CHAPTER XXV
NEW YORK IN HER OCEAN TOMB
During the long voyage from the sunken Himalayas to still deeper sunkenNew York, De Beauxchamps, with his fellow-countrymen and the skilledmechanics assigned by Cosmo Versal to aid them, had finished theconstruction of the huge diving-bell. No one not in the secret had theslightest idea of what had been done, owing to the remote situation ofthe deck on which the construction was carried out.
Now, while a thousand pairs of eyes were interrogating the smoothsurface of the sea, and striving to penetrate its cerulean depths, agreat surprise was sprung upon the passengers. The rear gangway of thelowest deck was cleared, a heavy crane-like beam was set projecting overthe water, and men began to rig a flexible cable, which had beenspecially prepared for the purpose of lowering the bell into the depths,and of raising it again when the adventurers should wish to return tothe surface. Everybody's attention was immediately attracted to thesestrange preparations, and the utmost curiosity was aroused. A chorus ofwondering exclamations broke out when a metallic globe, twenty feet indiameter, and polished until it shone like a giant thermometer bulb, wasrolled out and carefully attached to the cable by means of a strong ringset in one side of the bell. The excitement of the passengers would soonhave become uncontrollable if Cosmo had not at this point summoned theentire ship's company into the great saloon. As soon as all wereassembled he mounted his dais and began to speak.
"My fellow-citizens of the old world, which has perished, and of thenew, which is to take its place," he said, "we owe to the genius of M.De Beauxchamps an apparatus which is about to enable us to inspect, byan actual visit, the remains of the vast metropolis, which we saw in allits majesty and beauty but so few months ago, and which now lies foreversilent at the bottom of this universal ocean.
"If it were practicable I should wish to afford to every one of you afarewell glimpse of that mighty city, to which the hearts of so manyhere are bound, but you can readily understand that that would beimpossible. Only six persons can go in this exploring bell, and theyhave been chosen; but a faithful account will be brought back to you ofall that they see and learn. The adventuring company will consist of M.De Beauxchamps, M. Pujol, his first assistant, Mr. Amos Blank, KingRichard, Professor Abel Able, and myself. Captain Arms has ascertainedthe location of the center of Manhattan Island, over which we are nowfloating. The quietness of the sea, the absence of any apparent current,and the serenity of the heavens are favoring circumstances, which may berelied upon to enable Captain Arms to keep the Ark constantly poisedalmost precisely over our point of descent. It is not possible topredict the exact duration of our absence in the depths, but it willnot, in any case, exceed about twenty hours.
"Once arrived at the bottom, nearly six miles down, we shall attach thecable to some secure anchorage, by means of a radio-control, operatedfrom within the bell, and then, with the bell free, we shall makeexplorations, as extensive as possible. The radio-control of which Ihave spoken governs also the attachment of the cable to the bell. Thisappliance has been prepared and tested with such care that we have nodoubt of its entire efficiency. I mention these things in order toremove from your minds any fear as to the success of our enterprise.
"The bell being once detached, we shall be able to move it from point topoint by means of a pair of small propellers, which you will perceive onthe outside of the bell, and which are also controlled from within.These will be used to increase our speed of descent. From a calculationof the density of the sea-water at the depth to which we shall descend,we estimate that the bell with its contents will press upon the bottomwith a gravitational force of only five pounds, so that it will movewith very slight effort, and may even, when in motion, float like afish.
"For the purposes of observation we have provided, on four sides of thebell, a series of circular windows, with glass of immense thickness andstrength, but of extraordinary transparency. Through these windows weshall be able to see in almost all directions. It was our intention toprovide wireless telephone apparatus with which we might have kept youinformed of all our doings and discoveries, but unfortunately we havefound it impracticable to utilize our control for that purpose. Weshall, however, be able to send and receive signals as long as we areconnected with the cable.
"I should add that the construction of the bell, although suggested byM. De Beauxchamps immediately after our departure from Mount Everest,has been carried on in secret simply because we did not wish to subjectyou to the immense disappointment which you would certainly haveexperienced if this brilliant conception of our gifted friend, afterbeing once made known to you, had proved to be a failure. Ourpreparations have all been made, and within an hour we shall begin thedescent."
It is quite impossible to describe the excitement of the passengerswhile they listened to this extraordinary communication. When CosmoVersal had finished speaking he stood for some minutes looking at hisaudience with a triumphant smile. First a murmur of excited voicesarose, and then somebody proposed three cheers, which were given andrepeated until the levium dome rang with the reverberations. Nobody knewexactly why he was cheering, but the infectious enthusiasm carriedeverything before it. Then the crowd began to ask questions, addressednot to Cosmo but to one another. The wildest suggestions were made. Onewoman who had left some treasured heirlooms in a Fifth Avenue mansiondemanded of her husband that he should commission Cosmo Versal torecover them.
"I'm sure they're there," she insisted. "They were locked in the safe."
"But, don't you see," protested the poor man, "he can't get outside ofthat bell to get 'em."
"I don't see _why_ he can't, if he should really try. I think it's toomean! They were my grandmother's jewels."
"But, my dear, how could he get out?"
"Well, _how does he get in?_ What's his radio-control good for; won'tthat help him? What is he going down there for if he can't do a littlething like that, to oblige?"
She pouted at her husband because he persistently refused to present herrequest to Cosmo, and declared that she would do it herself, then, forshe must have those jewels, now that they were so near.
But Cosmo was saved from this, and other equally unreasonable demands,by a warning from De Beauxchamps that all was ready, and that no timeshould be lost. Then everybody hastened out on the decks to watch thedeparture of the adventurers. Many thoughtfully shook their heads,predicting that they would never be seen again. As soon as this feelingbegan to prevail the enthusiasm quickly evaporated, and efforts weremade to dissuade Cosmo and De Beauxchamps from making the attempt. Butthey were deaf to all remonstrance, and pushing out of the chatteringcrowd, Cosmo ordered the gangway about the bell to be cleared of allbystanders. The opposition heated his blood a little, and he began tobear himself with an air which recalled his aspect when he quelled andpunished the mutiny. This was enough to silence instantly every objectorto his proceedings. Henceforth they kept their thoughts to themselves,although some muttered, under their breath such epithets as "fool" and"harebrain."
In about half an hour after Cosmo's speech the bell, with its hardyexplorers safely inclosed within, was lowered away, and a minute laterhundreds were craning their necks over the rails to watch the shiningglobe engulf itself swiftly in the sapphire depths. It was about nineo'clock in the morning when the descent was begun, and for a long time,so remarkable was the transparency of the water, they could see the bellsinking, and becoming smaller until it resembled a blue pearl. Sometimesa metallic flash shot from its polished sides like a gleam of violetlightning. But at length it passed from view, swallowed up in thetremendous watery chasm.
We turn now to trace the adventures of the bell and its inmates as theyentered the awful twilight of the ocean, and, sinking deeper, passedgradually into a profundity which the sun's most powerful rays wereunable to penetrate. Fortunately every one of the adventurers left adescription of his experiences and sensations, so that there is no lackof authentic information to guide us.
The windows, as Cosmo had said, wer
e so arranged that they affordedviews on all sides. These views were, of course, restricted by thecombined effects of the smallness of the windows and their greatthickness; the inmates were somewhat like prisoners looking out of roundports cut through massive walls, but the range of view was much widenedwhen they placed themselves close to the glasses, because the latterwere in the form of truncated cones with the base outward.
Glancing through the ports on the upper side of the bell Cosmo and hiscompanions could perceive the huge form of the Ark, hanging like a cloudabove them, but rapidly receding, while from the side ports they sawgreat shafts of azure sunlight, thrown into wonderful undulations by thedisturbance of the water. These soon became fainter and graduallydisappeared, but before the gloom of the depths settled about them theywere thrilled by the spectacle of sharks and other huge fishes nosingabout the outer side of the transparent cones, and sometimes openingtheir jaws as if trying to seize them. Most of the cone-shaped windowshad flat surfaces, but a few were of spherical outline both without andwithin, and the radius of curvature had been so calculated that theseparticular windows served as huge magnifying lenses for an eye placed ata given distance. Once or twice a marine monster happened to placehimself in the field of one of these magnifying windows, startling theobservers almost out of their senses with his frightful appearance.
There were also four windows reserved for projecting a searchlight intothe outer darkness. The inner side of the bell corresponded in curvaturewith the outer, so that the adventurers had no flat flooring on any sideto stand upon, but this caused little inconvenience, since the wallswere abundantly provided with hand and foot holds, enabling the inmatesto maintain themselves in almost any position they could wish.
After a while they passed below the range of daylight, and then theyturned on the searchlight. The storage batteries which supplied energyfor the searchlight and the propellers served also to operate anapparatus for clearing the air of carbonic acid, and De Beauxchamps hadcarefully calculated the limit of time that the air could be kept in abreathable condition. This did not exceed forty-eight hours--but as wehave seen they had no intention of remaining under water longer thantwenty hours at the utmost.
When the bell entered the night of the sea-depths they passed into anapparently lifeless zone, where the searchlight, projected now on oneside and now on another, revealed no more of the living forms which theyhad encountered above, but showed only a desert of solid transparentwater. Here, amid this awful isolation, they experienced for the firsttime a feeling of dread and terror. An overpowering sense of lonelinessand helplessness came over them, and only the stout heart of CosmoVersal, and his reassuring words, kept the others from making the signalwhich would have caused the bell to be hastily drawn back to the Ark.
"M. De Beauxchamps," said Cosmo, breaking the impressive silence, "towhat depth have we now descended?"
"A thousand fathoms," replied the Frenchman, consulting his automaticregister.
"Good! We have been only thirty minutes in reaching this depth. We shallsink more slowly as we get deeper, but I think we can count uponreaching the bottom in not more than four hours from the moment of ourdeparture. It will require only two hours for them to draw us back againwith the powerful engines of the Ark, especially when aided by ourpropellers. This will leave fourteen hours for our explorations, if westay out the limit that we have fixed."
There was such an air of confidence in Cosmo's manner and words thatthis simple statement did much to enhearten the others.
"The absence of life in this part of the sea," Cosmo continuedcheerfully, "does not surprise me. It has long been known that the lifeof the ocean is confined to regions near the surface and the bottom. Weshall certainly find plenty of wonderful creatures below."
When they knew that they must be near the bottom they turned the lightdownward, and every available window was occupied by an eager watcher.Presently a cry of "Look! Look there!" broke from several voices atonce.
The searchlight, penetrating far through the clear water beneath thebell, fell in a circle round a most remarkable object--tall, gaunt, andspectral, with huge black ribs.
"Why, it's the Metropolitan tower, still standing!" cried Amos Blank."Who would have believed it possible?"
"No doubt there was some lucky circumstance about its anchorage,"returned Cosmo. "Although it was built so long ago, it was madeimmensely strong, and well braced, and as the water did not undermine itat the start, it has been favored by the very density of that which nowsurrounds it, and which tends to buoy it up and hold it steady. But youobserve that it has been stripped of the covering of stone."
"Would it not be well to utilize it for anchoring the cable?" asked DeBeauxchamps.
"We could have nothing better," said Cosmo.
De Beauxchamps immediately called to the Ark, and directed the movementsof those in charge of the drum of the cable so nicely that the descentceased at the exact moment when the bell came to rest upon a group ofbeams at the top of the tower. The radio-control, which is so familiarin its thousand applications to-day, was then a new thing, having beeninvented only a year or so before the deluge, and De Beauxchamps's formof the apparatus was crude. The underlying principle, however, was thesame as that now employed--transmission through a metallic wall ofimpulses capable of being turned into mechanic energy. With its aid theyhad no difficulty in detaching the cable from the bell, but it requiredsome careful maneuvering to secure a satisfactory attachment to thebeams of the tower. At last, however, this was effected, and immediatelythey set out for their exploration of drowned New York.
They began with the skeleton tower itself, which had only once or twicebeen exceeded in height by the famous structures of the era ofskyscrapers. In some places they found the granite skin yet _in situ_,but almost everywhere it had been stripped off, probably by thetremendous waves which swept over it as the flood attained its firstthousand feet of elevation. They saw no living forms, except a fewcuriously shaped phosphorescent creatures of no great size, whichscurried away out of the beam of the search-light. They saw no trace ofthe millions of their fellow-beings who had been swallowed up in thisvast grave, and for this all secretly gave thanks. The soil of MadisonSquare had evidently been washed away, for no signs of the trees whichhad once shaded it were seen, and a reddish ooze had begun to collectupon the exposed rocks. All around were the shattered ruins of othergreat buildings, some, like the Metropolitan tower, yet retaining theirsteel skeletons, others tumbled down, and lying half-buried in the ooze.
Finding nothing of great interest in this neighborhood they turned thecourse of the bell northward, passing everywhere over interminableruins, and as soon as they began to skirt the ridge of MorningsideHeights the huge form of the cathedral of St. John fell within thecircle of projected light. It was unroofed, and some of the walls hadfallen, but some of the immense arches yet retained their uprightposition. Here, for the first time, they encountered the real giants ofthe submarine depths. De Beauxchamps, who had seen some of thesecreatures during his visit to Paris in the _Jules Verne_, declared thatnothing which he had seen there was so terrifying as what they nowbeheld. One creature, which seemed to be the unresisted master of thiskingdom of phosphorescent life, appears to have exceeded in strangenessthe utmost descriptive powers of all those who looked upon it, for theirwritten accounts are filled with ejaculations, and are more or lessinconsistent with one another. The reader gathers from them, however,the general impression that it made upon their astonished minds.
The creatures were of a livid hue, and had the form of a globe, as largeas the bell itself, with a valvular opening on one side which wasevidently a mouth, surrounded with a circle of eyelike disks, projectingshafts of self-evolved light into the water. They moved about withsurprising ease, rising and sinking at will, sometimes rolling along thecurve of an arch, emitting flashes of green fire, and occasionallydarting across the intervening spaces in pursuit of their prey, whichconsisted of smaller prosphorescent animals that fled in the utmostconstern
ation. When the adventurers in the bell saw one of the globularmonsters seize its victim they were filled with horror. It had drivenits prey into a corner of the wrecked choir, and suddenly it flatteneditself like a rubber bulb pressed against the wall, completely coveringthe creature that was to be devoured, although the effect of itsstruggles could be perceived; and then, to the amazement of theonlookers, the living globe slowly turned itself inside out, engulfingthe victim in the process.
"Great heavens," exclaimed Professor Abel Able, "it is a gigantic_hydroid polyps!_ That is precisely the way in which those littlecreatures swallow their prey; outside becomes inside, what was thesurface of the body is turned into the lining of the digestive cavity,and every time they take a meal the process of introversion is repeated.This monster is nothing but a huge self-sustaining maw!"
"_Tres bien_," exclaimed De Beauxchamps, with a slight laugh, "and hefinds himself in New York, quite _chez soi_."
Nobody appeared to notice the sarcasm, and, in any case they wouldquickly have forgotten it, for no sooner had the tragic spectacle whichthey had witnessed been finished than they suddenly found the bellsurrounded by a crowd of the globe-shaped creatures, jostling oneanother, and flattening themselves against its metallic walls. Theypushed the bell about, rolling themselves all over it, and apparentlyfinding nothing terrifying in the searchlight, which was hardly brighterthan the phosphorescent gleams which shot from their own luminescentorgans. One of them got one of its luminous disks exactly in the fieldof a magnifying window, and King Richard, who happened to have his eyein the focus, started back with a cry of alarm.
"I cannot describe what I saw," the king wrote in his notebook. "It wasa glimpse of fiery cones, triangles, and circles, ranged in tier behindtier with a piercing eye in the center, and the light that came fromthem resembled nothing that I have ever seen. It seemed to be a _livingemanation_, and almost paralyzed me."
"We must get away from them," cried De Beauxchamps, as soon as the firstoverwhelming effect of the attack upon the bell had passed. Andimmediately he set the propellers at their highest speed.
The bell shook and half rolled over, there was a scurrying among themonsters outside, and two or three of them floated away partly incollapse, as if they had been seriously wounded by the short propellerblades.
The direction of flight chanced to carry them past the dome of theColumbia University Library, which was standing almost intact, and thenthey floated near the monumental tomb of General Grant, which hadcrowned a noble elevation overlooking the Hudson River. A portion of theupper part of this structure had been carried away, but the larger partremained in position. They saw no more of the globular creatures whichhad haunted the ruins of the cathedral, but, instead, there appearedaround the bell an immense multitude of small luminescent animals, manyof them most beautifully formed, and emitting from their light-producingorgans various exquisite colors which turned the surrounding water intoan all-embracing rainbow.
"AND THEN THEY FLOATED NEAR THE MONUMENTAL TOMB OFGENERAL GRANT"]
But a more marvelous phenomenon quickly made its appearance, causingthem to gasp with astonishment. As they drew near the dismantled dome abrilliant gleam suddenly streamed into the ports on the side turnedtoward the monument--a gush of light so bright that the air inside thebell seemed to have been illuminated with a golden sunrise. They glancedtoward the monument, and saw that it was surmounted by some vibratingobject which seemed instinct with blinding fire. The colors that sprangfrom it changed rapidly from gold to purple, and then, throughshimmering hues of bronze, to a deep rich orange. It looked like a sun,poised on the horizon. The spectacle was so dazzling, so unexpected, sobeautiful, and, associated with the architectural memorial of one of thegreatest characters in American history, so strangely suggestive, thateven King Richard and the two Frenchmen were strongly moved, while Cosmoand his fellow-countrymen grasped each other by the hand, and the formersaid, in solemn tones:
"My friends, to my mind, this scene, however accidental, has somethingof prophecy about it. It changes the current of my thought--America isnot dead; in some way she yet survives upon the earth."
Long they gazed and wondered, but at last, partly recovering from theirastonishment, at the suggestion of De Beauxchamps, they drew nearer themonument. But when they had arrived within a few yards of it, theblinding light disappeared as if snuffed out, and they saw nothing butthe broken gray walls of the dome. The moving object, which had beendimly visible at the beginning, and had evidently been the source of thelight, had vanished.
"The creature that produced the illumination," said Professor Abel Able,"has been alarmed by our approach, and has withdrawn into the interior."
This was, no doubt, the true explanation, but they could perceive nosigns of life about the place, and they finally turned away from it withstrange sensations.
Avoiding the neighborhood of the cathedral, they steered the bell downthe former course of the Hudson, but afterward ventured once more overthe drowned city until they arrived at the site of the great station ofthe Pennsylvania Railroad, which they found completely unroofed. Theysank the bell into the vast space where the tunnels entered fromunderneath the old river bed, and again they had a startling experience.Something huge, elongated, and spotted, and provided with expandingclaw-like limbs, slowly withdrew as their light streamed upon thereddish ooze covering the great floor. The nondescript retreatedbackward into the mouth of a tunnel. They endeavored, cautiously, tofollow it, turning a magnifying window in its direction, and obtaining astartling view of glaring eyes, but the creature hastened its retreat,and the last glimpse they had was of a grotesque head, which threw outpiercing rays of green fire as it passed deeper into the tunnel.
"This is too terrible," exclaimed King Richard, shuddering. "In Heaven'sname, let us go no farther."
"We must visit Wall Street," said Amos Blank. "We must see what theformer financial center of the world now looks like."
Accordingly they issued from the ruined station, and, resuming theircourse southward, arrived at length over the great money center. Thetall buildings which had shouldered each other in that wonderfuldistrict, turning the streets into immense gorges, had, to a certainextent, protected one another against the effects of the waves, and theskeletons of many were yet standing. In the midst of them the dark spireof old Trinity still pointed stoutly upward, as if continuing itshopeless struggle against the spirit of worldly grandeur whose aspiringcreations, though in ruins, yet dwarfed this symbol of immortality. Atthe intersection of the Wall and Broad Street canyons they found anenormous steel edifice, which had been completed a short time before thedeluge, tumbled in ruins upon the classic form of the old StockExchange, the main features of whose front were yet recognizable. Theweight of the fallen building had been so great that it had crushed theroof of the treasure vaults which had occupied its ground floor, and thefragments of safes with their contents had been hurled over the northernexpanse of Broad Street. The red ooze had covered most of the wastedwealth there heaped up, but in places piles of gold showed through thecovering. Amos Blank became greatly excited at this. His oldproclivities seemed to resume their sway and his former madness toreturn, and he buried his finger nails in his clenched palms as hepressed his face against a window, exclaiming:
"_My gold!_ MY GOLD! Let me out of this! I must have it!"
"Nobody can get out of the bell, Mr. Blank," said Cosmo soothingly. "Andthe gold is now of no use to anybody."
"I tell you," cried Blank, "that that is _my_ gold. It comes from _my_vaults, and I _must_ get out!" And he dashed his fists wildly againstthe glass until his knuckles were covered with blood. Then he soughtabout for some implement with which to break the glass. They werecompelled to seize him, and a dreadful struggle followed in therestricted space within the bell. In the midst of it Blank's face becameset, and his eyes stared wildly out of a window.
The others followed the direction of his gaze, and they were almostfrozen into statues. Close beside the bell, which had, dur
ing thestruggle, floated near to the principal heap of mingled treasure andruin, heavily squatted on the very summit of the pile, was such acreature as no words could depict--of a ghastly color, bulky andmalformed, furnished with three burning eyes that turned now green, nowred with lambent flame, and great shapeless limbs, which it uplifted oneafter the other, striking awkward, pawing blows at the bell! It seemedto the horrified onlookers to be the very demon of greed defending itsspoil. Blank sank helpless on the bottom side of the bell, and theothers remained for a time petrified, and unable to speak. Suddenly thedreadful creature, making a forward lunge from its perch, struck thebell a mighty blow that sent it spinning in a partly upward direction.The inmates were tumbled over one another, bruised and cut by theprojections that served for hand and foot holds. So great had been theimpact of the blow that the bell continued to revolve for severalminutes, and they could do nothing to help themselves, except to seizethe holds as they came within their grasp, and hang on for dear life.The violent shaking up roused Blank from his trance, and he hung ondesperately with the others.
After a while the bell ceased to spin, and began to sink again towardthe bottom. De Beauxchamps, who had recovered some degree ofself-command, instantly began to operate the control governing thepropellers, and in a few minutes he had the bell moving in a fixeddirection.
"This way, this way," cried Cosmo, glancing out of the windows to orienthimself. "We have seen enough! We must get back to the cable, and returnto the Ark!"
They were terror-stricken now, and pushing the propellers to theirutmost, they fled toward the site of the Metropolitan tower. On theirway, although for a time they passed over the course of the East River,they saw no signs of the great bridges except the partly demolished butyet beautiful towers of the oldest of them, which had been constructedof heavy granite blocks. They found the cable attached as they had leftit, and, although they were yet nervous from their recent experience,they had no great difficulty in re-attaching it to the bell. Then, witha sigh of relief, they signaled, and shouted through the telephone tothe Ark.
But no answer came, and there was no responsive movement of the cable!They signaled and called again, but without result.
"My God!" said Cosmo, in a faltering voice. "Can anything have happenedto the cable?"
They looked at each other with blanched cheeks, and no man found a wordto reply.
CHAPTER XXVI
NEW AMERICA
There had been great excitement on the Ark when the first communicationfrom the bell was received, announcing the arrival of the adventurers atthe Metropolitan tower. The news spread everywhere in a few seconds, andthe man in charge of the signaling apparatus and telephone would havebeen mobbed if Captain Arms had not rigorously shut off allcommunication with him, compelling the eager inquirers to be contentwith such information as he himself saw fit to give them. When theannouncement was made that the bell had been cut loose, and theexploration begun, the excitement was intensified, and a Babel of voicesresounded all over the great ship.
As hour after hour passed with no further communication from below theanxiety of the multitude became almost unbearable. Some declared thatthe adventurers would never be able to re-attach the bell to the cable,and the fear rapidly spread that they would never be seen again. CaptainArms strove in vain to reassure the excited passengers, but they grewevery moment more demoralized, and he was nearly driven out of hissenses by the insistent questioning to which he was subjected. It wasalmost a relief to him when the lookout announced an impending change ofweather--although he well new the peril which such a change might bring.
It came on more rapidly than anybody could have anticipated. The sky, inthe middle of the afternoon, became clouded, the sun was quickly hidden,and a cold blast arose, quickly strengthening into a regular blow. TheArk began to drift as the rising waves assailed its vast flanks.
"Pay out the cable!" roared Captain Arms through his trumpet.
If he had not been instantly obeyed it is probable that the cable wouldhave been dragged from its precarious fastening below. Then he instantlyset the engines at work, and strove to turn the Ark so as to keep itnear the point of descent. At first they succeeded very well, but thecaptain knew that the wind was swiftly increasing in force, and that hecould not long continue to hold his place. It was a terrible emergency,but he proved himself equal to it.
"We must float the cable," he shouted to his first assistant. "Over withthe big buoy."
This buoy of levium had been prepared for other possible emergencies. Itwas flat, presenting little surface to the wind, and when, working withfeverish speed, aided by an electric launch, they had attached the cableto it, it sank so low that its place on the sea was indicated only bythe short mast, capped with a streamer, which rose above it.
When this work was completed a sigh of relief whistled through CaptainArms's huge whiskers.
"May Davy Jones hold that cable tight!" he exclaimed. "Now fornavigating the Ark. If I had my old _Maria Jane_ under my feet I'd defyBoreas himself to blow me away from here--but this whale!"
The wind increased fast, and in spite of every effort the Ark was drivenfarther and farther toward the southwest, until the captain's telescopeno longer showed the least glimpse of the streamer on the buoy. Thennight came on, and yet the wind continued to blow. The captain compelledall the passengers to go to their rooms. It would be useless toundertake to describe the terror and despair of that night. When the sunrose again the captain found that they had been driven seventy-fivemiles from the site of New York, and yet, although the sky had nowpartly cleared, the violence of the wind had not diminished.
Captain Arms had the passengers' breakfast served in their rooms, simplysending them word that all would be well in the end. But in his secretheart he doubted if he could find the buoy again. He feared that itwould be torn loose with the cable.
About noon the wind lulled, and at last the Ark could be effectivelydriven in the direction of the buoy. But their progress was slow, andnight came on once more. During the hours of darkness the wind ceasedentirely, and the sea became calm. With the sunrise the search for thebuoy was begun in earnest. The passengers were now allowed to go uponsome of the decks, and to assemble in the grand saloon, but nointerference was permitted with the navigators of the Ark. Never hadCaptain Arms so fully exhibited his qualities as a seaman.
"We'll find that porpoise if it's still afloat," he declared.
About half after eight o'clock a cry ran through the ship, bringingeverybody out on the decks.
The captain had discovered the buoy through his glass!
It lay away to the nor'ard, about a mile, and as they approached allcould see the streamer, hanging down its pole, a red streak in thesunshine.
"Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!" The Ark echoed with glad cries from stem tostern. A thousand questions were shouted at the captain on his bridge,but he was imperturbable. He only glanced at his watch, and then said,in an undertone, to Joseph Smith, who stood beside him:
"Forty-seven hours and twenty minutes. By the time we can get the cableback on the drum it will be full forty-eight hours since they started,and the air in the bell could be kept in condition no longer than that.It may take as much as two hours more to draw it up."
"Can you do it so rapidly as that?" asked Smith, his voice trembling.
"I'll do it or bust," returned the captain. "Perhaps they may yet bealive."
Smith turned his eyes upward and clasped his hands. The Ark was put toits utmost speed, and within the time estimated by the captain the cablewas once more on the great drum. Before starting it the captain attachedthe telephone and shouted down. There was no reply.
"Start gently, and then, if she draws, drive for your lubberly lives,"he said to the men in charge of the big donkey engine.
The moment it began to turn he inspected the indicator.
"Hurrah!" he exclaimed. "She pulls; the bell is attached."
The crowded decks broke into a cheer. In a few minutes the Ark wasvibrating
with the strokes of the engine. Within five minutes thestrong, slender cable was issuing out of the depths at the rate of 250feet a minute. But there were six miles of it! The engineer controllingthe drum shook his head.
"We may break the cable," he said.
"Go on!" shouted Captain Arms. "It's their only chance. Every second ofdelay means sure death."
Within forty minutes the cable was coming up 300 feet a minute. Thespeed increased as the bell rose out of the depths. It was just one hourand forty-five minutes after the drum began to revolve when the anxiouswatchers were thrown into a furore of excitement by the appearance of ashining blue point deep beneath. It was the bell! Again there brokeforth a tempest of cheers.
Rapidly the rising bell grew larger under their eyes, until at last itburst the surface of the sea. The engine had been skillfully slowed atthe last moment, and the rescued bell stopped at the level of the deckopen to receive it. With mad haste it was drawn aboard and the hermeticdoor was opened. Those who were near enough glanced inside and turnedpale. Tumbled in a heap at the bottom lay the six men, with yellow facesand blank, staring eyes. In an instant they were lifted out and twodoctors sprang to the side of each. Were they dead? Could any skillrevive them? A hush as of death spread over the great vessel.
They were not dead. The skill of the physicians brought them, one afteranother, slowly back to consciousness. But it was two full days beforethey could rise from their beds, and three before they could begin totell their story--the story of the wonders they had seen, and of thedreadful struggle for breath in the imprisoned bell before they had sunkinto unconsciousness. Not a word was ever spoken about the strangeoutbreak of Blank at the sight of the gold, although the others allrecorded it in their notebooks. He himself never referred to it, and itseemed to have faded from his mind.
As soon as it was evident that the rescued men would recover, CaptainArms, acting on his own responsibility, had started the Ark on itswestward course. It was a long and tedious journey that they had yetbefore them, but the monotony was broken by the undying interest in themarvelous story of the adventures of the bell.
Three weeks after they left the vicinity of New York, the observationsshowed that they must be nearing the eastern border of the Coloradoplateau. Then one day a bird alighted on the railing of the bridge,close beside Cosmo and Captain Arms.
"A bird!" cried Cosmo. "But it is incredible that a bird should be here!How can it ever have kept itself afloat? It surely could not haveremained in the air all this time, and it could not have rested on thewaves during the downpour from the sky! Its presence here is absolutelymiraculous!"
The poor bird, evidently exhausted by a long journey, remained upon therail, and permitted Cosmo to approach closely before taking flight toanother part of the Ark. Cosmo at first thought that it might haveescaped from his aviary below.
But close inspection satisfied him that it was of a different speciesfrom any that he had taken into the Ark, and the more he thought of thestrangeness of its appearance here the greater was his bewilderment.
While he was puzzling over the subject the bird was seen by many of thepassengers, flitting from one part of the vessel to another, and theywere as much astonished as Cosmo had been, and all sorts of conjectureswere made to account for the little creature's escape from the flood.
But within an hour or two Cosmo and the captain, who were now muchoftener alone upon the bridge than they had been during their passageover the eastern continents, had another, and an incomparably greater,surprise.
It was the call of "Land, ho!" from the lookout.
"Land!" exclaimed Cosmo. "Land! How can there be any land?"
Captain Arms was no less incredulous, and he called the lookout down,accused him of having mistaken a sleeping whale for a landfall, and sentanother man aloft in his place. But in a few minutes the same call of"Land, ho!" was repeated.
The captain got the bearings of the mysterious object this time, and theArk was sent for it at her highest speed. It rose steadily out of thewater until there could be no possibility of not recognizing it as thetop of a mountain.
When it had risen still higher, until its form seemed gigantic againstthe horizon, Captain Arms, throwing away his tobacco with an emphaticgesture, and striking his palm on the rail, fairly shouted:
"The Pike! By--the old Pike! There she blows!"
"Do you mean Pike's Peak?" demanded Cosmo.
"Do I mean Pike's Peak?" cried the captain, whose excitement had becomeuncontrollable. "Yes, I mean Pike's Peak, and the deuce to him! Wasn't Iborn at his foot? Didn't I play ball in the Garden of the Gods? And lookat him, Mr. Versal! There he stands! No water-squirting pirate of anebula could down the old Pike!"
The excitement of everybody else was almost equal to the captain's, whenthe grand mass of the mountain, with its characteristic profile, cameinto view from the promenade-decks.
De Beauxchamps, King Richard, and Amos Blank hurried to the bridge,which they were still privileged to invade, and the two former inparticular asked questions faster than they could be answered.Meanwhile, they were swiftly approaching the mountain.
King Richard seemed to be under the impression that they had completedthe circuit of the world ahead of time, and his first remark was to theeffect that Mount Everest appeared to be rising faster than they hadanticipated.
"That's none of your pagodas!" exclaimed the captain disdainfully;"that's old Pike; and if you can find a better crown for the world, I'dlike to see it."
The king looked puzzled, and Cosmo explained that they were still nearthe center of the American continent, and that the great peak beforethem was the sentinel of the Rocky Mountains.
"But," replied the king, "I understood you that the whole world wascovered, and that the Himalayas would be the first to emerge."
"That's what I believed," said Cosmo, "but the facts are against me."
"So you thought you were going to run over the Rockies!" exclaimed thecaptain gleefully. "They're no Gaurisankars, hey, M. De Beauxchamps?"
"_Vive les Rockies! Vive le Pike!_" cried the Frenchman, catching thecaptain's enthusiasm.
"But how do you explain it?" asked King Richard.
"It's the batholite," responded Cosmo, using exactly the same phrasethat Professor Pludder had employed some months before.
"And pray explain to me what is a batholite?"
Before Cosmo Versal could reply there was a terrific crash, and the Ark,for the third time in her brief career, had made an unexpected landing.But this time the accident was disastrous.
All on the bridge, including Captain Arms, who should surely have knownthe lay of the land about his childhood's home, had been so interestedin their talk that before they were aware of the danger the great vesselhad run her nose upon a projecting buttress of the mountain.
She was going at full speed, too. Not a person aboard but was thrownfrom his feet, and several were severely injured.
The prow of the Ark was driven high upon a sloping surface of rock, andthe tearing sounds showed only too clearly that this time both bottomshad been penetrated, and that there could be no hope of saving the hugeship or getting her off.
Perhaps at no time in all their adventures had the passengers of the Arkbeen so completely terrorized and demoralized, and many members of thecrew were in no better state. Cosmo and the captain shouted orders, andran down into the hold to see the extent of the damage. Water waspouring in through the big rents in torrents.
There was plainly nothing to be done but to get everybody out of thevessel and upon the rocks as rapidly as possible.
The forward parts of the promenade-deck directly overhung the rock uponwhich the Ark had forced itself, and it was possible for many to be letdown that way. At the same time boats were set afloat, and dozens gotashore in them.
While everybody was thus occupied with things immediately concerningtheir safety, nobody paid any attention to the approach of a boat, whichhad set out from a kind of bight in the face of the mountain.
/> Cosmo was at the head of the accommodation-ladder that was being letdown on the starboard side, when he heard a shout, and, lifting his eyesfrom his work, was startled to see a boat containing, beside the rowers,two men whom he instantly recognized--they were President Samson andProfessor Pludder.
Their sudden appearance here astonished him as much as that of Pike'sPeak itself had done. He dropped his hands and stared at them as theirboat swiftly approached. The ladder had just been got ready, and themoment the boat touched its foot Professor Pludder mounted to the deckof the Ark as rapidly as his great weight would permit.
He stretched out his hand as his foot met the deck, and smilingly said:
"Versal, you were right about the nebula."
"Pludder," responded Cosmo, immediately recovering his aplomb, andtaking the extended hand of the professor, "you certainly know the truthwhen you see it."
Not another word was exchanged between them for the time, and ProfessorPludder instantly set to work aiding the passengers to descend theladder. Cosmo waved his hand in greeting to the President, who remainedin the boat, and politely lifted his tall, but sadly battered hat inresponse.
The Ark had become so firmly lodged that, after the passengers had allgot ashore, Cosmo decided to open a way through the forward end of thevessel by removing some of the plates, so that the animals could betaken ashore direct from their deck by simply descending a slightlysloping gangway.
This was a work that required a whole day, and while it was goingforward under Cosmo's directions the passengers, and such of the crew aswere not needed, found their way, led by the professor and thePresident, round a bluff into a kind of mountain lap, where they wereastonished to see many rough cottages, situated picturesquely among therocks, and small cultivated spaces, with grass and flowers, surroundingthem.
Here dwelt some hundreds of people, who received the shipwrecked companywith Western hospitality, after the first effects of their astonishmenthad worn off. It appears that, owing to its concealment by a projectingpart of the mountain, the Ark had not been seen until just at the momentwhen it went ashore.
Although it was now the early part of September, the air was warm andbalmy, and barn-yard fowls were clucking and scratching about the rathermeager soil around the houses and outbuildings.
There was not room in this place for all the newcomers, but ProfessorPludder assured them that in many of the neighboring hollows, which hadformerly been mountain gorges, there were similar settlements, and thatroom would be found for all.
Parties were sent off under the lead of guides, and great was theamazement, and, it may be added, joy, with which they were received inthe little communities that clustered about the flanks of the mountain.
About half of Cosmo's animals had perished, most of them during theterrible experiences attending the arrival of the nucleus, which havealready been described, but those that remained were in fairly goodcondition, and with the possible exception of the elephants, they seemedglad to feel solid ground once more under their feet.
The elephants had considerable difficulty in making their way over therocks to the little village, but finally all were got to a place ofsecurity. The great Californian cattle caused hardly less trouble thanthe elephants, but the Astorian turtles appeared to feel themselves athome at once.
Cosmo, with King Richard, De Beauxchamps, Amos Blank, Captain Arms, andJoseph Smith, became the guests of Professor Pludder and the Presidentin their modest dwellings, and as soon as a little order had beenestablished explanations began. Professor Pludder was the firstspokesman, the scene being the President's "parlor."
He told of their escape from Washington and of their arrival on theColorado plateau.
"When the storm recommenced," he said, "I recognized the complete truthof your theory, Mr. Versal--I had partially recognized it before--and Imade every preparation for the emergency.
"The downfall, upon the whole, was not as severe here as it had beenduring the earlier days of the deluge, but it must have been far moresevere elsewhere.
"The sea around us began to rise, and then suddenly the rise ceased.After studying the matter I concluded that a batholite was rising underthis region, and that there was a chance that we might escapesubmergence through its influence."
"Pardon me," interrupted King Richard, "but Mr. Versal has alreadyspoken of a 'batholite.' What does that mean?"
"I imagine," replied the professor, smiling, "that neither Mr. Versalnor I have used the term in a strictly technical sense. At least we havevastly extended and modified its meaning in order to meet thecircumstances of our case.
"Batholite is a word of the old geology, derived, from a language whichwas once widely cultivated, Greek, and meaning, in substance, stone, orrock, 'from the depths.'
"The conception underlying it is that of an immense mass of plastic rockrising under the effects of pressure from the interior of the globe,forcing, and in part melting its way to the surface, or lifting up thesuperincumbent crust.
"Geologists had discovered the existence of many great batholites thathad risen in former ages, and there were some gigantic ones known inthis part of America."
"That," interposed Cosmo, "was the basis of my idea that the continentswould rise again, only I supposed that the rise would first manifestitself in the Himalayan region.
"However, since it has resulted in the saving of so many lives here, Icannot say that my disappointment goes beyond the natural mortificationof a man of science upon discovering that he has been in error."
"I believe," said Professor Pludder, "that at least a million havesurvived here in the heart of the continent through the uprising of thecrust. We have made explorations in many directions, and have found thatthrough all the Coloradan region people have succeeded in escaping tothe heights.
"Since the water, although it began to rise again after the first arrestof the advance of the sea, never attained a greater elevation than about7,500 feet as measured from the old sea-level contours, there must bemillions of acres, not to say square miles, that are still habitable.
"I even hope that the uprising has extended far through the RockyMountain region."
Professor Pludder then went on to tell how they had escaped from theneighborhood of Colorado Springs when the readvance of the sea began,and how at last it became evident that the influence of the underlying"batholite" would save them from submergence.
In some places, he said, violent phenomena had been manifested, andsevere earthquakes had been felt, but upon the whole, he thought, notmany had perished through that cause.
As soon as some degree of confidence that they were, after all, toescape the flood, had been established, they had begun to cultivate suchsoil as they could find, and now, after months of fair weather, they hadbecome fairly established in their new homes.
When Cosmo, on his side, had told of the adventures of the Ark, and ofthe disappearance of the crown of the world in Asia, and when DeBeauxchamps had entertained the wondering listeners with his account ofthe submarine explorations of the _Jules Verne_ and the diving bell, thecompany at last broke up.
From this point--the arrival of the Ark in Colorado, and its wreck onPike's Peak--the literature of our subject becomes abundant, but wecannot pause to review it in detail.
The re-emergence of the Colorado mountain region continued slowly, andwithout any disastrous convulsions, and the level of the water recededyear by year as the land rose, and the sea lost by evaporation intospace and by chemical absorption in the crust.
In some other parts of the Rockies, as Professor Pludder hadanticipated, an uprising had occurred, and it was finally estimated thatas many as three million persons survived the deluge.
It was not the selected band with which Cosmo Versal had intended toregenerate mankind, but from the Ark he spread a leaven which had itseffect on the succeeding generations.
He taught his principles of eugenics, and implanted deep the germs ofscience, in which he was greatly aided by Professor Pludder, and,
as allreaders of this narrative know, we have every reason to believe that ournew world, although its population has not yet grown to ten millions, isfar superior, in every respect, to the old world that was drowned.
As the dry land spread wider extensive farms were developed, and for along time there was almost no other occupation than that of cultivatingthe rich soil.
President Samson was, by unanimous vote, elected President of therepublic of New America, and King Richard became his Secretary of State,an office, he declared, of which he was prouder than he had been of hiskingship, when the sound of the British drumbeat accompanied the sunaround the world.
Amos Blank, returning to his old methods, soon became the leadingfarmer, buying out the others until the government sternly interferedand compelled him to relinquish everything but five hundred acres ofground.
But on this Blank developed a most surprising collection of domesticanimals, principally from the stocks that Cosmo had saved in the Ark.
The elephants died, and the Astorian turtles did not reproduce theirkind, but the gigantic turkeys and the big cattle and sheep didexceedingly well, and many other varieties previously unknown weregradually developed with the aid of Sir Wilfrid Athelstone, who foundevery opportunity to apply his theories in practice.
Of Costake Theriade, and the inter-atomic force, it is only necessary toremind the reader that the marvelous mechanical powers which we possessto-day, and which we draw directly from the hidden stores of theelectrons, trace their origin to the brain of the "speculative genius"from Roumania, whom Cosmo Versal had the insight to save from the greatsecond deluge.
All of these actors long ago passed from the scene, President Samsonbeing the last survivor, after winning by his able administration thetitle of the second father of his country. But to the last he showed hismagnanimity by honoring Cosmo Versal, and upon the latter's death hecaused to be carved, high on the brow of the great mountain on which hisvoyage ended, in gigantic letters, cut deep in the living rock, andcovered with shining, incorrodible levium, an inscription that willtransmit his fame to the remotest posterity:
HERE RESTED THE ARK OF COSMO VERSAL! _He Foresaw and Prepared for the Second Deluge, And Although Nature Aided Him in Unexpected Ways, Yet, but for Him, His Warnings, and His Example The World of Man Would Have Ceased To Exist._
It would be unjust to Mr. Samson to suppose that any ironical intentionwas in his mind when he composed this lofty inscription.
_Postscriptum_
While these words are being written, news comes of the return of anaero, driven by inter-atomic energy, from a voyage of exploration roundthe earth.
It appears that the Alps are yet deeply buried, but that Mount Everestnow lifts its head more than ten thousand feet above the sea, and thatsome of the loftiest plains of Tibet are beginning to re-emerge.
Thus Cosmo Versal's prediction is fulfilled, though he has not lived tosee it.
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