It is a singular circumstance that not one of these anxious inquirers seemed to have paid particular attention to a very significant sentence in his reply. If they had given it a little thought, it would probably have set them pondering, although they might have been more puzzled than edified. The sentence ran as follows: "While assuring you that my ark has been built for the benefit of my fellow men, I am bound to tell you that I reserve absolutely the right to determine who are truly representative of _homo sapiens_." The fact was that Cosmo had been turning over in his mind the great fundamental question which he had asked himself when the idea of trying to save the human race from annihilation had first occurred to him, and apparently he had fixed upon certain principles that were to guide him. Since, when the mind is under great strain through fear, the slightest relaxation, caused by an apparently favorable change, produces a rebound of hope, as unreasoning as the preceding terror, so, on this occasion, the vanishing of the comets, and the fading of the disquieting color of the sky, had a wonderful effect in restoring public confidence in the orderly procession of nature. Cosmo Versál's vogue as a prophet of disaster was soon gone, and once more everybody began to laugh at him. People turned again to their neglected affairs with the general remark that they "guessed the world would manage to wade through." Those who had begun preparations to build arks looked very sheepish when their friends guyed them about their childish credulity. Then a feeling of angry resentment arose, and one day Cosmo Versál was mobbed in the street, and the gamins threw stones at him. People forgot the extraordinary storm of lightning and rain, the split comet, and all the other circumstances which, a little time before, had filled them with terror. But they were making a fearful mistake! With eyes blindfolded they were walking straight into the jaws of destruction. Without warning, and as suddenly almost as an explosion, the _third sign_ appeared, and on its heels came a veritable Reign of Terror! CHAPTER V THE THIRD SIGN In the middle of the night, at New York, hundreds of thousands simultaneously awoke with a feeling of suffocation. They struggled for breath as if they had suddenly been plunged into a steam bath. The air was hot, heavy, and terribly oppressive. The throwing open of windows brought no relief. The outer air was as stifling as that within. It was so dark that, on looking out, one could not see his own doorsteps. The arc-lamps in the street flickered with an ineffective blue gleam which shed no illumination round about. House lights, when turned on, looked like tiny candles inclosed in thick blue globes. Frightened men and women stumbled around in the gloom of their chambers trying to dress themselves.