"While this extraordinary rise is purely a temporary one, of course," said the report, "it seems advisable that preparations be made for the evacuation of whatever regions or sections lie at a height of less than ten feet above the former standard sea-level." It was this calm advice that sent a sudden chill across the peoples of the earth, so that for the first time there rose the thought of peril in connection with the thing. All during the next day, while the day and night slid around the world in endless alternation, men spoke of the thing with knitted brows and troubled eyes, and in Edinburgh and Chicago and Honolulu and Bombay said to each other, as though with a strange new thought, "If this thing—this rise—keeps on, it's going to be a bad thing, d'ye know?" It was as though that thought had stridden across the world like some giant specter of fear, to still with lifted ghostly hand the laughter which the matter had aroused at first.
But in one spot of earth men neither laughed nor spoke concerning it, but labored madly to stem the peril which they saw rising swift to whelm them and theirs. An observer hanging high over Holland on that fateful 6th would have made out, all along the coasts of that sunken little land, a desperate and unceasing activity, as of the efforts of some swarming insects to repair a breach in their tiny fortifications. For the last few days, indeed, the rising sea had been lashing with all the power of its tremendous tides against the dikes which alone protected the sunken little land from the fury of the ocean. Inch by inch that land had been won from the ocean's power, and walled with the thick dikes which until now had resisted all the ocean's blows; but thick as they were their height was not great, and toward their tops the rising waters had been steadily clawing during the last few days.
As sunset of that day gleamed blood-red in the west the anxious watchers saw that even the parapets of hastily filled sandbags which they had placed upon their dikes were giving beneath the thunderous tides, and shifting and dissolving. Valiantly they labored, as men will do for their life and land, but before midnight of that night through a score of great breaches the long-repressed seas were rushing in upon the little land in ravening, titanic fury, and church bells were ringing wildly across the countryside and beacon fires blazing red, while roads and canals were choked with hordes of panic-driven fugitives fleeing blindly through the darkness from the terror that leaped upon them from behind. And when at last sunrise gleamed golden over the body-choked waters and over the flooded meadows and spires of cities, word had been flashed to the world that more than half of Holland was under water, its cities buried and populations drowned by the vast, inrushing floods.
With that word the strained anxiety of the world dissolved suddenly into stark fear. It was only the most emphatic messages of reassurance on the part of the newspapers and agencies of public information that prevented a great panic on that morning. They admitted that the disaster had occurred, but pointed out that it had been caused by the breaking of the dikes, as similar disasters had been caused before. No such thing could occur elsewhere, they stated, and assured the public that the rise in the sea's level was only temporary, caused by the subterranean upheaval which had been mentioned by the scientists. Not only would the rise not continue, they predicted, but it would be seen when the measurements were made public that evening that a positive lowering of the waters had taken place.
With such assertions the rising panic of the earth's people was calmed a little on that morning, but the foreboding of dread to come increased as the extra editions poured from the presses that day hour-by-hour chronicles of further disaster. Parts of Lancaster and Norfolk were already flooded, they learned, their inhabitants fleeing by every road to higher ground. Louisiana and the lower valley of the Mississippi were under water, and the basin of the Amazon was a maze of flooded jungles. Fishing villages on the Chinese and Japanese coasts had been swept away with great loss of life by the vast tides of the Pacific, the plantations of lower Malaya had become salt swamps, and along the coastlines of India and Africa the waves were battering the shore with terrific fury. Scores of ships at sea were known to have foundered, sending out despairing calls for help until the last, while others making for the nearest harbor had been caught by the great tides and flung against cliffs and shoals to be pounded into unrecognizable wreckage.
Yet still, through the long hours of that tense day, the authorities and newspapers combined to allay the rising panic. These conditions were but temporary, they repeated, could be but temporary. The sea had risen almost a half-dozen feet during the last few days, due to certain extraordinary conditions, but it would rise no higher, could rise no higher. When the report from the oceanographic stations came, that would be seen. Until then they implored the public not to yield to the excitement of alarmists. So through all that day the peoples of England, and of America, and of all the world, remained tensely quiet, waiting, waiting for the word that would either explode their fears or spell their doom. And at last, late that evening, the word they awaited came.
"The extraordinary and unprecedented rise of the sea's level," said the general report issued from the Portsmouth and associated oceanographic stations, "has not subsided during the last twenty-four hours, but on the contrary has increased approximately a foot more, indicating that this rise, whatever may be its cause, is still continuing at the same rate as when first observed. It is impossible to predict when the rise will cease, knowing as we do nothing of its cause, and it will be also impossible to issue further reports from these stations, since the rise of the waters makes their abandonment necessary. Our only suggestion is that the world's peoples make their way toward the highest grounds near them, since it is clearly evident that within a few more days this continuing rise will result in the flooding of the earth's surface to an unpredictable depth and extent."
That brief, calm message, the last to be sent out by the oceanographic stations, let loose upon the world such a hurricane of panic as it had never known before. We look back, now, upon the night that followed it as one of the most terrible in the history of humanity, a night in which death and fear stalked together across the world like gigantic twin destroyers. For in all the cities of the world, that night, were such scenes, such rushing crowds and shouting men and flaring lights, as no man had ever seen before.
In London the great Thames was already flooding over its embankments into the great basin in which the city lay. The power-plants that lit the great city were failing one by one as the rising waters reached them, section after section snapping into sudden darkness, while away to the west the soaring red flames of a great fire east a quivering crimson glow across the doomed and drowning metropolis. Beneath that ghastly light, through the swift-running streets, the panic-driven mobs fought and splashed their way toward the nearest hills, toward the open country, toward safety. Crowded automobiles whirled through those streets in blind disregard of those whom they ran down. Ships all along the flooded harbor stood out to sea, preferring rather to face the great waves and mountainous tides than to be smashed helplessly against their moorings. Airplanes high above buzzed unceasingly through the night, to north and south and east, to wherever was higher ground.