But how the newspapers prospered! What a rush there was for copies! What editions after editions! For the first time in the history of the newspaper press all the papers of every country in the world were agreed upon one matter. And the effect of that is more easily imagined than described!
J. T. Maston might well believe that his last hour was come.
In fact, a frantic mob broke into his prison on the evening of the 17th of September with the intention of lynching him, and it is well to say, the police made no objection.
The cell was empty! With the worthy calculator’s weight in gold, Mrs. Scorbitt had managed his escape. The gaoler was the more ready to be bribed by a fortune as he had hopes of enjoying it for some years. In fact, Baltimore, like Washington, New York, and the other chief cities of the American seaboard, was in the list of towns to be reasonably elevated, and in which there would remain enough air for the daily consumption of their inhabitants.
J. T. Maston had gained some mysterious retreat where he was safe from the fury of popular wrath. Thus was the life of the great world-troubler saved by a woman’s devotion.
And now only four days remained before Barbicane & Co. did their awful deed. The important notice had been generally understood. If there had been a few sceptics before, there were none now. The Governments issued proclamations to such of their peoples as were to be sent up into the rarefied air, and to the greater number that were to be dropped into deep water.
The result was such a migration as had never been seen, not even when the Aryan families began to remove. An exodus took place comprising every branch of the Hottentots, Melanesians, Negroes, Red Men, Yellow Men, Brown Men, White Men.
Unfortunately the time was too short. It could be reckoned in hours. Given a few months, the Chinese might abandon China, the Australians Australia, the Patagonians Patagonia, the Siberians Siberia.
But time! Time! The time! How was it possible?
Migration was useless.