The aerophane was safely housed once more, the yelling mob had
departed. London was bent upon one of its occasional insane holidays.
The pouring rain did not matter one jot--had not the rain proved to be
the salvation of the great city? What did it matter that the streets
were black and the people blacker still? The danger was averted.
"We will go out and explore presently," said Grimfern. "Meanwhile,
breakfast. A thing like this must never occur again, Hackness."
Hackness sincerely hoped not. Cynthia Grimfern came out to meet them. A
liberal application of soap and water had rendered her sweet and fair,
but it was impossible to keep clean for long. Everywhere lay evidences
of the fog.
"It's lovely to be able to see and breathe once more," she said. "Last
night every moment I felt as if I must be suffocated. To-day it is like
suddenly finding Paradise."
"A sooty paradise," Grimfern growled.
Cynthia laughed a little hopelessly.
"It's dreadful," she said. "I have had no table-cloth laid, it is
useless. But the table itself is clean, and that is something. I don't
think London will ever be perfectly clean again."
The reek was still upon the great city, the taint of it hung upon
the air. By one o'clock it had ceased raining and the sky cleared.
A startled sun looked down on strange things. There was a curious
thickness about the trees in Regent's Park, they were as black as if
they had been painted. The pavements were greasy and dangerous to
pedestrians in a hurry.
There was a certain jubilation still to be observed, but the black
melancholy desolation was bound to depress the most exuberant spirits.
For the last three days everything had been at a standstill.
In the thickly populated districts the mortality amongst little
children had been alarmingly high. Those who had any tendency to lung
or throat or chest troubles died like flies before the first breath
of frost. The evening papers, coming out as usual, a little late in
the day, had many a gruesome story to tell. It was the harvest of the
scare-line journalist, and he lost no chance. He scented his gloomy
copy and tracked it down unerringly.
Over two thousand children--to say nothing of elderly people--had died
in the East End. The very small infants had had no chance at all.
The Lord Mayor promptly started a Mansion House fund. There would be
work and to spare presently. Meanwhile tons upon tons of machinery
stood idle until it could be cleaned; all the trade of London was
disorganised.
The river and the docks had taken a dreadful toll. Scores of labourers
and sailors, overtaken by the sudden scourge, had blundered into the
water to be seen no more. The cutting off of the railways and other
communications that brought London its daily bread had produced a
temporary, but no less painful lack of provisions.
"It's a lamentable state of things," Grimfern said moodily as the two
trudged back to Regent's Park later in the evening. It was impossible
to get a cab for the simple reason that there was not one in London
fit to be used. "But I don't see how we are going to better it. We can
dispel the fogs, but not before they have done terrible damage."
"There is an easy way out of the difficulty," Eldred said quietly. The
others turned eagerly to listen. As a rule Eldred did not speak until
he had thought the matter deliberately out.
"Abolish all fires throughout the Metropolitan area," he said. "In time
it will _have_ to be done. All London must warm itself and cook its
food and drive all its machinery by electric power. Then it will be one
of the healthiest towns in the universe. Everything done by electric
power. No thousands of chimneys belching forth black poisonous smoke,
but a clear, pure atmosphere. In towns like Brighton, where the local
authorities have grappled the question in earnest, electric power is
half the cost of gas.
"If only London combined it would be less than that. No dirt, no dust,
no smell, no smoke! The magnificent system at Brighton never cost the
ratepayers anything, indeed a deal of the profit has gone to the relief
of the local burdens. Perhaps this dire calamity will rouse London to a
sense of its dangers--but I doubt it."
Eldred shook his head despondingly at the dark chaos of the park.
Perhaps he was thinking of the victims that the disaster had claimed.
The others had followed sadly, and Grimfern, leading the way into his
house, banged the door on the darkening night.
(_Next month Mr. F. M. White will tell the story of a terrible London
water famine, entitled "The River of Death."_)
[Transcriber's Note: In the event "The Dust of Death" was the next
story to appear in _Pearson's Magazine_. "The River of Death" would be
the last.]