from his reverie and, rising, he moved to the wide open window and stood a little while sniffing thoughtfully and happily at the pleasant cool air, then muttered aloud:
"I say, it's damn cool! Must be a change on the way? Thank the gods! Me for the hay and a real sleep tonight." And, yawning, he abruptly closed the squeaking sash, the first time it had been moved for nearly four grilling tragic weeks.
Dawn—his work at the factory had turned him into an early riser—found him fanning a little fire of chips and small coal, no more than sufficient to boil a little kettle in which lay the pallid leaves of the previous day's brewing of tea. As the blaze spread its sinuous fingers amid the fuel, he suddenly realized that he had his hands spread before it with the pose of one who finds the trifling warmth grateful; moreover, he noted that his fingers possessed a hint of that bluey tone so common in the dreary short days.
"Cripes! I believe I'm cold! What the dooce is wrong?" he exclaimed in astonishment, as his gaze wandered from the fire to the window, and there it rested for a moment; for the glass was clouded with condensed moisture evidencing the low temperature of the outside air.
"Phew! What!" he ejaculated, and, striding to the window, he threw up the lower sash.
The window faced to the west, and no touch of the newly-risen sun had fallen upon it as yet, or upon the moribund narrow box of unhealthy-looking soil which lay on the ledge. A solitary, stunted, and grime-laden geranium hibernated in this receptacle, possibly because it lacked the vitality to accomplish the feat of expiring. The leaves had drooped even lower than usual and upon each mournful surface there lay a thin, but undeniable, coating of white hoar frost!
"Well I'm blowed! It's a frost! Whoever heard of a frost in August?" he muttered aloud, as he stretched out his hand and gently felt one of the whitened leaves. The coating instantaneously dissolved into moisture, but moisture that the ice king had breathed upon.
For a little space Batson gazed upon it, curiously watching its white virginity vanish in the rapidly wanning atmosphere; and then, still pondering, returned to his miserable breakfast.
And such was his reception of the earliest frost ever know in the British Isles south of the Tweed—a frost which accomplished in a few hours results which the entire human species had, up to its coming, failed most dismally to effect.
Early in the day strange rumors of a miraculous debacle which had overtaken the swarming terrible invaders of the land passed from one man to another. Before noon these rumors were lifted from the category of mere sourceless hearsay to the dignity of substantiated fact. Again the huge bulletin boards sent the pulse of the masses throbbing with the thrill of the news they imparted; telling of the fearful growths all over the country now lying still and lifeless, slain in a moment by the chill breath of the phenomenal frost.
Singly, in colonies, in frightful huge communities, they lay dead everywhere. There was no doubt of the fact, the news had not been made public until verified from a hundred widely separated points. It was no mere local phenomenon, or even confined to the British Isles. From central France, Germany, and the great Slavonic plateau, right to the Arctic circle, the frost, with more or less rigor, had descended.
It was assumed that either these extraordinary organisms had never in their progenitors been subjected to such a reduction in the temperature, or else, partaking of the nature of our annual flora at the approach of winter, their structure suffered a similar decay and dissolution, to reappear only in their descendants, having previously thrown abroad the contents of their seed containers. Possibly the temperature in their planet of origin was more stable, and the year many times the length of ours.
However, the great and main fact was that the visitation had swept the country practically clear of the horrible things; though in certain protected localities a few isolated individuals might still exist.
The pinnacle of the crises had been reached; on the very edge of extinction, the British people had been succored: a small percentage did, indeed, fail to survive the hardships of malnutrition and consequent depressed vitality, but, for the great majority, the encircling belt of terrible life was pierced in the nick of time.
It occurred at Southampton. Here the efforts of the nation had been concentrated; for one thing, it was the logical point for the rapid handling of freight, and, for another, the narrow channel between the Isle of Wight and the mainland was alone at the entrance subjected to the inpouring of the incalculable millions of growths composing the stupendous drift. In this channel was deposited the greater part of the bacterial culture which was rushed across the Atlantic in less than three days after the first cable had been received.
Over five hundred vessels were at the time in the English channel, mostly anchored in certain shallow stretches, for never a breath of air had ruffled the water for the last three weeks. Practically all of them had left their distant home ports previous to the abrupt appearance of the frightful invasion, and by the time they reached these waters every port within their fuel radius had been closed. In their holds they held the foodstuffs for the lack of which millions were on the verge of extinction. Efforts had indeed been made to transfer a portion of their cargoes to land by fleets of aircraft, but the endeavor, though persisted in, was a failure to any practical extent, for the largest 'planes could not transport more than a few tons al a time, und it was a most difficult and lengthy business to load them with even this trifling cargo. The great dirigibles were entirely too clumsy for the work: therefore the total results to date had been inappreciable.
These vessels were now gathered in the vicinity of the port in readiness to make any daring move, should there prove to be the least chance of success. Men now, as in the world war, gave no heed to their lives if the great objective could be forwarded by their loss. It was an inspiring yet nerve-racking sight for the vast crowds who were watching from the low hills and coastline which confine that channel. As far as the eye could reach beyond the five mile wide belt of heaving abomination, there were ships in lines and squadrons; south, east, and west, ships of every size and dimension. Levantine tubs of a thousand tons or less, laden with dried fruits and a hundred luxuries; mammoth American cattle and grain carriers; Australian and South American ships, filled to the hatches with scores of thousands of frozen and chilled cattle and sheep, though an increasing number of these had daily been dumped overboard as fuel ran shorter and shorter. Hardly a vessel but held in its bowels the lives of thousands of starving, desperate humanity.
In twenty-four hours the effect of that deadly culture was plainly visible to the distant throngs; the entire channel was a strip of brilliant scarlet, and hourly it was extending to the masses adjacent. To the Glencamis Castle, five-thousand-ton grain carrier of the Kincaird Line, fell the honor of being the first craft to pierce that five-mile-wide belt of horrible fife. Many times it had seemed as though the attempt would be futile and the screws become fouled; but
