But I have said that the telephone-bell had rung once more.  Suddenly I heard Challenger’s tremendous voice from the hall.

“Malone!” he cried.  “You are wanted.”

I rushed down to the instrument.  It was McArdle speaking from London.

“That you, Mr. Malone?” cried his familiar voice.  “Mr. Malone, there are terrible goings-on in London.  For God’s sake, see if Professor Challenger can suggest anything that can be done.”

“He can suggest nothing, sir,” I answered.  “He regards the crisis as universal and inevitable.  We have some oxygen here, but it can only defer our fate for a few hours.”

“Oxygen!” cried the agonized voice.  “There is no time to get any.  The office has been a perfect pandemonium ever since you left in the morning.  Now half of the staff are insensible.  I am weighed down with heaviness myself.  From my window I can see the people lying thick in Fleet Street.  The traffic is all held up.  Judging by the last telegrams, the whole world——­”

His voice had been sinking, and suddenly stopped.  An instant later I heard through the telephone a muffled thud, as if his head had fallen forward on the desk.

“Mr. McArdle!” I cried.  “Mr. McArdle!”

There was no answer.  I knew as I replaced the receiver that I should never hear his voice again.

At that instant, just as I took a step backwards from the telephone, the thing was on us.  It was as if we were bathers, up to our shoulders in water, who suddenly are submerged by a rolling wave.  An invisible hand seemed to have quietly closed round my throat and to be gently pressing the life from me.  I was conscious of immense oppression upon my chest, great tightness within my head, a loud singing in my ears, and bright flashes before my eyes.  I staggered to the balustrades of the stair.  At the same moment, rushing and snorting like a wounded buffalo, Challenger dashed past me, a terrible vision, with red-purple face, engorged eyes, and bristling hair.  His little wife, insensible to all appearance, was slung over his great shoulder, and he blundered and thundered up the stair, scrambling and tripping, but carrying himself and her through sheer will-force through that mephitic atmosphere to the haven of temporary safety.  At the sight of his effort I too rushed up the steps, clambering, falling, clutching at the rail, until I tumbled half senseless upon by face on the upper landing.  Lord John’s fingers of steel were in the collar of my coat, and a moment later I was stretched upon my back, unable to speak or move, on the boudoir carpet.  The woman lay beside me, and Summerlee was bunched in a chair by the window, his head nearly touching his knees.  As in a dream I saw Challenger, like a monstrous beetle, crawling slowly across the floor, and a moment later I heard the gentle hissing of the escaping oxygen.  Challenger breathed two or three times with enormous gulps, his lungs roaring as he drew in the vital gas.