exterminated nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and
ninety-nine of every million of the human race, the remaining
fractional units may congregate into one point, and come to something
like the same conclusion.

_Mr Jenkison._
I doubt it much. I conceive, if only we three were survivors of the
whole system of terrestrial being, we should never agree in our
decisions as to the cause of the calamity.

_Mr Escot._
Be that as it may, I think you must at least assent to the following
positions: that the many are sacrificed to the few; that ninety-nine
in a hundred are occupied in a perpetual struggle for the preservation
of a perilous and precarious existence, while the remaining one
wallows in all the redundancies of luxury that can be wrung from their
labours and privations; that luxury and liberty are incompatible; and
that every new want you invent for civilised man is a new instrument
of torture for him who cannot indulge it.

They had now regained the shores of the lake, when the conversation
was suddenly interrupted by a tremendous explosion, followed by a
violent splashing of water, and various sounds of tumult and
confusion, which induced them to quicken their pace towards the spot
whence they proceeded.




CHAPTER VIII