The greatest demonstration of all, however, was at the entrance of my new acquaintance, Professor Challenger, when he passed down to take his place. Such a yell of welcome broke forth that I began to suspect Tarp Henry was right that this audience was there not for the sake of[33] the lecture, but because the famous Professor would take part in the proceedings.
Challenger smiled with weary and tolerant contempt, as a kindly man would meet the yapping of puppies. He sat slowly down, blew out his chest, passed his hand down his beard, and looked with drooping eyelids at the crowded hall before him.
Mr. Waldron, the lecturer, came up, and the proceedings began. He was a stern, gaunt man, with a harsh voice, and an aggressive manner. However he knew how to pass the ideas in a way which was intelligible and even interesting to the public. He told us of the globe, a huge mass of flaming gas. Then he pictured the solidification, the cooling, how the mountains were formed. On the origin of life itself he was vague. Had it built itself out of the cooling, inorganic elements of the globe? Very likely. Had the germs of it arrived from outside upon a meteor? Even the wisest man was the least categorical upon the point.
This brought the lecturer to the animal life, beginning with mollusks and sea creatures, then up rung by rung through reptiles and fishes, till at last mammals. Then he went back to his picture of the past: the drying of the seas, the overcrowded lagoons with sea animals, the tendency of the sea creatures to come out of the sea, the abundance of food awaiting them, their consequent enormous growth.
“Hence, ladies and gentlemen,” he added, “those creatures, which still frighten us, but which were fortunately extinct long before the first appearance of mankind upon this planet.”
“Question![34]” cried a voice from the platform.
This interjection appeared to him so absurd that at first he didn’t know what to do. He paused for a moment, and then, raising his voice, repeated slowly the words: “Which were extinct before the coming of man.”
“Question!” said the voice once more.
Waldron looked with amazement along the line of professors upon the platform until his eyes fell upon the figure of Challenger, who leaned back in his chair with closed eyes and an amused expression, as if he were smiling in his sleep.
“I see!” said Waldron. “It is my friend Professor Challenger,” and he renewed his lecture as if this was a final explanation and no more need be said.
But the incident was far from being closed. Whatever the lecturer spoke of the past it brought the same exclamation from the Professor. The audience began to roar with delight when it came. Every time Challenger opened his mouth, there was a yell of “Question!” from a hundred voices. Waldron, though a strong man, started hesitating. He stammered, repeated himself, and finally turned furiously upon the cause of his troubles.
“This is really intolerable!” he cried, glaring across the platform. “I must ask you, Professor Challenger, to stop these ignorant interruptions.”
There was a hush over the hall, the students were delighted at seeing the high gods on Olympus quarrelling among themselves. Challenger slowly stoop up.
“I must in turn ask you, Mr. Waldron,” he said, “to stop saying what is not in strict accordance with scientific fact.”
“Shame! Shame!” “Give him a hearing!” “Put him out!” “Shove him off the platform!” emerged from a general roar in the hall. The chairman was on his feet and said nervously:
“Professor Challenger… personal views… later.”
The interrupter bowed, smiled, stroked his beard, and relapsed into his chair. And Waldron continued his observations. At last the lecture came to an end… I should say the ending was hurried and disconnected. The thread of the argument had been rudely broken, and the audience was restless. Waldron sat down, and, after a chirrup from the chairman, Professor Challenger rose and came up to the edge of the platform.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” he began. “I beg pardon… Ladies, Gentlemen, and Children, I should say thanks to Mr. Waldron for the very picturesque and imaginative address to which we have just listened. There are points in it with which I disagree, and it has been my duty to express my opinion at once, but, none the less, Mr. Waldron has accomplished his object well, that object being to give a simple and interesting account of what he conceives to have been the history of our planet. Popular lectures are the easiest to listen to, but Mr. Waldron will excuse me when I say that they are necessarily both superficial and misleading, since they have to be aimed at an ignorant audience.” (Ironical cheering.) “But enough of this! Let me pass to some subject of wider interest. What is the particular point upon which I have challenged our lecturer’s accuracy? It is upon the existence of certain types of animal life upon the earth. I do not speak upon this subject as an amateur. They are indeed, as he has said, our ancestors, but they are our contemporary ancestors, who can still be found. Creatures which were supposed to be Jurassic still exist.” (Cries of “Bosh!” “Prove it!” “How do YOU know?” “Question!”) “How do I know, you ask me? I know because I have visited their secret home. I know because I have seen some of them.” (Applause, uproar, and a voice, “Liar!”) “Am I a liar? Did I hear someone say that I was a liar? If any person in this hall dares to doubt my words, I shall be glad to have a few words with him after the lecture.” (“Liar!”) “Who said that? Every great discoverer has been met with the same incredulity… the generation of fools. When great facts are laid before you, you have not the intuition, the imagination which would help you to understand them. You can only throw mud at the men who have risked their lives to open new fields to science. You persecute the prophets! Galileo! Darwin, and I…” (Prolonged cheering and complete interruption.)
I saw white-bearded men rising and shaking their fists at the Professor. The whole great audience seethed and simmered like a boiling pot.[35] The Professor took a step forward and raised both his hands. There was something so big and strong in the man that the shouting died gradually away before his commanding gesture and his masterful eyes.
“Truth is truth, and the noise of a number of fools cannot affect the matter. I claim that I have opened a new field of science. You don’t believe. Then I put you to the test. Will you choose one or more of your own number to test my statement?”
Mr. Summerlee, the Professor of Comparative Anatomy, rose among the audience, a tall, thin, bitter man. He desired to know how it was that Professor Challenger claimed to have made discoveries in those regions which had been overlooked by Wallace, Bates, and other previous famous explorers.
Professor Challenger answered that Mr. Summerlee appeared to be confusing the Amazon with the Thames; that it was in reality a larger river. It was not impossible for one person to find what another had missed.
Mr. Summerlee declared, with an acid smile, that he fully appreciated the difference between the Thames and the Amazon. And he would be pleased if Professor Challenger would give the whereabouts of the prehistoric animals.
Professor Challenger replied that he reserved such information for good reasons of his own, but would be prepared to give it with proper precautions to a committee chosen from the audience. Would Mr. Summerlee serve on such a committee and test his story in person?
“Yes, I will.” (Great cheering.)
“Since Mr. Summerlee goes to check my statement that I should have one or more with him who may check his. I will not disguise from you that there are difficulties and dangers. Mr. Summerlee will need a younger colleague. Any volunteers?”
Could I have imagined when I entered that hall that I was about to pledge myself to a wilder adventure than had ever come to me in my dreams? Was it not the very opportunity of which Gladys spoke? I had sprung to my feet. I heard Tarp Henry whispering, “Sit down, Malone! Don’t make a fool of yourself.