tame scientist at the office, and he picked from his desk two of
those many-coloured spectral bands which bear a general
resemblance to the hat-ribbons of some young and ambitious
cricket club. He pointed out to me that there were certain black
lines which formed crossbars upon the series of brilliant colours
extending from the red at one end through gradations of orange,
yellow, green, blue, and indigo to the violet at the other.

"Those dark bands are Fraunhofer's lines," said he. "The colours
are just light itself. Every light, if you can split it up with
a prism, gives the same colours. They tell us nothing. It is
the lines that count, because they vary according to what it may be
that produces the light. It is these lines that have been blurred
instead of clear this last week, and all the astronomers
have been quarreling over the reason. Here's a photograph of the
blurred lines for our issue to-morrow. The public have taken no
interest in the matter up to now, but this letter of Challenger's
in the Times will make them wake up, I'm thinking."

"And this about Sumatra?"

"Well, it's a long cry from a blurred line in a spectrum to a
sick nigger in Sumatra. And yet the chiel has shown us once
before that he knows what he's talking about. There is some
queer illness down yonder, that's beyond all doubt, and to-day
there's a cable just come in from Singapore that the lighthouses
are out of action in the Straits of Sundan, and two ships on the
beach in consequence. Anyhow, it's good enough for you to
interview Challenger upon. If you get anything definite, let us
have a column by Monday."