We are the last of mankind." "It may be," said the Professor absently.

Then he added in his dreamy voice, "What is all that at the end of the 'Dunciad'?
'Nor public flame; nor private, dares to shine; Nor human light is left, nor glimpse divine! Lo! thy dread Empire, Chaos, is restored; Light dies before thine uncreating word: Thy hand, great Anarch, lets the curtain fall; And universal darkness buries all.'" "Stop!" cried Bull suddenly, "the gendarmes are out." The low lights of the police station were indeed blotted and broken with hurrying figures, and they heard through the darkness the clash and jingle of a disciplined cavalry.
"They are charging the mob!" cried Bull in ecstacy or alarm.
"No," said Syme, "they are formed along the parade." "They have unslung their carbines," cried Bull dancing with excitement.
"Yes," said Ratcliffe, "and they are going to fire on us." As he spoke there came a long crackle of musketry, and bullets seemed to hop like hailstones on the stones in front of them.
"The gendarmes have joined them!" cried the Professor, and struck his forehead.
"I am in the padded cell," said Bull solidly.
There was a long silence, and then Ratcliffe said, looking out over the swollen sea, all a sort of grey purple-- "What does it matter who is mad or who is sane?
We shall all be dead soon." Syme turned to him and said-- "You are quite hopeless, then ?" Mr.Ratcliffe kept a stony silence; then at last he said quietly-- "No; oddly enough I am not quite hopeless.

There is one insane little hope that I cannot get out of my mind.

The power of this whole planet is against us, yet I cannot help wondering whether this one silly little hope is hopeless yet." "In what or whom is your hope ?" asked Syme with curiosity.
"In a man I never saw," said the other, looking at the leaden sea.
"I know what you mean," said Syme in a low voice, "the man in the dark room.

But Sunday must have killed him by now." "Perhaps," said the other steadily; "but if so, he was the only man whom Sunday found it hard to kill." "I heard what you said," said the Professor, with his back turned.