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The European

January 1918

At last the Lord God relented and sent the great flood, so putting an end to the era in the history of the earth that had culminated in the bloody World War. Compassionately the waters washed away what had desecrated the aging planet, the blood-drenched snow fields and the mountains bristling with cannon, the rotting corpses along with those who mourned them, those drunk with blood lust along with the impoverished, the starving along with those who had gone mad.

Mildly the blue sky looked down on the smooth ball.

To the very end European technology had shown its mettle. For weeks Europe had defended itself ably and stubbornly against the slowly rising waters. At first with enormous dikes on which millions of war prisoners worked day and night; then with artificial mounds that rose up with fabulous speed and at first looked like gigantic terraces but gradually tapered into towers. Withdrawing to these towers, men kept faith to the last with the touching heroism of their kind. First Europe, then the whole world had been submerged, but on the last emerging towers searchlights still darted their glaring beams into the moist twilight, while cannon lobbed their projectiles from tower to tower in graceful arcs. The heroic shell fire was maintained to the end.

At length the whole world was flooded. Sustained by a life belt, the sole surviving European drifted about in the waters, employing his last strength to record the events of the last days, for he wished the men of the future to know that his fatherland had outlived its enemies by several hours, so securing the palm of victory for all time.

Then an enormous black hulk appeared on the grey horizon and slowly approached the exhausted European. To his delight, he recognised the ark, he saw the aged patriarch standing on the deck – an imposing figure with a flowing grey beard – and then he lost consciousness. A gigantic African fished him out of the water. Soon he opened his eyes and there stood the patriarch smiling, for now the success of his mission was complete: a specimen of every variety of living creature on earth had been saved.