The Lost World

The Lost World

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There Are Heroisms All Round Us
Mr. Hungerton, her father, really was the most tactless person upon earth,--a fluffy, feathery,
untidy cockatoo of a man, perfectly good-natured, but absolutely centered upon his own silly
self. If anything could have driven me from Gladys, it would have been the thought of such a
father-in-law. I am convinced that he really believed in his heart that I came round to the
Chestnuts three days a week for the pleasure of his company, and very especially to hear his
views upon bimetallism, a subject upon which he was by way of being an authority.
For an hour or more that evening I listened to his monotonous chirrup about bad money
driving out good, the token value of silver, the depreciation of the rupee, and the true
standards of exchange.
"Suppose," he cried with feeble violence, "that all the debts in the world were called up
simultaneously, and immediate payment insisted upon,--what under our present
conditions would happen then?"

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I gave the self-evident answer that I should be a ruined man, upon which he jumped from
his chair, reproved me for my habitual levity, which made it impossible for him to discuss any
reasonable subject in my presence, and bounced off out of the room to dress for a Masonic
meeting.
At last I was alone with Gladys, and the moment of Fate had come! All that evening I
had felt like the soldier who awaits the signal which will send him on a forlorn hope; hope
of victory and fear of repulse alternating in his mind.
She sat with that proud, delicate profile of hers outlined against the red curtain. How
beautiful she was! And yet how aloof! We had been friends, quite good friends; but never
could I get beyond the same comradeship which I might have established with one of my
fellow-reporters upon the Gazette,--perfectly frank, perfectly kindly, and perfectly
unsexual. My instincts are all against a woman being too frank and at her ease with me. It
is no compliment to a man. Where the real sex feeling begins, timidity and distrust are its
companions, heritage from old wicked days when love and violence went often hand in
hand. The bent head, the averted eye, the faltering voice, the wincing figure-- these, and
not the unshrinking gaze and frank reply, are the true signals of passion. Even in my short
life I had learned as much as that--or had inherited it in that race memory which we call
instinct.

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Gladys was full of every womanly quality. Some judged her to be cold and hard; but such a
thought was treason. That delicately bronzed skin, almost oriental in its coloring, that raven hair,
the large liquid eyes, the full but exquisite lips,--all the stigmata of passion were there. But I was
sadly conscious that up to now I had never found the secret of drawing it forth. However, come
what might, I should have done with suspense and bring matters to a head to-night. She could
but refuse me, and better be a repulsed lover than an accepted brother.
So far my thoughts had carried me, and I was about to break the long and uneasy silence,
when two critical, dark eyes looked round at me, and the proud head was shaken in smiling
reproof. "I have a presentiment that you are going to propose, Ned. I do wish you wouldn't; for
things are so much nicer as they are."
I drew my chair a little nearer. "Now, how did you know that I was going to propose?" I
asked in genuine wonder.
"Don't women always know? Do you suppose any woman in the world was ever taken
unawares? But--oh, Ned, our friendship has been so good and so pleasant! What a pity to
spoil it! Don't you feel how splendid it is that a young man and a young woman should be able
to talk face to face as we have talked?"
"I don't know, Gladys. You see, I can talk face to face with-- with the station-master." I can't
imagine how that official came into the matter; but in he trotted, and set us both laughing.
"That does not satisfy me in the least. I want my arms round you, and your head on my breast,
and--oh, Gladys, I want----"
She had sprung from her chair, as she saw signs that I proposed to demonstrate some
of my wants. "You've spoiled everything, Ned," she said. "It's all so beautiful and natural
until this kind of thing comes in! It is such a pity! Why can't you control yourself?"
"I didn't invent it," I pleaded. "It's nature. It's love."
"Well, perhaps if both love, it may be different. I have never felt it."
"But you must--you, with your beauty, with your soul! Oh, Gladys, you were made for
love! You must love!"
"One must wait till it comes."

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"But why can't you love me, Gladys? Is it my appearance, or what?"
She did unbend a little. She put forward a hand--such a gracious, stooping attitude it
was--and she pressed back my head. Then she looked into my upturned face with a very
wistful smile.
"No it isn't that," she said at last. "You're not a conceited boy by nature, and so I can
safely tell you it is not that. It's deeper."
"My character?"
She nodded severely.
"What can I do to mend it? Do sit down and talk it over. No, really, I won't if you'll only sit
down!"
She looked at me with a wondering distrust which was much more to my mind than her
whole-hearted confidence. How primitive and bestial it looks when you put it down in black
and white!--and perhaps after all it is only a feeling peculiar to myself. Anyhow, she sat
down.
"Now tell me what's amiss with me?"
"I'm in love with somebody else," said she.
It was my turn to jump out of my chair.
"It's nobody in particular," she explained, laughing at the expression of my face: "only an
ideal. I've never met the kind of man I mean."
"Tell me about him. What does he look like?"
"Oh, he might look very much like you."
"How dear of you to say that! Well, what is it that he does that I don't do? Just say the
word,--teetotal, vegetarian, aeronaut, theosophist, superman. I'll have a try at it, Gladys,
if you will only give me an idea what would please you."
She laughed at the elasticity of my character. "Well, in the first place, I don't think my
ideal would speak like that," said she. "He would be a harder, sterner man, not so ready to
adapt himself to a silly girl's whim. But, above all, he must be a man who could do, who
could act, who could look Death in the face and have no fear of him, a man of great deeds
and strange experiences. It is never a man that I should love, but always the glories he
had won; for they would be reflected upon me. Think of Richard Burton! When I read his
wife's life of him I could so un-derstand her love! And Lady Stanley! Did you ever read the
wonderful last chapter of that book about her husband? These are the sort of men that a
woman could worship with all her soul, and yet be the greater, not the less, on account of
her love, honored by all the world as the inspirer of noble deeds."

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She looked so beautiful in her enthusiasm that I nearly brought down the whole level of
the interview. I gripped myself hard, and went on with the argument.
"We can't all be Stanleys and Burtons," said I; "besides, we don't get the chance,--at
least, I never had the chance. If I did, I should try to take it."
"But chances are all around you. It is the mark of the kind of man I mean that he makes his own
chances. You can't hold him back. I've never met him, and yet I seem to know him so well. There
are heroisms all round us waiting to be done. It's for men to do them, and for women to reserve
their love as a reward for such men. Look at that young Frenchman who went up last week in a
balloon. It was blowing a gale of wind; but because he was announced to go he insisted on
starting. The wind blew him fifteen hundred miles in twenty-four hours, and he fell in the middle of
Russia. That was the kind of man I mean. Think of the woman he loved, and how other women
must have envied her! That's what I should like to be,--envied for my man."
"I'd have done it to please you."
"But you shouldn't do it merely to please me. You should do it because you can't help
yourself, because it's natural to you, because the man in you is crying out for heroic
expression. Now, when you described the Wigan coal explosion last month, could you not
have gone down and helped those people, in spite of the choke-damp?"
"I did."
"You never said so."
"There was nothing worth bucking about."
"I didn't know." She looked at me with rather more interest. "That was brave of you."
"I had to. If you want to write good copy, you must be where the things are."
"What a prosaic motive! It seems to take all the romance out of it. But, still, whatever
your motive, I am glad that you went down that mine." She gave me her hand; but with
such sweetness and dignity that I could only stoop and kiss it. "I dare say I am merely a
foolish woman with a young girl's fancies. And yet it is so real with me, so entirely part of
my very self, that I cannot help acting upon it. If I marry, I do want to marry a famous man!"
"Why should you not?" I cried. "It is women like you who brace men up. Give me a
chance, and see if I will take it! Besides, as you say, men ought to make their own
chances, and not wait until they are given. Look at Clive--just a clerk, and he conquered
India! By George! I'll do something in the world yet!"

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She laughed at my sudden Irish effervescence. "Why not?" she said. "You have
everything a man could have,--youth, health, strength, education, energy. I was sorry you
spoke. And now I am glad--so glad--if it wakens these thoughts in you!"
"And if I do----"
Her dear hand rested like warm velvet upon my lips. "Not another word, Sir! You should
have been at the office for evening duty half an hour ago; only I hadn't the heart to remind
you. Some day, perhaps, when you have won your place in the world, we shall talk it over
again."
And so it was that I found myself that foggy November evening pursuing the Camberwell
tram with my heart glowing within me, and with the eager determination that not another day
should elapse before I should find some deed which was worthy of my lady. But who--who in
all this wide world could ever have imagined the incredible shape which that deed was to take,
or the strange steps by which I was led to the doing of it?
And, after all, this opening chapter will seem to the reader to have nothing to do with my
narrative; and yet there would have been no narrative without it, for it is only when a man
goes out into the world with the thought that there are heroisms all round him, and with the
desire all alive in his heart to follow any which may come within sight of him, that he
breaks away as I did from the life he knows, and ventures forth into the wonderful mystic
twilight land where lie the great adventures and the great rewards. Behold me, then, at the
office of the Daily Gazette, on the staff of which I was a most insignificant unit, with the
settled determination that very night, if possible, to find the quest which should be worthy
of my Gladys! Was it hardness, was it selfishness, that she should ask me to risk my life
for her own glorification? Such thoughts may come to middle age; but never to ardent
three-and-twenty in the fever of his first love.

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Try Your Luck with Professor Challenger
I always liked McArdle, the crabbed, old, round-backed, red-headed news editor, and I rather
hoped that he liked me. Of course, Beaumont was the real boss; but he lived in the rarefied
atmosphere of some Olympian height from which he could distinguish nothing smaller than an
international crisis or a split in the Cabinet. Sometimes we saw him passing in lonely majesty to
his inner sanctum, with his eyes staring vaguely and his mind hovering over the Balkans or the
Persian Gulf. He was above and beyond us. But McArdle was his first lieutenant, and it was he
that we knew. The old man nodded as I entered the room, and he pushed his spectacles far up
on his bald forehead.
"Well, Mr. Malone, from all I hear, you seem to be doing very well," said he in his kindly
Scotch accent.
I thanked him.
"The colliery explosion was excellent. So was the Southwark fire. You have the true
descreeptive touch. What did you want to see me about?"
"To ask a favor."
He looked alarmed, and his eyes shunned mine. "Tut, tut! What is it?"
"Do you think, Sir, that you could possibly send me on some mission for the paper? I
would do my best to put it through and get you some good copy."
"What sort of meesion had you in your mind, Mr. Malone?"
"Well, Sir, anything that had adventure and danger in it. I really would do my very best.
The more difficult it was, the better it would suit me."
"You seem very anxious to lose your life."
"To justify my life, Sir."
"Dear me, Mr. Malone, this is very--very exalted. I'm afraid the day for this sort of thing
is rather past. The expense of the 'special meesion' business hardly justifies the result,
and, of course, in any case it would only be an experienced man with a name that would
command public confidence who would get such an order. The big blank spaces in the
map are all being filled in, and there's no room for romance anywhere. Wait a bit, though!"
he added, with a sudden smile upon his face. "Talking of the blank spaces of the map
gives me an idea. What about exposing a fraud--a modern Munchausen--and making
him rideeculous? You could show him up as the liar that he is! Eh, man, it would be fine.
How does it appeal to you?"

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"Anything--anywhere--I care nothing."
McArdle was plunged in thought for some minutes.
"I wonder whether you could get on friendly--or at least on talking terms with the fellow," he
said, at last. "You seem to have a sort of genius for establishing relations with
people--seempathy, I suppose, or animal magnetism, or youthful vitality, or something. I am
conscious of it myself."
"You are very good, sir."
"So why should you not try your luck with Professor Challenger, of Enmore Park?"
I dare say I looked a little startled.
"Challenger!" I cried. "Professor Challenger, the famous zoologist! Wasn't he the man
who broke the skull of Blundell, of the Telegraph?"
The news editor smiled grimly.
"Do you mind? Didn't you say it was adventures you were after?"
"It is all in the way of business, sir," I answered.
"Exactly. I don't suppose he can always be so violent as that. I'm thinking that Blundell
got him at the wrong moment, maybe, or in the wrong fashion. You may have better luck,
or more tact in handling him. There's something in your line there, I am sure, and the
Gazette should work it."
"I really know nothing about him," said I. I only remember his name in connection with
the police-court proceedings, for striking Blundell."
"I have a few notes for your guidance, Mr. Malone. I've had my eye on the Professor for
some little time." He took a paper from a drawer. "Here is a summary of his record. I give
it you briefly:--
"'Challenger, George Edward. Born: Largs, N. B., 1863. Educ.: Largs Academy;
Edinburgh University. British Museum Assistant, 1892. Assistant-Keeper of Comparative
Anthropology Department, 1893. Resigned after acrimonious correspondence same year.
Winner of Crayston Medal for Zoological Research. Foreign Member of'--well, quite a lot
of things, about two inches of small type--'Societe Belge, American Academy of Sciences,
La Plata, etc., etc. Ex-President Palaeontological Society. Section H, British
Association'--so on, so on!--'Publications: "Some Observations Upon a Series of
Kalmuck Skulls"; "Outlines of Vertebrate Evolution"; and numerous papers, including
"The underlying fallacy of Weissmannism," which caused heated discussion at the
Zoological Congress of Vienna. Recreations: Walking, Alpine climbing. Address: Enmore
Park, Kensington, W.'

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"There, take it with you. I've nothing more for you to-night."
I pocketed the slip of paper.
"One moment, sir," I said, as I realized that it was a pink bald head, and not a red face,
which was fronting me. "I am not very clear yet why I am to interview this gentleman. What
has he done?"
The face flashed back again.
"Went to South America on a solitary expedeetion two years ago. Came back last year. Had
undoubtedly been to South America, but refused to say exactly where. Began to tell his
adventures in a vague way, but somebody started to pick holes, and he just shut up like an oyster.
Something wonderful happened--or the man's a champion liar, which is the more probable
supposeetion. Had some damaged photographs, said to be fakes. Got so touchy that he
assaults anyone who asks questions, and heaves reporters doun the stairs. In my opinion he's
just a homicidal megalomaniac with a turn for science. That's your man, Mr. Malone. Now, off
you run, and see what you can make of him. You're big enough to look after yourself. Anyway,
you are all safe. Employers' Liability Act, you know."
A grinning red face turned once more into a pink oval, fringed with gingery fluff; the
interview was at an end.
I walked across to the Savage Club, but instead of turning into it I leaned upon the
railings of Adelphi Terrace and gazed thoughtfully for a long time at the brown, oily river. I
can always think most sanely and clearly in the open air. I took out the list of Professor
Challenger's exploits, and I read it over under the electric lamp. Then I had what I can only
regard as an inspiration. As a Pressman, I felt sure from what I had been told that I could
never hope to get into touch with this cantankerous Professor. But these recriminations,
twice mentioned in his skeleton biography, could only mean that he was a fanatic in
science. Was there not an exposed margin there upon which he might be accessible? I
would try.
I entered the club. It was just after eleven, and the big room was fairly full, though the
rush had not yet set in. I noticed a tall, thin, angular man seated in an arm-chair by the fire.
He turned as I drew my chair up to him. It was the man of all others whom I should have
chosen--Tarp Henry, of the staff of Nature, a thin, dry, leathery creature, who was full, to
those who knew him, of kindly humanity. I plunged instantly into my

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