 
and moving, to my 
amazement, in the 
very same groove 
in which it had 
halted. There were 
golfers. Was it 
possible that they 
were going on with 
their game ? Yes, 
there was a fellow 
driving off from a 
tee, and that other 
group upon the 
green were surely 
p u 1 1 i n g for the 
hole. The reapers 
were slowly troop- 
ing back to their 
work. The nurse- 
girl had slapped 
one of her charges and then began to push 
the perambulator up the hill. Everyone 
had unconcernedly taken up the thread at 
the very point where they had dropped it. 
I rushed downstairs, but the hall door was 
open, and I heard the voices of my com- 
panions, loud in astonishment and congratu- 
lation, in the yard. How we all shook hands 
and laughed as we came together, and how 
Mrs. Challenger kissed us all in her emotion, 
before she finally threw herself into the bear- 
hug of her husband ! 
“ But they could not have been asleep ! ” 
cried Lord John. “ Dash it all, Challenger, 
you don't mean me to believe that those folk 
AMR. THE REAPERS WERE 
IR WORK.” 
