by Jules Verne
CHAPTER XX.
OFF THE PACIFIC COAST.
"Well, Lieutenant, how goes the sounding?"
"Pretty lively, Captain; we're nearly through;" replied the Lieutenant."But it's a tremendous depth so near land. We can't be more than 250miles from the California coast."
"The depression certainly is far deeper than I had expected," observedCaptain Bloomsbury. "We have probably lit on a submarine valleychannelled out by the Japanese Current."
"The Japanese Current, Captain?"
"Certainly; that branch of it which breaks on the western shores ofNorth America and then flows southeast towards the Isthmus of Panama."
"That may account for it, Captain," replied young Brownson; "at least, Ihope it does, for then we may expect the valley to get shallower as weleave the land. So far, there's no sign of a Telegraphic Plateau in thisquarter of the globe."
"Probably not, Brownson. How is the line now?"
"We have paid out 3500 fathoms already, Captain, but, judging from therate the reel goes at, we are still some distance from bottom."
As he spoke, he pointed to a tall derrick temporarily rigged up at thestern of the vessel for the purpose of working the sounding apparatus,and surrounded by a group of busy men. Through a block pulley stronglylashed to the derrick, a stout cord of the best Italian hemp, wound offa large reel placed amidships, was now running rapidly and with a slightwhirring noise.
"I hope it's not the 'cup-lead' you are using, Brownson?" said theCaptain, after a few minutes observation.
"Oh no, Captain, certainly not," replied the Lieutenant. "It's onlyBrooke's apparatus that is of any use in such depths."
"Clever fellow that Brooke," observed the Captain; "served with himunder Maury. His detachment of the weight is really the starting pointfor every new improvement in sounding gear. The English, the French, andeven our own, are nothing but modifications of that fundamentalprinciple. Exceedingly clever fellow!"
"Bottom!" sang out one of the men standing near the derrick and watchingthe operations.
The Captain and the Lieutenant immediately advanced to question him.
"What's the depth, Coleman?" asked the Lieutenant.
"21,762 feet," was the prompt reply, which Brownson immediatelyinscribed in his note-book, handing a duplicate to the Captain.
"All right, Lieutenant," observed the Captain, after a moment'sinspection of the figures. "While I enter it in the log, you haul theline aboard. To do so, I need hardly remind you, is a task involvingcare and patience. In spite of all our gallant little donkey engine cando, it's a six hours job at least. Meanwhile, the Chief Engineer hadbetter give orders for firing up, so that we may be ready to start assoon as you're through. It's now close on to four bells, and with yourpermission I shall turn in. Let me be called at three. Good night!"
"Goodnight, Captain!" replied Brownson, who spent the next two hourspacing backward and forward on the quarter deck, watching the hauling inof the sounding line, and occasionally casting a glance towards allquarters of the sky.
It was a glorious night. The innumerable stars glittered with thebrilliancy of the purest gems. The ship, hove to in order to take thesoundings, swung gently on the faintly heaving ocean breast. You feltyou were in a tropical clime, for, though no breath fanned your cheek,your senses easily detected the delicious odor of a distant garden ofsweet roses. The sea sparkled with phosphorescence. Not a sound washeard except the panting of the hard-worked little donkey-engine and thewhirr of the line as it came up taut and dripping from the ocean depths.The lamp, hanging from the mast, threw a bright glare on deck,presenting the strongest contrast with the black shadows, firm andmotionless as marble. The 11th day of December was now near its lasthour.
The steamer was the _Susquehanna_, a screw, of the United States Navy,4,000 in tonnage, and carrying 20 guns. She had been detached to takesoundings between the Pacific coast and the Sandwich Islands, theinitiatory movement towards laying down an Ocean Cable, which the_Pacific Cable Company_ contemplated finally extending to China. She layjust now a few hundred miles directly south of San Diego, an old Spanishtown in southwestern California, and the point which is expected to bethe terminus of the great _Texas and Pacific Railroad_.
The Captain, John Bloomsbury by name, but better known as 'High-LowJack' from his great love of that game--the only one he was ever knownto play--was a near relation of our old friend Colonel Bloomsbury of theBaltimore Gun Club. Of a good Kentucky family, and educated atAnnapolis, he had passed his meridian without ever being heard of, whensuddenly the news that he had run the gauntlet in a little gunboat pastthe terrible batteries of Island Number Ten, amidst a perfect storm ofshell, grape and canister discharged at less than a hundred yardsdistance, burst on the American nation on the sixth of April, 1862, andinscribed his name at once in deep characters on the list of the giantsof the Great War. But war had never been his vocation. With the returnof peace, he had sought and obtained employment on the Western CoastSurvey, where every thing he did he looked on as a labor of love. TheSounding Expedition he had particularly coveted, and, once entered uponit, he discharged his duties with characteristic energy.
He could not have had more favorable weather than the present for asuccessful performance of the nice and delicate investigations ofsounding. His vessel had even been fortunate enough to have lainaltogether out of the track of the terrible wind storm already alludedto, which, starting from somewhere southwest of the Sierra Madre, hadswept away every vestige of mist from the summits of the Rocky Mountainsand, by revealing the Moon in all her splendor, had enabled Belfast tosend the famous despatch announcing that he had seen the Projectile.Every feature of the expedition was, in fact, advancing so favorablythat the Captain expected to be able, in a month or two, to submit tothe _P.C. Company_ a most satisfactory report of his labors.
Cyrus W. Field, the life and soul of the whole enterprise, flushed withhonors still in full bloom (the Atlantic Telegraph Cable having beenjust laid), could congratulate himself with good reason on having founda treasure in the Captain. High-Low Jack was the congenial spirit bywhose active and intelligent aid he promised himself the pleasure ofseeing before long the whole Pacific Ocean covered with a vastreticulation of electric cables. The practical part, therefore, being insuch safe hands, Mr. Field could remain with a quiet conscience inWashington, New York or London, seeing after the financial part of thegrand undertaking, worthy of the Nineteenth Century, worthy of the GreatRepublic, and eminently worthy of the illustrious CYRUS W. himself!
As already mentioned, the _Susquehanna_ lay a few hundred miles southof San Diego, or, to be more accurate, in 27 deg. 7' North Latitude and 118 deg.37' West Longitude (Greenwich).
It was now a little past midnight. The Moon, in her last quarter, wasjust beginning to peep over the eastern horizon. Lieutenant Brownson,leaving the quarter deck, had gone to the forecastle, where he found acrowd of officers talking together earnestly and directing their glassestowards her disc. Even here, out on the ocean, the Queen of the night,was as great an object of attraction as on the North American Continentgenerally, where, that very night and that very hour, at least 40million pairs of eyes were anxiously gazing at her. Apparently forgetfulthat even the very best of their glasses could no more see theProjectile than angulate Sirius, the officers held them fast to theireyes for five minutes at a time, and then took them away only to talkwith remarkable fluency on what they had not discovered.
"Any sign of them yet, gentlemen?" asked Brownson gaily as he joined thegroup. "It's now pretty near time for them to put in an appearance.They're gone ten days I should think."
"They're there, Lieutenant! not a doubt of it!" cried a young midshipman,fresh from Annapolis, and of course "throughly posted" in the latestrevelations of Astronomy. "I feel as certain of their being there as Iam of our being here on the forecastle of the _Susquehanna_!"
"I must agree with you of course, Mr. Midshipman," replied Brownsonwith a slight smile; "I have no grounds whatever for contradicti
ng you."
"Neither have I," observed another officer, the surgeon of the vessel."The Projectile was to have reached the Moon when at her full, which wasat midnight on the 5th. To-day was the 11th. This gives them six days ofclear light--time enough in all conscience not only to land safely butto install themselves quite comfortably in their new home. In fact, Isee them there already--"
"In my mind's eye, Horatio!" laughed one of the group. "Though the Docwears glasses, he can see more than any ten men on board."
--"Already"--pursued the Doctor, heedless of the interruption. "_Scene_,a stony valley near a Selenite stream; the Projectile on the right, halfburied in volcanic _scoriae_, but apparently not much the worse for thewear; ring mountains, craters, sharp peaks, etc. all around; old MACdiscovered taking observations with his levelling staff; BARBICANperched on the summit of a sharp pointed rock, writing up his note-book;ARDAN, eye-glass on nose, hat under arm, legs apart, puffing at his_Imperador_, like a--"
MAC DISCOVERED TAKING OBSERVATIONS.]
--"A locomotive!" interrupted the young Midshipman, his excitableimagination so far getting the better of him as to make him forget hismanners. He had just finished Locke's famous MOON HOAX, and his brainwas still full of its pictures. "In the background," he went on, "can beseen thousands of _Vespertiliones-Homines_ or _Man-Bats_, in all thevarious attitudes of curiosity, alarm, or consternation; some of thempeeping around the rocks, some fluttering from peak to peak, allgibbering a language more or less resembling the notes of birds. _Enter_LUNATICO, King of the Selenites--"
"Excuse us, Mr. Midshipman," interrupted Brownson with an easy smile,"Locke's authority may have great weight among the young Middies atAnnapolis, but it does not rank very high at present in the estimationof practical scientists." This rebuff administered to the conceitedlittle Midshipman, a rebuff which the Doctor particularly relished,Brownson continued: "Gentlemen, we certainly know nothing whateverregarding our friends' fate; guessing gives no information. How we everare to hear from the Moon until we are connected with it by a lunarcable, I can't even imagine. The probability is that we shall never--"
"Excuse me, Lieutenant," interrupted the unrebuffed little Midshipman;"Can't Barbican write?"
A shout of derisive comments greeted this question.
"Certainly he can write, and send his letter by the Pony Express!" criedone.
"A Postal Card would be cheaper!" cried another.
"The _New York Herald_ will send a reporter after it!" was theexclamation of a third.
"Keep cool, just keep cool, gentlemen," persisted the little Midshipman,not in the least abashed by the uproarious hilarity excited by hisremarks. "I asked if Barbican couldn't write. In that question I seenothing whatever to laugh at. Can't a man write without being obliged tosend his letters?"
"This is all nonsense," said the Doctor. "What's the use of a manwriting to you if he can't send you what he writes?"
"What's the use of his sending it to you if he can have it read withoutthat trouble?" answered the little Midshipman in a confident tone. "Isthere not a telescope at Long's Peak? Doesn't it bring the Moon within afew miles of the Rocky Mountains, and enable us to see on her surface,objects as small as nine feet in diameter? Well! What's to preventBarbican and his friends from constructing a gigantic alphabet? If theywrite words of even a few hundred yards and sentences a mile or twolong, what is to prevent us from reading them? Catch the idea now, eh?"
They did catch the idea, and heartily applauded the little Middy for hissmartness. Even the Doctor saw a certain kind of merit in it, andBrownson acknowledged it to be quite feasible. In fact, expanding on it,the Lieutenant assured his hearers that, by means of large parabolicreflectors, luminous groups of rays could be dispatched from the Earth,of sufficient brightness to establish direct communication even withVenus or Mars, where these rays would be quite as visible as the planetNeptune is from the Earth. He even added that those brilliant points oflight, which have been quite frequently observed in Mars and Venus, areperhaps signals made to the Earth by the inhabitants of these planets.He concluded, however, by observing that, though we might by these meanssucceed in obtaining news from the Moon, we could not possibly send anyintelligence back in return, unless indeed the Selenites had at theirdisposal optical instruments at least as good as ours.
All agreed that this was very true, and, as is generally the case whenone keeps all the talk to himself, the conversation now assumed soserious a turn that for some time it was hardly worth recording.
At last the Chief Engineer, excited by some remark that had been made,observed with much earnestness:
"You may say what you please, gentlemen, but I would willingly give mylast dollar to know what has become of those brave men! Have they doneanything? Have they seen anything? I hope they have. But I should dearlylike to know. Ever so little success would warrant a repetition of thegreat experiment. The Columbiad is still to the good in Florida, as itwill be for many a long day. There are millions of men to day as curiousas I am upon the subject. Therefore it will be only a question of merepowder and bullets if a cargo of visitors is not sent to the Moon everytime she passes our zenith.
"Marston would be one of the first of them," observed Brownson, lightinghis cigar.
"Oh, he would have plenty of company!" cried the Midshipman. "I shouldbe delighted to go if he'd only take me."
"No doubt you would, Mr. Midshipman," said Brownson, "the wise men, youknow, are not all dead yet."
"Nor the fools either, Lieutenant," growled old Frisby, the fourthofficer, getting tired of the conversation.
"There is no question at all about it," observed another; "every time aProjectile started, it would take off as many as it could carry."
"I wish it would only start often enough to improve the breed!" growledold Frisby.
"I have no doubt whatever," added the Chief Engineer, "that the thingwould get so fashionable at last that half the inhabitants of the Earthwould take a trip to the Moon."
"I should limit that privilege strictly to some of our friends inWashington," said old Frisby, whose temper had been soured probably by aneglect to recognize his long services; "and most of them I should byall means insist on sending to the Moon. Every month I would ram a wholeraft of them into the Columbiad, with a charge under them strong enoughto blow them all to the--But--Hey!--what in creation's that?"
FOR A SECOND ONLY DID THEY CATCH ITS FLASH.]
Whilst the officer was speaking, his companions had suddenly caught asound in the air which reminded them immediately of the whistling screamof a Lancaster shell. At first they thought the steam was escapingsomewhere, but, looking upwards, they saw that the strange noiseproceeded from a ball of dazzling brightness, directly over their heads,and evidently falling towards them with tremendous velocity. Toofrightened to say a word, they could only see that in its light thewhole ship blazed like fireworks, and the whole sea glittered like asilver lake. Quicker than tongue can utter, or mind can conceive, itflashed before their eyes for a second, an enormous bolide set on fireby friction with the atmosphere, and gleaming in its white heat like astream of molten iron gushing straight from the furnace. For a secondonly did they catch its flash before their eyes; then striking thebowsprit of the vessel, which it shivered into a thousand pieces, itvanished in the sea in an instant with a hiss, a scream, and a roar, allequally indescribable. For some time the utmost confusion reigned ondeck. With eyes too dazzled to see, ears still ringing with thefrightful combination of unearthly sounds, faces splashed with floods ofsea water, and noses stifled with clouds of scalding steam, the crew ofthe _Susquehanna_ could hardly realize that their marvellous escape by afew feet from instant and certain destruction was an accomplished fact,not a frightful dream. They were still engaged in trying to open theireyes and to get the hot water out of their ears, when they suddenlyheard the trumpet voice of Captain Bloomsbury crying, as he stood halfdressed on the head of the cabin stairs:
"What's up, gentlemen? In heaven's name, what's
up?"
The little Midshipman had been knocked flat by the concussion andstunned by the uproar. But before any body else could reply, his voicewas heard, clear and sharp, piercing the din like an arrow:
"It's THEY, Captain! Didn't I tell you so?"