4. The End of Quarantine Crag

by H.G. Wells

　　Section 1

　　Mr. Barnstaple awoke slowly and reluctantly from a dream aboutcookery. He was Soyer, the celebrated chef of the Reform Club, andhe was inventing and tasting new dishes. But in the pleasant way ofdreamland he was not only Soyer, but at the same time he was a veryclever Utopian biologist and also God Almighty. So that he could notonly make new dishes, but also make new vegetables and meats to gointo them. He was particularly interested in a new sort of fowl, theChateaubriand breed of fowls, which was to combine the rich qualityof very good beefsteak with the size and delicacy of a fowl'sbreast. And he wanted to stuff it with a blend of pimento, onion andmushroom--except that the mushroom wasn't quite the thing. Themushrooms--he tasted them--indeed just the least little modification.And into the dream came an assistant cook, several assistant cooks,all naked as Utopians, bearing fowls from the pantry and saying thatthey had not kept, they had gone "high" and they were going higher.In order to illustrate this idea of their going higher theseassistant cooks lifted the fowls above their heads and then began toclimb the walls of the kitchen, which were rocky and for a kitchenremarkably close together. Their figures became dark. They werethrown up in black outline against the luminous steam arising froma cauldron of boiling soup. It was boiling soup, and yet it wascold soup and cold steam.

　　Mr. Barnstaple was awake.

　　In the place of luminous steam there was mist, brightly moonlitmist, filling the gorge. It threw up the figures of the two Utopiansin black silhouette....

　　_What_ Utopians?

　　His mind struggled between dreaming and waking. He started uprigidly attentive. They moved with easy gestures, quite unaware ofhis presence so close to them. They had already got a thin ropeladder fixed to some point overhead, but how they had managed to dothis he did not know. One still stood on the shelf, the other swayedabove him stretched across the gully clinging to the rope with hisfeet against the rock. The head of a third figure appeared above theedge of the shelf. It swayed from side to side. He was evidentlycoming up by a second rope ladder. Some sort of discussion was inprogress. It was borne in upon Mr. Barnstaple that this last comerthought that he and his companions had clambered high enough, butthat the uppermost man insisted they should go higher. In a fewmoments the matter was settled.

　　The uppermost Utopian became very active, lunged upward, swung outand vanished by jerks out of Mr. Barnstaple's field of view. Hiscompanions followed him and one after the other was lost to sight,leaving nothing visible but the convulsively agitated rope ladderand a dangling rope that they seemed to be dragging up the crag withthem.

　　Mr. Barnstaple's taut muscles relaxed. He yawned silently, stretchedhis painful limbs and stood up very cautiously. He peered up thegully. The Utopians seemed to have reached the shelf above and to bebusy there. The rope that had dangled became taut. They were haulingup something from below. It was a large bundle, possibly of tools orweapons or material wrapped in something that deadened its impactsagainst the rock. It jumped into view, hung spinning for a momentand was then snatched upward as the Utopians took in a fresh reef ofrope. A period of silence followed.

　　He heard a metallic clang and then, thud, thud, a dull intermittenthammering. Then he jumped back as the end of a thin rope, apparentlyrunning over a pulley, dropped past him. The sounds from above nowwere like filing and then some bits of rock fell past him into thevoid.

　　Section 2

　　He did not know what to do. He was afraid to call to these Utopiansand make his presence known to them. After the murder of Serpentinehe was very doubtful how a Utopian would behave to an Earthlingfound hiding in a dark corner.

　　He examined the rope ladder that had brought these Utopians to hislevel. It was held by a long spike the end of which was buried inthe rock at the side of the gully. Possibly this spike had beenfired at the rock from below while he was asleep. The ladder wasmade up of straight lengths and rings at intervals of perhaps twofeet. It was of such light material that he would have doubted itscapacity to bear a man if he had not seen the Utopians upon it. Itoccurred to him that he might descend by this now and take hischances with any Utopians who might be below. He could not very wellbring himself to the attention of these three Utopians above exceptby some sudden and startling action which might provoke sudden andunpleasant responses, but if he appeared first clambering slowlyfrom above, any Utopians beneath would have time to realize andconsider the fact of his proximity before they dealt with him. Andalso he was excessively eager to get down from this dreary ledge.

　　He gripped a ring, thrust a leg backwards over the edge of theshelf, listened for some moments to the little noises of the threeworkers above him, and then began his descent.

　　It was an enormous descent. Presently he found himself regrettingthat he had not begun counting the rings of the ladder. He mustalready have handed himself down hundreds. And still when he cranedhis neck to look down, the dark gulf yawned below. It had becomevery dark now. The moonlight did not cut down very deeply into thecanyon and the faint reflection from the thin mists above was allthere was to break the blackness. And even overhead the moonlightseemed to be passing.

　　Now he was near the rock, now it fell away and the rope ladderseemed to fall plumb into lightless bottomless space. He had to feelfor each ring, and his bare feet and hands were already chafed andpainful. And a new and disagreeable idea had come into his head--thatsome Utopian might presently come rushing up the ladder. But hewould get notice of that because the rope would tighten and quiver,and he would be able to cry out, "I am an Earthling coming down. Iam a harmless Earthling."

　　He began to cry out these words experimentally. The gorge re-echoedthem, and there was no answering sound.

　　He became silent again, descending grimly and as steadily aspossible, because now an intense desire to get off this infernalrope ladder and rest his hot hands and feet was overmasteringevery other motive.

　　Clang, clang and a flash of green light.

　　He became rigid peering into the depths of the canyon. Came thegreen flash again. It revealed the depths of the gorge, still as itseemed an immense distance below him. And up the gorge--something;he could not grasp what it was during that momentary revelation. Atfirst he thought it was a huge serpent writhing its way down thegorge, and then he concluded it must be a big cable that was beingbrought along the gorge by a handful of Utopians. But how the threeor four figures he had indistinctly seen could move this colossalrope he could not imagine. The head of this cable serpent seemedto be lifting itself obliquely up the cliff. Perhaps it was beingdragged up by ropes he had not observed. He waited for a thirdflash, but none came. He listened. He could hear nothing but athrobbing sound he had already noted before, like the throbbingof an engine running very smoothly.

　　He resumed his descent.

　　When at last he reached a standing place it took him by surprise.The rope ladder fell past it for some yards and ended. He wasswaying more and more and beginning to realize that the rope laddercame to an end, when he perceived the dim indication of a nearlyhorizontal gallery cut along the rock face. He put out a foot andfelt an edge and swung away out from it. He was now so weary andexhausted that for a time he could not relinquish his grip on therope ladder and get a footing on the shelf. At last he perceivedhow this could be done. He released his feet and gave himself apush away from the rock with them. He swung back into a convenientposition for getting a foothold. He repeated this twice, and thenhad enough confidence to abandon his ladder and drop on to theshelf. The ladder dangled away from him into the darkness andthen came wriggling back to tap him playfully and startlingly onthe shoulder blade.

　　The gallery he found himself in seemed to follow a great vein ofcrystalline material, along the cliff face. Borings as high as a manran into the rock. He peered and felt his way along the gallery fora time. Manifestly if this was a mine there would be some way ofascending to it and descending from it into the gorge. The sound ofthe torrent was much louder now, and he judged he had perhaps comedown two-thirds of the height of the crag. He was inclined to waitfor daylight. The illuminated dial of his wrist-watch told him itwas now four o'clock. It would not be long before dawn. He found acomfortable face of rock for his back and squatted down.

　　Dawn seemed to come very quickly, but in reality he dozed away theinterval. When he glanced at his watch again it was half-past five.

　　He went to the edge of the gallery and peered up the gorge to wherehe had seen the cable. Things were pale and dim and very black andwhite, but perfectly clear. The walls of the canyon seemed to go upfor ever and vanish at last in cloud. He had a glimpse of a Utopianbelow, who was presently hidden by the curve of the gorge. Heguessed that the great cable must have been brought so close upto the Quarantine Crag as to be invisible to him.

　　He could find no down-going steps from the gallery, but some thirtyor forty yards off were five or six cable ways running at a steepangle from the gallery to the opposite side of the gorge. Theylooked very black and distinct. He went along to them. Each was acarrier cable on which ran a small carrier trolley with a big hookbelow. Three of the carrier cables were empty, but on two thetrolley was hauled up. Mr. Barnstaple examined the trolleys andfound a catch retained them. He turned over one of these catches andthe trolley ran away promptly, nearly dropping him into the gulf. Hesaved himself by clutching the carrier cable. He watched the trolleyswoop down like a bird to a broad stretch of sandy beach on theother side of the torrent and come to rest there. It seemed allright. Trembling violently, he turned to the remaining trolley.

　　His nerves and will were so exhausted now that it was a long timebefore he could bring himself to trust to the hook of the remainingtrolley and to release its catch. Then smoothly and swiftly heswept across the gorge to the beach below. There were big heaps ofcrystalline mineral on this beach and a cable--evidently for raisingit--came down out of the mists above from some invisible crane, butnot a Utopian was in sight. He relinquished his hold and droppedsafely on his feet. The beach broadened down-stream and he walkedalong it close to the edge of the torrent.

　　The light grew stronger as he went. The world ceased to be a worldof greys and blacks; colour came back to things. Everything washeavily bedewed. And he was hungry and almost intolerably weary. Thesand changed in its nature and became soft and heavy for his feet.He felt he could walk no further. He must wait for help. He sat downon a rock and looked up towards Quarantine Crag towering overhead.

　　Section 3

　　Sheer and high the great headland rose like the prow of somegigantic ship behind the two deep blue canyons; a few wisps andlayers of mist still hid from Mr. Barnstaple its crest and thelittle bridge across the narrower gorge. The sky above between thestreaks of mist was now an intense blue. And even as he gazed themists swirled and dissolved, the rays of the rising sun smote theold castle to blinding gold, and the fastness of the Earthlingsstood out clear and bright.

　　The bridge and the castle were very remote and all that part ofthe crag was like a little cap on the figure of a tall upstandingsoldier. Round beneath the level of the bridge at about the heightat which the three Utopians had worked or were still working ransomething dark, a rope-like band. He jumped to the conclusion thatthis must be the cable he had seen lit up by those green flashes inthe night. Then he noted a peculiar body upon the crest of the moreopen of the two gorges. It was an enormous vertical coil, a coilflattened into a disc, which had appeared on the edge of thecliff opposite to Quarantine Crag. Less plainly seen because of aprojecting mass of rock, was a similar coil in the narrower canyonclose to the steps that led up from the little bridge. Two or threeUtopians, looking very small because they were so high and verysquat because they were so foreshortened, were moving along thecliff edge and handling something that apparently had to do withthese coils.

　　Mr. Barnstaple stared at these arrangements with much the sameuncomprehending stare as that with which some savage who had neverheard a shot fired in anger might watch the loading of a gun.

　　Came a familiar sound, faint and little. It was the hooter ofQuarantine Castle sounding the reveille. And almost simultaneouslythe little Napoleonic figure of Mr. Rupert Catskill emergedagainst the blue. The head and shoulders of Penk rose and haltedand stood at attention behind him. The captain of the Earthlingsproduced his field-glasses and surveyed the coils through them.

　　"I wonder what he makes of them," said Mr. Barnstaple.

　　Mr. Catskill turned and gave some direction to Penk, who salutedand vanished.

　　A click from the nearer gorge jerked his attention back to thelittle bridge. It had gone. His eye dropped and caught it up withina few yards of the water. He saw the water splash and the metalframework crumple up and dance two steps and lie still, and then amoment later the crash and clatter of the fall reached his ears.

　　"Now who did that?" asked Mr. Barnstaple and Mr. Catskill answeredhis question by going hastily to that corner of the castle andstaring down. Manifestly he was surprised. Manifestly therefore itwas the Utopians who had cut the bridge.

　　Mr. Catskill was joined almost immediately by Mr. Hunker and LordBarralonga. Their gestures suggested an animated discussion.

　　The sunlight was creeping by imperceptible degrees down the frontof Quarantine Crag. It had now got down to the cable that encircledthe crest; in the light this shone with a coppery sheen. Thethree Utopians who had awakened Mr. Barnstaple in the night becamevisible descending the rope ladder very rapidly. And once more Mr.Barnstaple was aware of that humming sound he had heard ever andagain during the night, but now it was much louder and it soundedeverywhere about him, in the air, in the water, in the rocks andin his bones.

　　Abruptly something black and spear-shaped appeared beside the littlegroup of Earthlings above. It seemed to jump up beside them, itpaused and jumped again half the height of a man and jumped again.It was a flag being hauled up a flag staff, that Mr. Barnstaple hadnot hitherto observed. It reached the top of the staff and hunglimp.

　　Then some eddy in the air caught it. It flapped out for a moment,displayed a white star on a blue ground and dropped again.

　　This was the flag of earth--this was the flag of the crusade torestore the blessings of competition, conflict and warfare toUtopia. Beneath it appeared the head of Mr. Burleigh, examiningthe Utopian coils through his glasses.

　　Section 4

　　The throbbing and humming in Mr. Barnstaple's ears grew rapidlylouder and rose acutely to an extreme intensity. Suddenly greatflashes of violet light leapt across from coil to coil, passingthrough Quarantine Castle as though it was not there.

　　For a moment longer it _was_ there.

　　The flag flared out madly and was torn from its staff. Mr. Burleighlost his hat. A half length of Mr. Catskill became visiblestruggling with his coat tails which had blown up and enveloped hishead. At the same time Mr. Barnstaple saw the castle rotating uponthe lower part of the crag, exactly as though some invisible gianthad seized the upper tenth of the headland and was twisting itround.

　　And then it vanished.

　　As it did so, a great column of dust poured up into its place; thewaters in the gorge sprung into the air in tall fountains and weresplashed to spray, and a deafening thud smote Mr. Barnstaple's ears.Aerial powers picked him up and tossed him a dozen yards and he fellamidst a rain of dust and stones and water. He was bruised andstunned.

　　"My God!" he cried, "My God," and struggled to his knees, feelingviolently sick.

　　He had a glimpse of the crest of Quarantine Crag, truncated asneatly as though it had been cheese cut with a sharp knife. Andthen fatigue and exhaustion had their way with him and he sprawledforward and lay insensible.