“Is that a promise, Elsa?” he asked gravely; and something in his tone made her glance at him. “Would you really stand by me no matter what happened? Don’t say yes, unless you really mean it.”
She stood in front of him, eye to eye, for a moment without speaking.
“I don’t understand,” she said at last. “You never doubted me before. It hurts. Of course I promise you. No matter what happens I won’t leave you. But you must promise never to send me away until I want to go.”
“Very good, Elsa, I promise.”
The strain seemed to relax in a moment. I don’t think they realised how strange it all seemed to me. They were living in their own world, and I was outside, I felt, rather bitterly. And of course, none of us was quite normal at that time.
Miss Huntingtower came to me and held out her hand.
“Thanks so much for coming, Mr. Flint. Somehow I feel as if I had known you for years instead of only a few hours. Now I’ll say good night and leave you with Uncle Stanley.”
“Wait a minute, Elsa,” said Nordenholt. “It seems to me that all three of us have been cooped up indoors too much lately. Our nerves are getting on edge. Don’t deny it, Flint, in your case. You haven’t a leg to stand on. I heard you differing from one of your clerks today. We’d all be the better for fresh air now and again. One afternoon a week, after this, we’ll take a car out into the country. I can do my thinking there just as well as anywhere else; and Mr. Flint can drive to keep his mind off business. That’s settled. I told you before that amusement of some sort has to come into our routine, Flint; so you must just make up your mind to it. I can’t replace you if you collapse; so I can’t allow you to go on like this. You don’t look half the man you were six weeks ago.”
I required no pressing, partly because I knew that Nordenholt was right in what he said.
X
The Death of the Leviathan
In this narrative I must give some account of the happenings in the outer world; for, without this, the picture which I am attempting to draw would be distorted in its perspective. At this point, then, I shall begin to interleave the description of the Northern experiment with sketches of the state of affairs elsewhere; and later I shall return to the more connected form of my narrative.
It may reasonably be asked how it comes about that I am able to give any account at all of occurrences in England immediately after the closing of the Nitrogen Area, since I have taken pains to show the complete severance of land-communications between the two sections of the country. I have already hinted that all connection between these regions was not abolished.
Nordenholt feared an invasion of the Clyde Valley by some, at least, of the multitudes in the South as soon as they became famine-stricken. It was hardly to be expected that, with the knowledge of the food in the North which they had, they would remain quiescent when the pinch came; and it was essential to have warning of any hostile movements ere they actually gained strength enough to become dangerous. For this purpose, he had organised his Intelligence Department outside as well as within the Area.
There was no difficulty in introducing his agents into any district. Night landings by parachute from airships, or even the daylight descents of an aeroplane on a misty day, were simple enough to arrange; and his spies could be picked up again at preconcerted times and places when their return was desired.
In this way, there flowed into the Nitrogen Area a constant stream of information which enabled him to piece together a connected picture of the affairs outside our frontier.
I have had access to the summaries of these documents; and it is upon this basis that I have built the next stage of my narrative. These reports, of course, were not published at the time.
As to the rest of the world, I have had to depend upon the wireless messages which were received by the huge installation Nordenholt had set up; and also upon the various accounts which have been published in more recent times.
I have already mentioned that the last stage of the exodus involved the destruction, as complete as was practicable, of roads, railways and telegraphic communications; and I have mentioned also the breaking-up of newspaper printing machinery. Following his usual course, Nordenholt had determined on utilising to the full the psychological factors in the problem; and it was upon the moral rather than on the mere physical effect of this disorganisation that he relied in his planning.
The immediate effect upon the Southern population seems to have been all that he had hoped. On the morning after the last night of the exodus, England was still unperturbed. The absence of the usual newspapers was accepted without marked astonishment; for no one had any idea that it was more than a temporary interruption. Each city and town assumed simply that something had gone wrong in their particular area. No one seems to have imagined that anything but a local mishap had occurred. The failure of the telegraphs was also discounted to some extent.
The local railway services continued to run without exciting comment by their intermittent character; for already Grogan’s operations had disorganised them to such an extent that ordinary timetables were useless.
The food-supply was still in full swing under the rationing system which Nordenholt had introduced; and no shortage had suggested itself to anyone, even among the staffs of the local control centres.
Thus for at least a couple of days England remained almost normal, with the exception of the disorganisation of the communications between district and district. There was no panic. The population simply went along its
