CHAPTER XXVII
FOUL WEATHER
At the moment when that pyramid of fire rose to a prodigiousheight into the air, the glare of flame lit up the whole ofFlorida; and for a moment day superseded night over aconsiderable extent of the country. This immense canopy of firewas perceived at a distance of one hundred miles out at sea, andmore than one ship's captain entered in his log the appearanceof this gigantic meteor.
The discharge of the Columbiad was accompanied by aperfect earthquake. Florida was shaken to its very depths.The gases of the powder, expanded by heat, forced back theatmospheric strata with tremendous violence, and thisartificial hurricane rushed like a water-spout through the air.
Not a single spectator remained on his feet! Men, womenchildren, all lay prostrate like ears of corn under a tempest.There ensued a terrible tumult; a large number of persons wereseriously injured. J. T. Maston, who, despite all dictates ofprudence, had kept in advance of the mass, was pitched back 120feet, shooting like a projectile over the heads of hisfellow-citizens. Three hundred thousand persons remained deaffor a time, and as though struck stupefied.
As soon as the first effects were over, the injured, the deaf,and lastly, the crowd in general, woke up with frenzied cries."Hurrah for Ardan! Hurrah for Barbicane! Hurrah for Nicholl!"rose to the skies. Thousands of persons, noses in air, armedwith telescopes and race-glasses, were questioning space,forgetting all contusions and emotions in the one idea ofwatching for the projectile. They looked in vain! It was nolonger to be seen, and they were obliged to wait for telegramsfrom Long's Peak. The director of the Cambridge Observatory wasat his post on the Rocky Mountains; and to him, as a skillfuland persevering astronomer, all observations had been confided.
But an unforeseen phenomenon came in to subject the publicimpatience to a severe trial.
The weather, hitherto so fine, suddenly changed; the sky becameheavy with clouds. It could not have been otherwise after theterrible derangement of the atmospheric strata, and the dispersionof the enormous quantity of vapor arising from the combustion of200,000 pounds of pyroxyle!
On the morrow the horizon was covered with clouds-- a thick andimpenetrable curtain between earth and sky, which unhappilyextended as far as the Rocky Mountains. It was a fatality!But since man had chosen so to disturb the atmosphere, he wasbound to accept the consequences of his experiment.
Supposing, now, that the experiment had succeeded, the travelershaving started on the 1st of December, at 10h. 46m. 40s. P.M.,were due on the 4th at 0h. P.M. at their destination. So thatup to that time it would have been very difficult after all tohave observed, under such conditions, a body so small as the shell.Therefore they waited with what patience they might.
From the 4th to the 6th of December inclusive, the weatherremaining much the same in America, the great Europeaninstruments of Herschel, Rosse, and Foucault, were constantlydirected toward the moon, for the weather was then magnificent;but the comparative weakness of their glasses prevented anytrustworthy observations being made.
On the 7th the sky seemed to lighten. They were in hopes now,but their hope was of but short duration, and at night againthick clouds hid the starry vault from all eyes.
Matters were now becoming serious, when on the 9th the sunreappeared for an instant, as if for the purpose of teasingthe Americans. It was received with hisses; and wounded, nodoubt, by such a reception, showed itself very sparing of its rays.
On the 10th, no change! J. T. Maston went nearly mad, and greatfears were entertained regarding the brain of this worthyindividual, which had hitherto been so well preserved within hisgutta-percha cranium.
But on the 11th one of those inexplicable tempests peculiar tothose intertropical regions was let loose in the atmosphere.A terrific east wind swept away the groups of clouds which hadbeen so long gathering, and at night the semi-disc of the orb ofnight rode majestically amid the soft constellations of the sky.