The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 05

by Anthology

  "As there is nothing to do," said Nicholl, "I have a proposition to make."

  "What is that?" asked Barbicane.

  "I propose we go to sleep."

  "That is a nice idea!" exclaimed Michel Ardan.

  "It is forty hours since we have closed our eyes," said Nicholl. "A few hours' sleep would set us up again."

  "Never!" replied Michel.

  "Good," said Nicholl; "every man to his humour--mine is to sleep."

  And lying down on a divan, Nicholl was soon snoring like a forty-eight pound bullet.

  "Nicholl is a sensible man," said Barbicane soon. "I shall imitate him."

  A few minutes after he was joining his bass to the captain's baritone.

  "Decidedly," said Michel Ardan, when he found himself alone, "these practical people sometimes do have opportune ideas."

  And stretching out his long legs, and folding his long arms under his head, Michel went to sleep too.

  But this slumber could neither be durable nor peaceful. Too many preoccupations filled the minds of these three men, and a few hours after, at about 7 a.m., they all three awoke at once.

  The projectile was still moving away from the moon, inclining its conical summit more and more towards her. This phenomenon was inexplicable at present, but it fortunately aided the designs of Barbicane.

  Another seventeen hours and the time for action would have come.

  That day seemed long. However bold they might be, the travellers felt much anxiety at the approach of the minute that was to decide everything, either their fall upon the moon or their imprisonment in an immutable orbit. They therefore counted the hours, which went too slowly for them, Barbicane and Nicholl obstinately plunged in calculations, Michel walking up and down the narrow space between the walls contemplating with longing eye the impassible moon.

  Sometimes thoughts of the earth passed through their minds. They saw again their friends of the Gun Club, and the dearest of them all, J.T. Maston. At that moment the honourable secretary must have been occupying his post on the Rocky Mountains. If he should perceive the projectile upon the mirror of his gigantic telescope what would he think? After having seen it disappear behind the south pole of the moon, they would see it reappear at the north! It was, therefore, the satellite of a satellite! Had J.T. Maston sent that unexpected announcement into the world? Was this to be the dénouement of the great enterprise?

  Meanwhile the day passed without incident. Terrestrial midnight came. The 8th of December was about to commence. Another hour and the point of equal attraction would be reached. What velocity then animated the projectile? They could form no estimate; but no error could vitiate Barbicane's calculations. At 1 a.m. that velocity ought to be and would be nil.

  Besides, another phenomenon would mark the stopping point of the projectile on the neutral line. In that spot the two attractions, terrestrial and lunar, would be annihilated. Objects would not weigh anything. This singular fact, which had so curiously surprised Barbicane and his companions before, must again come about under identical circumstances. It was at that precise moment they must act.

  The conical summit of the bullet had already sensibly turned towards the lunar disc. The projectile was just right for utilising all the recoil produced by setting fire to the apparatus. Chance was therefore in the travellers' favour. If the velocity of the projectile were to be absolutely annihilated upon the neutral point, a given motion, however slight, towards the moon would determine its fall.

  "Five minutes to one," said Nicholl.

  "Everything is ready," answered Michel Ardan, directing his match towards the flame of the gas.

  "Wait!" said Barbicane, chronometer in hand.

  At that moment weight had no effect. The travellers felt its complete disappearance in themselves. They were near the neutral point if they had not reached it.

  "One o'clock!" said Barbicane.

  Michel Ardan put his match to a contrivance that put all the fuses into instantaneous communication. No detonation was heard outside, where air was wanting, but through the port-lights Barbicane saw the prolonged flame, which was immediately extinguished.

  The projectile had a slight shock which was very sensibly felt in the interior.

  The three friends looked, listened, without speaking, hardly breathing. The beating of their hearts might have been heard in the absolute silence.

  "Are we falling?" asked Michel Ardan at last.

  "No," answered Nicholl; "for the bottom of the projectile has not turned towards the lunar disc!"

  At that moment Barbicane left his window and turned towards his two companions. He was frightfully pale, his forehead wrinkled, his lips contracted.

  "We are falling!" said he.

  "Ah!" cried Michel Ardan, "upon the moon?"

  "Upon the earth!" answered Barbicane.

  "The devil!" cried Michel Ardan; and he added philosophically, "when we entered the bullet we did not think it would be so difficult to get out of it again."

  In fact, the frightful fall had begun. The velocity kept by the projectile had sent it beyond the neutral point. The explosion of the fuses had not stopped it. That velocity which had carried the projectile beyond the neutral line as it went was destined to do the same upon its return. The law of physics condemned it, in its elliptical orbit, to pass by every point it had already passed.

  It was a terrible fall from a height of 78,000 leagues, and which no springs could deaden. According to the laws of ballistics the projectile would strike the earth with a velocity equal to that which animated it as it left the Columbiad--a velocity of "16,000 metres in the last second!"

  And in order to give some figures for comparison it has been calculated that an object thrown from the towers of Notre Dame, the altitude of which is only 200 feet, would reach the pavement with a velocity of 120 leagues an hour. Here the projectile would strike the earth with a velocity of 57,600 leagues an hour.

  "We are lost men," said Nicholl coldly.

  "Well, if we die," answered Barbicane, with a sort of religious enthusiasm, "the result of our journey will be magnificently enlarged! God will tell us His own secret! In the other life the soul will need neither machines nor engines in order to know! It will be identified with eternal wisdom!"

  "True," replied Michel Ardan: "the other world may well console us for that trifling orb called the moon!"

  Barbicane crossed his arms upon his chest with a movement of sublime resignation.

  "God's will be done!" he said.

  CHAPTER XX.

  THE SOUNDINGS OF THE SUSQUEHANNA.

  Well, lieutenant, and what about those soundings?"

  "I think the operation is almost over, sir. But who would have expected to find such a depth so near land, at 100 leagues only from the American coast?"

  "Yes, Bronsfield, there is a great depression," said Captain Blomsberry. "There exists a submarine valley here, hollowed out by Humboldt's current, which runs along the coasts of America to the Straits of Magellan."

  "Those great depths," said the lieutenant, "are not favourable for the laying of telegraph cables. A smooth plateau is the best, like the one the American cable lies on between Valentia and Newfoundland."

  "I agree with you, Bronsfield. And, may it please you, lieutenant, where are we now?"

  "Sir," answered Bronsfield, "we have at this moment 21,500 feet of line out, and the bullet at the end of the line has not yet touched the bottom, for the sounding-lead would have come up again."

  "Brook's apparatus is an ingenious one," said Captain Blomsberry. "It allows us to obtain very correct soundings."

  "Touched!" cried at that moment one of the forecastle-men who was superintending the operation.

  The captain and lieutenant went on to the forecastle-deck.

  "What depth are we in?" asked the captain.

  "Twenty-one thousand seven hundred and sixty-two feet," answered the lieutenant, writing it down in his pocket-book.

  "Very well, Bronsfield," said the ca
ptain, "I will go and mark the result on my chart. Now have the sounding-line brought in--that is a work of several hours. Meanwhile the engineer shall have his fires lighted, and we shall be ready to start as soon as you have done. It is 10 p.m., and with your permission, lieutenant, I shall turn in."

  "Certainly, sir, certainly!" answered Lieutenant Bronsfield amiably.

  The captain of the Susquehanna, a worthy man if ever there was one, the very humble servant of his officers, went to his cabin, took his brandy-and-water with many expressions of satisfaction to the steward, got into bed, not before complimenting his servant on the way he made beds, and sank into peaceful slumber.

  It was then 10 p.m. The eleventh day of the month of December was going to end in a magnificent night.

  The Susquehanna, a corvette of 500 horse power, of the United States Navy, was taking soundings in the Pacific at about a hundred leagues from the American coast, abreast of that long peninsula on the coast of New Mexico.

  The wind had gradually fallen. There was not the slightest movement in the air. The colours of the corvette hung from the mast motionless and inert.

  The captain, Jonathan Blomsberry, cousin-german to Colonel Blomsberry, one of the Gun Club members who had married a Horschbidden, the captain's aunt and daughter of an honourable Kentucky merchant--Captain Blomsberry could not have wished for better weather to execute the delicate operation of sounding. His corvette had felt nothing of that great tempest which swept away the clouds heaped up on the Rocky Mountains, and allowed the course of the famous projectile to be observed. All was going on well, and he did not forget to thank Heaven with all the fervour of a Presbyterian.

  The series of soundings executed by the Susquehanna were intended for finding out the most favourable bottoms for the establishment of a submarine cable between the Hawaiian Islands and the American coast.

  It was a vast project set on foot by a powerful company. Its director, the intelligent Cyrus Field, meant even to cover all the islands of Oceania with a vast electric network--an immense enterprise worthy of American genius.

  It was to the corvette Susquehanna that the first operations of sounding had been entrusted. During the night from the 11th to the 12th of December she was exactly in north lat. 27° 7' and 41° 37' long., west from the Washington meridian.

  The moon, then in her last quarter, began to show herself above the horizon.

  After Captain Blomsberry's departure, Lieutenant Bronsfield and a few officers were together on the poop. As the moon appeared their thoughts turned towards that orb which the eyes of a whole hemisphere were then contemplating. The best marine glasses could not have discovered the projectile wandering round the demi-globe, and yet they were all pointed at the shining disc which millions of eyes were looking at in the same moment.

  "They started ten days ago," then said Lieutenant Bronsfield. "What can have become of them?"

  "They have arrived, sir," exclaimed a young midshipman, "and they are doing what all travellers do in a new country, they are looking about them."

  "I am certain of it as you say so, my young friend," answered Lieutenant Bronsfield, smiling.

  "Still," said another officer, "their arrival cannot be doubted. The projectile must have reached the moon at the moment she was full, at midnight on the 5th. We are now at the 11th of December; that makes six days. Now in six times twenty-four hours, with no darkness, they have had time to get comfortably settled. It seems to me that I see our brave countrymen encamped at the bottom of a valley, on the borders of a Selenite stream, near the projectile, half buried by its fall, amidst volcanic remains, Captain Nicholl beginning his levelling operations, President Barbicane putting his travelling notes in order, Michel Ardan performing the lunar solitudes with his Londrès cigar--"

  "Oh, it must be so; it is so!" exclaimed the young midshipman, enthusiastic at the ideal description of his superior.

  "I should like to believe it," answered Lieutenant Bronsfield, who was seldom carried away. "Unfortunately direct news from the lunar world will always be wanting."

  "Excuse me, sir," said the midshipman, "but cannot President Barbicane write?"

  A roar of laughter greeted this answer.

  "Not letters," answered the young man quickly. "The post-office has nothing to do with that."

  "Perhaps you mean the telegraph-office?" said one of the officers ironically.

  "Nor that either," answered the midshipman, who would not give in. "But it is very easy to establish graphic communication with the earth."

  "And how, pray?"

  "By means of the telescope on Long's Peak. You know that it brings the moon to within two leagues only of the Rocky Mountains, and that it allows them to see objects having nine feet of diameter on her surface. Well, our industrious friends will construct a gigantic alphabet! They will write words 600 feet long, and sentences a league long, and then they can send up news!"

  The young midshipman, who certainly had some imagination was loudly applauded. Lieutenant Bronsfield himself was convinced that the idea could have been carried out. He added that by sending luminous rays, grouped by means of parabolical mirrors, direct communications could also be established--in fact, these rays would be as visible on the surface of Venus or Mars as the planet Neptune is from the earth. He ended by saying that the brilliant points already observed on the nearest planets might be signals made to the earth. But he said, that though by these means they could have news from the lunar world, they could not send any from the terrestrial world unless the Selenites have at their disposition instruments with which to make distant observations.

  "That is evident," answered one of the officers, "but what has become of the travellers? What have they done? What have they seen? That is what interests us. Besides, if the experiment has succeeded, which I do not doubt, it will be done again. The Columbiad is still walled up in the soil of Florida. It is, therefore, now only a question of powder and shot, and every time the moon passes the zenith we can send it a cargo of visitors."

  "It is evident," answered Lieutenant Bronsfield, "that J.T. Maston will go and join his friends one of these days."

  "If he will have me," exclaimed the midshipman, "I am ready to go with him."

  "Oh, there will be plenty of amateurs, and if they are allowed to go, half the inhabitants of the earth will soon have emigrated to the moon!"

  This conversation between the officers of the Susquehanna was kept up till about 1 a.m. It would be impossible to transcribe the overwhelming systems and theories which were emitted by these audacious minds. Since Barbicane's attempt it seemed that nothing was impossible to Americans. They had already formed the project of sending, not another commission of savants, but a whole colony, and a whole army of infantry, artillery, and cavalry to conquer the lunar world.

  At 1 a.m. the sounding-line was not all hauled in. Ten thousand feet remained out, which would take several more hours to bring in. According to the commander's orders the fires had been lighted, and the pressure was going up already. The Susquehanna might have started at once.

  At that very moment--it was 1.17 a.m.--Lieutenant Bronsfield was about to leave his watch to turn in when his attention was attracted by a distant and quite unexpected hissing sound.

  His comrades and he at first thought that the hissing came from an escape of steam, but upon lifting up his head he found that it was high up in the air.

  They had not time to question each other before the hissing became of frightful intensity, and suddenly to their dazzled eyes appeared an enormous bolis, inflamed by the rapidity of its course, by its friction against the atmospheric strata.

  This ignited mass grew huger as it came nearer, and fell with the noise of thunder upon the bowsprit of the corvette, which it smashed off close to the stem, and vanished in the waves.

  A few feet nearer and the Susquehanna would have gone down with all on board.

  At that moment Captain Blomsberry appeared half-clothed, and rushing in the forecastle, where his offic
ers had preceded him--

  "With your permission, gentlemen, what has happened?" he asked.

  And the midshipman, making himself the mouthpiece of them all, cried out--

  "Commander, it is 'they' come back again."

  CHAPTER XXI.

  J.T. MASTON CALLED IN.

  Emotion was great on board the Susquehanna. Officers and sailors forgot the terrible danger they had just been in--the danger of being crushed and sunk. They only thought of the catastrophe which terminated the journey. Thus, therefore, the moat audacious enterprise of ancient and modern times lost the life of the bold adventurers who had attempted it.