CHAPTER X
The Twilight of Space
"Shall I come up into your compartment for the operation?" I asked.
"No; for this first time we will pump out my compartment, as I wish toobserve from the rear port-hole the action of the air which we setfree."
The bulkhead, with its bevelled edge, was therefore fitted into theopening between the compartments, and I took the first turn at the leverhandle of the air-pump, while the doctor observed from the window. I hadgiven the handle less than a dozen vigorous strokes when the doctorsuddenly exclaimed,--
"Stop! Wait a moment;" and he began pulling at the bulkhead, which wasalready rather tightly wedged in by the air pressure. "I have left therabbit inside," he said, when he found breath to speak. And poor littlebunny's heart was beginning to beat fast when he was rescued.
Then we began again. The doctor watched the escaping air for some time,evidently forgetting that I was at all interested in it.
"All quite as I expected," he said at last. "Only I had forgotten aboutthe snow."
"Nothing will ever be very new or interesting to you," I put in; "butpray remember I am here, and rapidly getting empty of breath and full ofcuriosity."
Then he relieved me at the pump handle, and this is what I saw from theport-hole: The air escaping from the discharge pipe of the air-pump wasvisible, and looked like dull, grey steam. Immediately on being set freeit swelled and expanded greatly, and sank away from us slowly. But atthe instant of its expansion the cold thus produced froze the moistureof the air into a fine fleecy snow, which lasted but a second as it sankaway from us and melted in the heat, which the thermometer showed to beclose upon ninety-five degrees. This miniature snowstorm was seen for aninstant only after each down motion of the pump handle.
"Where is this air going?" I inquired. "The little clouds of it seem todrop away from us like lead; but that must be because of our speed."
"It is falling back to the Earth, to join the outer layer of rareatmosphere there. If we had a positive current instead of a negativeone, the air would not leave us, but we should gradually be surroundedby an atmosphere of our own, which we should retain until some planet,whose gravitational attraction is vastly stronger than ours, stole itfrom us. When we begin to fall into Mars, we shall acquire such anenveloping atmosphere; and we can draw upon it and re-compress it if ourinner supply should become exhausted."
"If this air is falling home to earth," said I, "we could send messagesback in that manner."
"We can drop them back at any time, regardless of the air," he answered,and then added suddenly, "but it will make a beautiful experiment todrop out a bottle now."
He ceased pumping, and opening a bottle of asparagus tips, he placedthem in a bowl, and prepared to drop out the bottle. I took my penciland wrote this message to go inside,--"Behold, I have decreed a judgmentupon the Earth; for it shall rain pickle bottles and biscuit tins forthe period of forty days, because of the wickedness of the world, unlessshe repent!" And I pictured to myself the perplexity of the poor devilwho should see this message come straight down from heaven!
In order to make his experiment more successful, the doctor put in halfa dozen bullets from one of the rifles, to make the weight moreperceptible. Then he put the bottle into the discharging cylinder, andpreparing to push it out he stooped over the port-hole. At a signal fromhim I gave the pump handle several quick, successive motions, and at thesame instant he let drop the bottle. At once he cried out,--
"Beautiful! and just as I thought."
"But I didn't see it!" I protested. "What was it?"
"The instant the bottle was released the discharged air was immediatelyattracted toward it, and gradually surrounded it entirely. It was like alittle planet with an atmosphere of its own, as they fell back to theEarth together."
"But I couldn't see it; I had to pump," I complained. "We must do itagain."
"We shall soon have our bottled things all emptied out on plates to dryup and spoil," he objected. So I emptied a biscuit tin this time, anddelaying for no message, I put it in the discharging cylinder. Then Ibent over the port-hole and gave the signal for the pumping. As I thrustout the tin I was astonished to see the lid pop off the first thing. Thequick expansion of the air inside it did that. This air, as well as theair from the discharge pipe, seemed to flee from it instead ofsurrounding it, as the doctor had said. I continued watching so longthat he finally said,--
"Hasn't it fallen out of sight yet?"
"No; it is not falling away swiftly as the air does. It is following theprojectile! It is not gathering any air about it as you said it would.It does not quite keep up with us; but considering our speed, it isdoing remarkably well!"
The doctor was not inclined to believe me until he had looked forhimself. He watched and pondered for a minute or two. Then his surpriseceased, and he spoke in that assured way which always irritated me.
"Quite natural, after all," he said. "That biscuit can is made of thinsheet-iron with a surface coating of tin. The iron has become magnetizedby induction, and the Earth repels the can just as it repels us. It willfollow us to the dead-line, and probably on to Mars, unless thesheet-iron loses its polarization. If we had cast out a thing of solidiron, it would rush ahead of us, instead of falling a little behind, asthis does, for it would have no dead weight to carry. But we could notput such a thing out of the rear end, for no force would make it fallthat way. If we put it out of the forward port-hole, it would beat us inthe race toward Mars."
I remarked to the doctor that the air-pump seemed to be incorrectlybuilt, for its action was strangely difficult in the reverse manner thatit should have been. The down strokes went by themselves with a quicksnap, but the up strokes were as if against pressure, and the moment thehandle was released it flew down again. He had not tested the pump atthe surface, as it was of a well-known make, but it certainly seemed towork backwards. Moreover, the more nearly we had a compartment emptiedof air, the more difficult the pumping should become, but here again thereverse seemed to be the case, for the longer we worked the easier theup strokes became.
The temperature of the projectile was still fairly comfortable, and thedoctor allowed the condensed air to issue very slowly into the partialvacuum in his compartment until it produced a barometric pressure oftwenty-seven. Then we pulled back the bulkhead, and when the newatmosphere had mixed with the old in my compartment, a pressure oftwenty-eight resulted.
"That is about the way the barometer stands during tempests at sea,"remarked the doctor. I could not notice much difference from the air wehad previously had. Possibly it was fresher and slightly moreexhilarating.
The effort at the pump had made us both hungry again, and I preparedfrom meat extracts a warm and rather thick gravy to put over theasparagus tips. I attempted to pour it, but it was so light that itssticky consistency prevented it from running. We had a hundred suchexamples daily of the changes which lack of weight caused in thesimplest operations. With sandwiches made of biscuits and condensedmeat, we eked out a luncheon. This must have been about noon, for whenit was over I remember noticing that we no longer needed the gas in thecompartment, for there was a gradually increasing mellow light outside.
"Are we already emerging from the shadow?" I inquired eagerly.
"No, not yet," replied the doctor. "But we are now entering itsilluminated core. I must prepare to photograph the strange appearance ofthe Sun that we shall see presently."
I hastened to the port-hole, and did not leave until it was all over.What I then saw was one of the most beautiful things of the whole trip.The light outside was not bright, but soft and dreamy, like the firsttwilight after a rich day of summer. The great corona all around theouter edge of the Earth was the most magnificent appearance I have everseen. It was not at all dazzling, but had the melting shades, first of asunrise and then of a gorgeous sunset. We had missed the gradualappearance of the phenomenon, but we had a good view of its highestsplendour. The colours were continually but slowly changing, a
nd finallythe darker hues gradually suffused and dyed the pinks and crimsons.
The Earth was now about three times the diameter of a rising Full Moon,and the corona was about a quarter her width, and looked as if twentyshell-pink suns were set one against the other and overlapping all aboutthe edge of the dark orb.
"How do you know that is not really the extending edge of the Sun?" Iasked the doctor. "Perhaps we are already far enough away to see it allabout the Earth like that."
"If that were really the Sun, the light from his extending edge wouldilluminate the surface of the Earth towards us. The planet's outlinewould be irregular and partly glowing, but you see it is quite dull anddark, and the outline is most plainly visible."
In rapt attention I watched the delicate shell-pink change to a deeperhue of orange, and then our twilight waned a little and turned a sombregrey. Presently the corona glowed a rich maroon, gradually dying to aluminous purple, which slowly deepened and darkened, and finally meltedinto the general blackness. And lo! we were in the shadow again, and thedreamily beautiful panorama was over.
"It must have lasted nearly an hour," said the doctor. "I am sorry wedid not notice the beginning, but it must have commenced with the samedull shades we saw at the end, and gradually changed to brightercolours. I secured three negatives when the glow was most intense."
"Then we have had a waxing and a waning twilight coming together in themiddle of our night. And the corona was like a sunrise, followedimmediately by a sunset," I exclaimed.
"And why shouldn't it appear so?" said the matter-of-fact doctor."Twilight is the commonest phenomenon of refraction with which we areacquainted, and sunrise and sunset are merely a mixture of refractionand reflection. There is nothing new about it."
"Now, Doctor, we must remain friends, but you shall not continuallytarnish my poetry with your accursed science! I thank my Creator thatHe made me ignorant enough to admire the beauties of nature. You arecontinually peeping behind the scenes, and pointing out the greasepaints, the lime-lights and the sham effects. Let me enjoy the beauty ofthe tableau, no matter how it is produced. I would give all of your patknowledge for that feeling of profound awe which rises in the untutoredbreast at beholding the magnificent grandeur of unfamiliar nature."
"When your ecstasy has quite passed, I shall appreciate a little coldmutton and biscuits, and then we must pump out again," he replied.