mained habitable, and to see whether any human groups still existed on any spot. The proposition was received with enthusiasmi; a real aërial flotilla was constructed; and all the strong men flew away to discover the land of increase.

II.

ALAS! the entire earth had disappeared beneath snow and ice. Every where the desert, everywhere solitude, everywhere silence. Snow followed snow, hoar frost followed hoar frost. An immense shroud covered the continert and the seas. Sometimes a solitary peak rose above the frozen ocean; sometimes a dismantled ruin, a spire, a tower, marked the site of a vanished city. Even tombs and graveyards were no longer to be perceived ruins themselves were destroyed. Every where nothingness, ice, silence. Days followed days, and every night the red disk of the sun set behind the white plain which slowly, at each twilight, took the violet tints of death.

Already half the members of the expedition had died of hunger and cold, when the flotilla thought they saw from their airy heights an immense ruined city near an unfrozen river. They steered toward the unknown city, and thought themselves dreaming, when they discovered on the banks of the river a group of men walking. A cry of happiness and wonder sounded from every breast, and in an instant all the aerial skiffs were tied up by the river banks.

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They were received as unexpected saviours by men who had long believed themselves to be the only survivors of terrestrial humanity, looking on with despair at the last days of the world. At the head of the group stood an old man enveloped in reindeer skins. Of commanding stature, his hollow black eyes shaded by bushy white eyebrows, with a long beard as white as snow, and his skull as yellow as antique ivory-it was felt that his was one of those energetic characters who have endured all the trials of life without yielding, but whose heart has bidden farewell to every hope. However, his countenance lit up with joy at the arrival of the newcomers. His sons and their companions threw themselves into the arms of the aerial travellers.

They made large fires and seated them

selves at a modest incal composed principally of fish which had just been caught. The new-comers informed their hosts that they were about the last survivors of equatorial Africa, that they came from the celebrated metropolis now deserted, and they asked if their aerial route had not deceived them, if they had not left the equator, and if they had landed at the mouth of the Amazon River, as their calculations indicated.

"My friends," replied the old man, "the ancient Amazon River, whose waters still flow over the circle of the equator, no longer rolls between its shores the impetuous floods which, if we believe tradition, caused it formerly to be compared to a sea. At the period, long since vanished, when the empire of Brazil, the Argentine Republic, and Colombia flourished in South America, when North America was divided into confederated States; when France, England, Germany, and Russia struggled for supremacy in European politics, the Atlantic Ocean extended, as we see on the maps, from the ruins of New York to those of Havre, and from Pernambuco to Dakar-ruins which are now forever buried beneath the ice. The great continent of the West Indies was, it appears, cut up into innumerable small islands, scattered over an immense sea. The oceans were far vaster and deeper than to-day, the rains frequent, the rivers inexhaustible, ice and snow never showed themselves in our country, and the rays of a beneficent sun fertilized the earth in its youth, giving birth every where to flowers and fruits, nests and love.

But now all is over with this planet and all the works which have illustrated its history. The earth revolves more slowly on its axis, the days have become longer, the moon is more distant, and the sun has become colder. The prediction of the astronomers is fulfilled. The waters of the oceans which the solar heat caused to evaporate in the atmosphere, and which gave birth to the clouds, the rains, the springs, the brooks, and the rivers, have from century to century been partially absorbed by the deep rocks; the air has become drier and drier, and ceased to be a protecting cover for the preservation of the heat received; the nocturnal and even diurnal evaporation has caused all the heat borrowed from the sun to radiate into space, and the cold of the poles comes

gradually nearer and nearer the tropical and equatorial zones.

The suminits of the mountains had already been long frozen because above them the atmosphere was too dry and too rarefied to preserve the heat; but life established itself in the plains and valleys, along the streams which traversed the surface of the globe. The limits of vegetation and, at the same time, the conditions favorable to life, insensibly descended. The last zone of terrestrial life has been the zone of the equatorial plains along the thermic equator, which traverses on one side South America, where we are, and on the other, Central Africa, whence you

came.

"When Europe had disappeared beneath the invading glaciers coming from the North Pole, from Siberia, from LapJand, from the Alps, from the Caucasus, from the Pyrenees, being finally reduced to the shores of the Mediterranean, many .centuries had already elapsed since civilization had abandoned it to shine in America, along which continent it gradually descended. In consequence of a strange social organization all the States of Europe had perished in their own blood; had mutually opened each other's veins. Some governments had convinced millions of citizens that the greatest happiness, the supreme honor, and the highest glory consisted in wearing uniforms of all colors, and killing each other to the sound of music. They believed that until the day when the Chinese invasion came and confiscated them like a band of schoolboys.

"The annals of modern times report that anciently expeditions had been sent through the ice to find the ruins of Paris, of London, of Berlin, of Vienna, of St. Petersburg, and that they had principally found forts, barracks, arsenals, arms, and ammunition on nearly all the territories. It was doubtless a primitive race hardly differing from the animal races.

"This opinion is, morcover, confirmed by the books of ancient history preserved in the libraries, showing a state of rude barbarism in the customs of these populations. We find, among other things, a long list of curious tortures. Criminals were murdered with the sword, with poison, or with a remarkable choice of varied weapons. Then they cut up the bodies into small pieces. Society in turn

killed the criminals in various ways. Here their heads were cut off by means of axes, swords and guillotines; there they were strangled or hanged; further on they were impaled or drowned. On certain days of revolution, in the midst of the capitals of this pretended civilization, the victors were seen to place the vanquished quietly along the walls and shoot them down by the hundred. Historians state that at a period not far removed the most civilized nations kept executioners who were exercised in crushing the limbs, quartering, taking off the skin, burning with red-hot irons, pulling out the eyes and the tongue, breaking the limbs, and torturing in every manner the victims, whom they generally ended by burning in the public squares on holidays. The commentators are right in saying that these ancestors of our species did not yet deserve the title of men.

For

If the end of the world had taken place at this period, the destruction of the race would not have been a great loss. But this ancient race made way for ours, and we too must perish. We perish of cold. Sterile nature no longer produces anything. For many centuries past there has been no more wheat or vines. many centuries there have been no more pastures or flocks. We are now reduced to the last fish. But," added the old man, "the table will still outlive the guests, for there are no new-born babes among us; there are actually only men here, those that you see, the last child of the other sex, my poor little Speranza, not having survived her birth.

This declaration produced on all the members of the expedition the effect of an electric shock. The fall of a thunderbolt in the midst of the assembly would not have brought about a greater confusion.

"What!" cried the chief of the flotilla. "There is no longer a single woman among you?"

"Not a single one," answered one of the guests.

"We had just come," added the young chief, "in search of female companions with whom we could associate. Our country is still wealthy, and had we found but one single wife all the riches of our country would have been hers."

"You have also no women ?" The travellers exchanged a glance and remained silent.

III.

SOME time before these events happened in Africa and in America, the island of Ceylon, now attached to the southern point of Asia through the diminution of the seas, found itself to be the last refuge of the human race in Asia, and there, in this former carthly paradise not far from the equator, at the foot of Adam's Peak, twelve women remained the sole heiresses of the last unextinguished families.

The male sex had completely disappeared. For a long time the number of girls had been far above that of boys-a condition of things which corresponded, besides, with the successes obtained by women, and their increasing authority in politics and in the universal direction of business. They had gradually substituted themselves for the effeminate and encrvated men as deputies, lawyers, physicians, and, in general, in the greater number of social professions, in commerce and industry, arts and literature, pure and applied sciences. The education of the boys had been more and more neglected, and finally there were no longer even competent gardeners or agriculturists to be found among the men. What the women did not do directly with their own hands in the way of industries was accomplished by ingeniously constructed and indefatigable

machines. The slow decrease of the organic forces of the globe had also manifested itself here by a slow diminution of the births, by a weakening of the average life, and it was only in rare circumstances, and by a sort of heredity, that families counted, as in former times, a large number of children. As in our day, in some countries, more girls than boys were born on the average. This tendency increased from generation to generation, and toward the end of the days that remained, for Asia as for the other parts of the globe, there were at the period of which we speak only three living families, and by an unfortunate chance, the two boys having died in infancy, twelve beings of the feminine sex were left alone to represent the present and the future.

The youngest, little Eva, was a child of three years of age; her mother had reached forty. The last survivor of the fathers had died of aneurism of the heart on the day of his wedding.

The interest which attaches itself to things, and which seems to be the cause of life, had diminished with the decrease of population and of business, and with the more and more imminent threat of a definite end. Formerly immense and populous, the city had disappeared beneath a poor but invading vegetation; all those ancient dwellings were emptied, deserted, ruined, partly hidden beneath the moss and weeds, and the traces of the ancient boulevards and principal streets were hardly visible to the eye. As humanity had retired so Nature had resumed her rights; polar plants, larches, pines, some snow-birds, and more recently penguins and bears, had arrived near the ancient city. The last building which remained standing was the public library, in which the purely literary works had nearly all been abandoned to the insects, and in which were to be found only the scientific treatises written on the supreme question of the end of the world, and the historical annals of the departed centuries; humanity not having consented to its own extinction, and having clung to all that personified it. But the fatal day had come. The world must end.

The decline of human forces had brought about the decline of the inventions and usages which seemed but lately the most indispensable. They had wearied of all, even of hope. The electric motor had fallen into disuse. There was no more travelling after the invasion of the ice. No attempt had even been made to repair the interrupted telegraphic communications. Only Only a few centuries before, all the inhabitants of the globe, in whatever portion they may have dwelt, had constant intercourse with each other as though they had inhabited the same country, conversing and hearing each other, whatever may have been the distance that separated them, and there was but one nation and one single language for all the globe. But now isolation and separation had returned as in the primitive ages; the three groups remaining in the world no longer knew each other; and the population of Ceylon, although composed only of women, bad lost all spirit of domination, all sentiment of curiosity, all energy, and all vitality. Henceforth, deprived of all desire of pleasing, of all idea of rivalry, and of all coquetry, they formed among themselves but

one family of sisters, associated in a common misfortune, and they had all adopted a sombre mourning costume, a sort of black and misshapen religious garment. But this little population itself had rapidly diminished. Fifteen years had sufficed to reduce it by more than half. At the moment when the events narrated above took place, there remained but the youngest of the Ceylonese, then eighteen years of age, with four of her companions.

IV.

We have left our aerial expedition in the midst of the stupefaction caused by the avowal of the Americans. No more women in America. The same situation, or almost the same, in Africa. Europe buried beneath the snows. Asia forgotten for more than a century, and doubtless sharing the same fate as Europe. There was nothing left for the travellers but to return to their own country, and that was decided on the very next day.

They visited the ruins of the American metropolis, the glories of which had been celebrated by the historians, and which now lay forgotten. For one instant they thought of uniting in one group the two wrecks of male humanity, and of all leaving together for Suntown; but, on the one hand, these men wished only to sleep forever in the tombs of their ancestors, and, on the other hand, the travellers, who had carefully concealed the existence of women in their own country, did not insist on this brotherly project. They resumed their way through the air, deciding, however, as they had come by the east, to follow the same direction along the equator on their return, in order to see whether, by some unforeseen circumstance, they might not discover some other last living tribe.

Thus it was that after having crossed the immense Pacific Ocean, and having stopped over all the points that emerged above its surface, even at the moment when they had noticed that the eternal winter announced by scientists extended over the lands of Siam, of Java, of Sumatra, and of Malacca, entirely deserted, they noticed in Ceylon a region less invaded than the others by the ice and snow, and stationing themselves for some time above a ruined city, they discovered a small group of women in mourning

In one instant, and before they had had time to recover from their surprise, the

celestial travellers were at their feet. At other periods, when the right of might governed humanity, these last five daughters of Eve would have been rudely seized and carried away at full speed through the air toward the African city, perhaps not without a struggle, for the number of the men was superior to that of the women. But for a long time they had ceased to exert their strength: sentiment, reason, intelligence, freedom of choice, always decided.

They told the object of their explorations, and had no difficulty in convincing the fair Asiatics. Their despair, which had seemed eternal, disappeared like a mist; their brows were cleared, their lips similed, and a few hours after the arrival of the aeronauts, the five nuns in mourning had given way to the most elegant of

women.

They even discussed the advantages of a return to Suntown, and it seemed that from the point of view of peace, happiness, and tranquillity, it would be preferable to remain in Ceylon. But the old provision stores were well-nigh exhausted, the fields and gardens were wanting, the ice was near; while in Africa the fatal moment seemed perhaps many years off. From the first interview, Omegar and Eva had experienced the effects of a mutual attraction, and had understood each other as though they had met again after a long separation. Omegar had a deep affection for his mother, and would be proud to present his companion to her. A fortnight after their arrival, the explorers, rich in their discovery, embarked on their aerial flotilla and set sail for Suntown. The resurrection of humanity was assured. What a triumph and what rejoicing on their return!

But what was their disappointment, on arriving above the antique city, to see none of their fellow citizens come forward to receive them; to find the public square, where they were in the habit of meeting, silent and deserted; to have before their eyes naught save a sort of desolate cemetery! Descending from their aerial boats, they first rushed with their companions to the government palace. A frightful spectacle offered itself to their gaze. Their relatives, their friends, lay around, dead or dying. The population of the city, reduced after the departure of the travellers to about thirty persons, had undergone

during their absence of a few months a snow cyclone, which had destroyed the last vegetable growth and part of the habitable dwellings. The small remnant had chosen as a refuge the spacious and stronger rooms of the palace; but an epidemic, a sort of typhus, had attacked first the weaker constitutions and had afterward stricken the others. The strength of the bravest had finally given way, and the first care of the travellers was to assist their unhappy fellow-citizens.

Unfortunately the cold increased daily, a bitter wind blew unceasingly, and the pale rays of the sun could not even penetrate the thick mists. The only means of preserving a little heat was by keeping up fires and cutting off almost every communication with the out-door air; but the bravest, the most courageous, lost all hope. At every new death, they counted each other. From fifteen they descended in a few weeks to ten, then to five; and at last Omegar and Eva remained alone, seeing without delusion the fate which awaited them, and well knowing that no other spring would ever bloom on earth.

However, after a long succession of disastrous days, the sun showed itself in a clear spot between the clouds, the wind ceased, the blue sky reappeared.

The young couple then rose in an aerial boat to judge of the last invasions and the snow, and perceived that the whole city was buried, and that it was only toward the north that the country had been a little spared.

Carrying away with them all the provisions they could find, they decided to follow the direction of the spared districts and see if some oasis could not be found in the midst of the immense fields of ice.

V.

IN consequence of the nature of the soil, and because of the scarcity of rains, of snow, and of clouds in that region, the great African desert that extends south of the Sahara had remained one of the least cold zones of the globe, and a warm current blowing from that desert on Nubia and Arabia, to return to the equator by Ceylon, had for a long time left a part of Egypt free from the invasion of ice and snow. Following the indicated direction, the last human couple hovered above the regions formerly watered by the Nile, henceforth frozen. They perceived from

afar the Great Pyramid, ruined, hut still standing.

This first monument of humanity, this testimony to the antiquity of civilization, was still standing. Its geometric stability had saved it. It was perhaps the only human idea that had attained its end. Created by Cheops to eternally protect his royal mummy, this tomb had survived the revolutions which had destroyed everything else. The last man came to join the first king and shelter himself beneath his shroud.

But the wind of the tempest was blowing again. A fine powdery snow was spreading over the immense desert.

"Let us stop here and rest,'' said Eva, "since we are condemned to death; and, besides, who has not been? I wish to die in peace in thine own arms.

They looked for a cavity among the

ruins and seated themselves beside each other, contemplating the endless space, covered with powdery snow.

The young woman crouched feverishly, holding her husband in her arms, trying to struggle with her energy against the invasion of the cold that penetrated her. He had drawn her to his heart and warmed her with his kisses. But the wind and the tempest had resumed their sway, and the fine snow beat in clouds around the pyramid. My beloved," he resumed, the last inhabitants of the earth, the last survivors of so many generations. What remains of all the glories, of all the countries, of all the works of the human mind, of all the sciences, of all the arts, of all the inventions? The entire globe is at this moment only a tomb covered with snow."

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we are

Yes," she said, "I have heard of the beauties who reigned over the hearts of kings and shone like admirable stars in the history of humanity. Love, beauty, all must end. I love you, and I die. Oh! how I would have loved that dear treasure, the one who will never live. But no, we must not die, must we ? No! Come, I am no longer cold. Let us walk.

Her feet, already frozen and benumbed, had become inert. She tried to rise and fell back.

"I seem to be sleepy," she said. "Oh, let us sleep!"

And throwing her arms around Omegar, she pressed her lips to his. The young man lifted her beautiful form and laid her on his knees. She was already asleep.