Great Stone of Sardis

by Frank Richard Stockton

  CHAPTER XIII. LONGITUDE EVERYTHING

  The sun was as high in the polar heavens as it ever rises in that partof the world. Captain Hubbell stood on the deck of the Dipsey with hisquadrant in hand to take an observation. The engines had been stopped,and nearly everybody on the vessel now surrounded him.

  "Longitude everything," said Captain James Hubbell, "latitude ninety,which is as near as I can make it out."

  "My friends," said Mr. Gibbs, looking about him, "we have found thepole."

  And at these words every head was uncovered.

  For some moments no one spoke; but there was a look upon the faces ofmost of the party which expressed a feeling which was voiced by SarahBlock.

  "And yet," said she, speaking in a low tone, "there's nothing to see,after all!"

  Captain Hubbell's observations and calculations, although accurateenough for all ordinary nautical purposes, were not sufficiently preciseto satisfy the demands of the present occasion, and Mr. Gibbs andthe electricians began a series of experiments to determine the exactposition of the true pole.

  The vessel was now steered this way and that, sometimes backed, and thensent forward again. After about an hour of this zigzag work Mr. Gibbsordered the engine stopped.

  "Now," said he, "the ring on the deck is exactly over the pole, and wemay prepare to take possession."

  At these words Samuel Block disappeared below, followed by his wife.

  "That was an odd expression of yours, Captain Hubbell," said Mr. Gibbs,"when you said we had reached longitude everything. It is correct, ofcourse, but it had not struck me in that light."

  "Of course it is correct," said Captain Hubbell. "The end of every lineof longitude is right here in a bunch. If you were a bird, you couldchoose one of 'em and fly down along it to Washington or Greenwich orany other point you pleased. Longitude everything is what it is; we'vegot the whole of 'em right under us."

  Now Samuel Block came on deck, where everybody else on board soongathered. With a furled flag in his hand, dressed in his best andcleanest clothes, and with a large fur cloak thrown over his shoulders,Mr Block advanced towards the ring on the deck, near the compass.

  But he was yet several yards from this point when a black figure,crouching close to the deck, issued from among the men, a little in therear of the party, and made a dash towards the ring. It was the Pole,Rovinski, who had been standing quivering with excitement, waiting forthis supreme moment. But almost at the same instant there sprang fromthe side of Mr. Gibbs another figure, with a face livid with agitation.This was Mr. Marcy, who had noticed the foreigner's excitement andhad been watching him. Like a stone from a catapult, Mr. Marcy rushedtowards Rovinski, taking a course diagonal to that of the latter, and,striking him with tremendous force just before he reached the ring, hethrew him against the rail with such violence that the momentum givento his head and body carried them completely over it, and his legsfollowing, the man went headlong into the sea.

  Instantly there was a shout of horror. Sarah Block screamed violently,and her husband exclaimed: "That infernal Pole! He has gone down to thepole, and I hope he may stay there!"

  "What does all this mean, Mr. Marcy?" roared Captain Hubbell; "and whydid you throw him overboard?"

  "Never mind now," cried Sammy, his voice rising above the confusion. "Iwill tell you all about it. I see what he was up to. He wanted to takepossession of the pole in his own beastly name, most likely."

  "I don't understand a word of all this," exclaimed Mr. Gibbs. "But thereis the man; he has risen to the surface."

  "Shall we let him sink," cried Sammy, "or haul him aboard?"

  "Let the man sink!" yelled Captain Hubbell. "What do you mean, sir?"

  "Well, I suppose it wouldn't do," said Sammy, "and we must get himaboard."

  Captain Hubbell roared out orders to throw out life-preservers and lowera boat; but, remembering that he was not on board a vessel of the oldentimes, he changed the order and commanded that a patent boat-hook beused upon the man in the water.

  The end of this boat-hook, which could be shot out like a fishing-rod,was hooked into Rovinski's clothes, and he was pulled to the vessel.Then a rope was lowered, and he was hauled on board, shivering andshaking.

  "Take him below and put him in irons," cried Sammy.

  "Mr. Block," said Captain Hubbell, "I want you to understand that Iam skipper of this vessel, and that I am to give orders. I don't knowanything about this man; but do you want him put in irons?"

  "I do," said Sammy, "for the present."

  "Take that man below and put him in irons!" roared Captain Hubbell.

  "And give him some dry clothes," added Sarah Block.

  When the confusion consequent upon the incident had subsided there was ageneral desire not to delay for a moment the actual act of taking legalpossession of the pole they had discovered.

  Sammy now advanced, his fur cap in one hand and his flag in the other,and took his position in the centre of the circle. For a few momentshe did not speak, but turned slowly around, as if desirous of availinghimself of the hitherto unknown privilege of looking southward in everydirection.

  "I'm glad he remembers what I told him," said Sarah. "He's making itlast as long as he can."

  "As the representative of Roland Clewe, Esq.," said Samuel, deliberatelyand distinctly, "I take possession of the north pole of this earth inthe name of United North America." With these words he unfurled hisflag, with its broad red and white stripes, and its seven great starsin the field of blue, and stuck the sharp end of the flagstaff into thedeck in the centre of the circle.*

  [* It must be understood that at this time the seven great countries of North America--Greenland, Norland (formerly British America, British Columbia, and Alaska), Canada, the United States, Mexico, Central America, and West Indies-- were united under one confederated government, and had one flag, a modification of the banner of the dominant nation.]

  "Now," said he to his companions, "this pole is ours, and if anybodyever comes into this sea from Russia, or Iceland, or any other place,they will find the north pole has been pre-empted." At this three heartycheers were given by the assembled company, who thereupon put on theirhats.

  The rest of that day and part of the next were spent in takingsoundings, and very curious and surprising results were obtained. Theelectric lead, which rang the instant it touched bottom, showed that thesea immediately over the pole was comparatively shallow, while in everydirection from this point the depth increased rapidly. Many interestingexperiments were made, which determined the character of the bottom andthe varied deposits thereupon, but the most important result of the workof Mr. Gibbs and his associates was the discovery of the formation ofthe extreme northern portion of the earth. The rock-bed of the sea wasfound to be of the shape of a flattened cone, regularly sloping off fromthe polar point.

  This peculiar form of the solid portion of the earth at the pole wasoccasioned, Mr. Gibbs believed, by the rotary motion of the bottom ofthe sea, which moved much more rapidly than the water above it, thusgradually wearing itself away, and giving to our earth that depressionat the poles which has been so long known to geographers.

  Day after day the experiments went on; but Mr. Gibbs and his associateswere extremely interested in what they were doing; some of the restof the party began to get a little tired of the monotony. There wasabsolutely nothing to see except water and sky; and although thetemperature was frequently some degrees above freezing, and becamesometimes quite pleasant as they gradually grew accustomed to the outerarctic atmosphere, those who had no particular occupation to diverttheir minds made frequent complaints of the cold. There were occasionalsnow-storms, but these did not last long, and as a rule the skies wereclear.

  "But think, Sarah," said Samuel Block, in answer to some of hercomplaints, "what it would be if this were winter, and, instead ofbeing light all the time, it was dark, with the mercury 'way down at thebottom of the thermometer!"

  "I don't intend to think
of it at all," replied Sarah, sharply. "Do yousuppose I am goin' to consent to stay here until the everlastin' nightcomes on? If that happened, I would simply stretch myself out and die.It's bad enough as it is; but when I look out on the sun, and think thatit is the same sun that is shinin' on Sardis, and on the house whichI hope we are goin' to have when we get back, I feel as if there wassomethin' up here besides you, Sammy, that I'm accustomed to. If it wasnot for you and the sun, I could not get along at all; but if the sun'sgone, I don't think you will be enough. I wish they would plant thatcorner-stone buoy and let us be off."

  But by far the most dissatisfied person on board was the Pole, Rovinski.He was chained to the floor in the hold, and could see nothing; norcould he find out anything. Sammy had explained his character andprobable intentions to Captain Hubbell, who had thereupon delivered toMr. Block a very severe lecture for not telling him before.

  "If I've got a scoundrel on board I want to know it, and I hope thissort of thing won't happen again, Mr. Block."

  "I don't see how it can," answered Sammy; "and I must admit I ought tohave told you as soon as you took command; but people don't always doall they ought to do; and, as for tellin' Mr. Gibbs, I would notdo that, for his mind is rigged on a hair-spring balance anyway; itwouldn't do to upset him."

  "And what are we goin' to do with the feller?" said the captain. "Nowthat I know what this Pole is, I wish I had let him go down to the otherpole and stay there."

  "I thought so at first," said Sammy; "but I'm glad he didn't; I'd hateto think of our glorious pole with that thing floppin' on it."

  At last all was ready to anchor the great buoy, and preparations werein progress for this important event, when everybody was startled by ashout from Mr. Marcy.

  "Hello!" he cried. "What's that? A sail?"

  "Where away?" shouted the captain.

  "To the south," replied Mr. Marcy. And instantly everybody was lookingin opposite directions. But Mr. Marcy's outstretched arm soon indicatedto all the position of the cause of his outcry. It was a black spotclearly visible upon the surface of the sea, and apparently about twomiles away. Quickly Captain Hubbell had his glass directed upon it, andthe next moment he gave a loud cry.

  "It's a whale!" he shouted. "There's whales in this polar sea!"

  "I thought you said whales were extinct," cried Sammy.

  "So I did," replied the captain. "And so they are in all Christianwaters. Who ever could have imagined that we would have found 'em here?"

  Sarah Block was so frightened when she found there was a whale in thesame water in which the Dipsey floated that she immediately hurriedbelow, with an indistinct idea of putting on her things. In such a caseas this, it was time for her to leave. But soon recognizing the stateof affairs, she sat down in a chair, threw a shawl over her head, andwaited for the awful bump.

  "Fortunately whales are soft," she said to her, self over and overagain.

  No one now thought of buoys. Every eye on deck was fixed upon theexposed back of the whale, and everybody speedily agreed that it wascoming nearer to them. It did come nearer and nearer, and at one time itraised its head as if it were endeavoring to look over the water at thestrange object which had come into those seas. Then suddenly it tossedits tail high into the air and sank out of sight.

  "It's a right-whale!" cried Captain Hubbell. "There's whales in thissea! Let's get through this buoy business and go cruisin' after 'em."

  There was a great deal of excited talk about the appearance of thewhale, but this was not allowed to interfere with the business in hand.A chain, not very heavy but of enormous strength, and of sufficientlength to reach the bottom and give plenty of play, was attached to ananchor of a peculiar kind. It was very large and heavy, made of iron,and shaped something like a cuttlefish, with many arms which would clingto the bottom if any force were exerted to move the anchor. The otherend of the chain was attached to the lower part of the buoy, and withpowerful cranes the anchor was hoisted on deck, and when everything hadbeen made ready the buoy, which had had the proper date cut upon it, waslowered into the water. Then the great anchor was dropped into the sea,as nearly as possible over the pole.

  The sudden rush downward of the anchor and the chain caused the buoy todip into the sea as if it were about to sink out of sight, but in a fewmoments it rose again, and the great sphere, half-way out of the water,floated proudly upon the surface of the polar sea.

  Then came a great cheer, and Mrs. Block--who, having been assured thatthe whale had entirely disappeared, had come on deck--turned to herhusband and remarked: "Now, Sammy, is there any earthly reason why weshould not turn right around and go straight home? The pole's found, andthe place is marked, and what more is there for us to do?"

  But before her husband could answer her, Captain Hubbell lifted up hisvoice, which was full of spirit and enthusiasm.

  "Messmates!" he cried, "we have touched at the pole, and we haveanchored the buoy, and now let us go whalin'. It's thirty years sinceI saw one of them fish, and I never expected in all my born days I'd goa-whalin'."

  The rest of the company on the Dipsey took no very great interest in thewhaling cruise, but, on consultation with Mr. Clewe and Mrs. Raleigh atSardis, it was decided that they ought by no means to leave the polarsea until they had explored it as thoroughly as circumstances wouldallow. Consequently the next day the Dipsey sailed away from thepole, leaving the buoy brightly floating on a gently rolling sea, itshigh-uplifted weather-vane glittering in the sun, with each of its endsalways pointing bravely to the south.