The Warning of the Waters
Although at times during my first months in Atlantis I may have felt
out of place and wished that the waters would open above me and bear me
back to my own land, yet my longings were never mixed with misgivings
and my regrets never tinged with fears. Even in my most pessimistic
moments, I had no doubt but that the Sunken World was secure; that no
menace to life or tranquility lurked in its well-ordered depths; that
I might live out my days unmolested and in a peaceful routine. Hence I
was all the more shocked at discovery of that peril which was to give
Atlantis the aspect of a beleaguered city, and to overcast its beauty
with foreboding and horror.
I had been in Atlantis over a year when the crisis occurred. It was a
crisis as startling and unexpected as the flaming of a meteor out of a
calm sky; and yet, had we but known it, it had been preparing its way
insidiously during the days of fancied safety, like some mortal disease
that burrows through tissues which are apparently sound. And, like such
a disease, it might have been checked had it only been discovered in
time.
I remember that one night, after many onerous hours devoted to my
“History of the Upper World,” I slept but poorly, with an intermittent
slumber disturbed by nightmares of huge towers crashing to destruction.
And during the wakeful intervals my thoughts framed other nightmares,
and I was agitated by a vague alarm and excitement, though I could
not understand why. Not until much later did it occur to me that some
telegraphic force, akin to the magnetic will power of the Atlanteans,
may have conveyed to me the deep unrest that surcharged the atmosphere.
But whether or not this explanation be valid, I know that in the
morning, when I had dressed and stood in my roof-bedroom gazing down
into the streets, I became acutely conscious that something was wrong.
Every few minutes a native or group of natives could be seen rushing by
at a speed I had never before observed among the unhurried Atlanteans;
and it seemed to me that their faces were convulsed as though with
pain or fear; while the voices occasionally borne up to me had the
nervousness, almost the hysteria, of men in a panic.
What could have happened? I wondered. Had the Atlanteans all suddenly
gone mad? Or were they facing an insurrection or a civil war? Or had
the government perhaps been overthrown by a band of insurgents? Or had
there been an earthquake through which I had somehow slept? Or was
there an invasion from the upper world, and had some of our countrymen,
seeking for clues of the lost X-111, discovered the Sunken World and
entered?
All these possibilities, as I turned them over in my mind, seemed
so fantastic that I had to discard them. Yet it still filled me
with apprehension to observe the natives scurrying about the
streets--apprehension that was to be speedily justified.
* * * * *
I was just preparing to go out and investigate when there came an
excited rapping at my door. Unable to imagine who might be seeking me
at this early hour, I cried out sharply, “Come in!”; and the door swung
abruptly open to admit--Captain Gavison!
He was far from his composed and normal self. His pale blue costume was
all ruffled, and had been flung over his shoulders as though in great
haste; his long hair hung dishevelled over his narrow bronzed brow; his
face looked all hot and sweaty; his gray eyes burned and sparkled with
a vague distress.
He did not wait for a formal greeting. “Have you--have you heard the
news?” he gasped, as he strode into the room.
I confessed that I had heard nothing.
“Don’t see how you could help hearing!” he snapped, and began to pace
slowly about the floor, with brow wrinkled in bitter thought.
“What news is it?” I demanded. “Just what have you heard?”
“One of the natives told me strange things last night,” he confided,
as he continued his restless perambulations about the room. “I haven’t
slept a wink, not a wink!”
“What strange things? We’re not going to be sent back home, are we?” I
inquired, with an abortive effort to be facetious.
“We’ll be sent to a worse place than that!” he growled, bristling
almost into his old military manner. “The glass wall has been cracked!”
“The glass wall cracked?” I cried, stupidly, stunned by the terror of
the words.
“Yes, the glass wall has been cracked,” the Captain affirmed, in a
more matter-of-fact manner. “One of the patrol boats discovered the
damage late yesterday afternoon. There’s a dangerous fracture near the
entrance of the Salty River.”
For reply I could only groan. The glass wall of Atlantis cracked!--the
whole Atlantic Ocean bearing down upon the Sunken World! Too well I
understand what that meant, too well to require comment! And in that
first moment of horrible realization I had visions of torrents pouring
through a gap in the wall, flooding over the streets and temples and
highest towers of the land!
“But how--how under heaven did it happen?” I burst forth, when I had
half recovered from the first staggering blow.
“That is not hard to say,” he declared, slowly and in measured tones.
“At least, there are suspicions--”
“Suspicions?” I demanded.
“Suspicions that you and I and the rest of us are to blame.”
“But how is that possible?” I exclaimed.
“It’s possible, all right. It all happened before we got here. The
X-111, caught in the whirlpool outside the Salty River, was hurled by
the force of the waters against the glass wall, probably striking with
its steel prow, which, as you know, was built for ramming our foes. The
wall, luckily, was too stout to be shattered; but it was cracked, and
the crack must have been growing all this time without being noticed.”
“Merciful gods!” I cried. “Then if--if anything happens to Atlantis, it
will be all on account of us!”
But before Gavison had had time to reply, there came another rapping
at the door. And, hardly waiting for my summons, a wild-eyed Xanocles
burst in. Like my other visitor, he did not waste time on greetings.
“You--do you know?” he faltered, with a lack of self-command most
unusual in him.
Solemnly we assured him that we knew.
Without further delay we plunged into the subject that had brought him
to us. “Maybe you’d like to go and see for yourselves?” he suggested.
“But how can we see for ourselves?” I asked.
“The government--that is to say, the High Chief Adviser--has ordered
the intra-atomic river boats put at the people’s disposal. Seven of
them are now plying back and forth, bearing thousands to the glass
wall. The Adviser thinks the people should see for themselves just what
has happened.”
“Very well then, let’s go,” decided the Captain.
Without another word the three of us set out together. In silence we
strode down the long avenue that meandered toward the river. And as
we sped along we encountered dozens of the natives, all of them in as
great a hurry as we; and all had faces flushed and excited, or fearful
and drawn, or pale as though with apprehension.
* * * * *
Upon arriving at the piers, we found that hundreds of Atlanteans had
preceded us, most of them so transformed that I could hardly recognize
them as citizens of the Sunken World; for they were chattering wildly,
or pacing distractedly back and forth, or uttering half-hysterical
exclamations; and one or two were mumbling and muttering to themselves,
or moving their lips silently in what might have been prayer. But they
did not fail to notice our arrival; angry exclamations broke forth at
sight of us, and several of the men and women withdrew visibly from us;
and, in my surprise, I did not know whether to ascribe their hostility
to the unpopularity of Xanocles or to the part that Gavison and I had
played as unconscious agents of disaster.
To calm the excited multitude, a vigorous-looking young man ventured
to raise his voice, and proclaim, “Friends, there is still no reason
for alarm. We do not yet know how serious the damage may be, but the
glass wall still holds; not a drop of water has broken through....
There is reason to believe that the break will be speedily repaired,
and that we will go on living as happily as ever....”
These words, I was glad to see, had a soothing effect upon the
crowd. Yet I was relieved when at last the boat hove into view, a
slender affair as long as the longest river vessel, but not more than
twenty-five feet from rail to rail. I did not then give any attention
to its details, though I did note how low-lying it was, with but one
visible deck, one small cabin and no smokestack or mast. But after it
had drawn up to the pier and the gangplank was flung down, I wasted no
time about boarding it with my two companions. Benches and chairs were
strewn liberally about the deck, sufficient to accommodate the entire
crowd; and we had hardly taken seats when the boat commenced to shiver
and throb, and we started upstream with the velocity of an express
train.
So rapidly did we move that in less than an hour we were approaching
the head of the Salty River. And during the interval I only once
ventured to break the moody solitude of my own thoughts.
“When did you find out about all this?” I asked Xanocles, who like the
rest of us seemed to be absorbed in bitter reveries.
“Last night,” he returned, in an abstracted manner. “I chanced to
be in the Hall of Public Enlightenment, and heard the news over the
Autophone.”
“The Autophone?” I demanded.
“Well, naturally, you wouldn’t know what that is,” explained Xanocles.
“We get our ordinary news by wireless telegraph, of course, and it is
then reported by speakers at the various public meeting places. But the
Autophone is more effective, and is used only on rare and important
occasions. It operates instantaneously, and consists of a tube and
electrical attachment, enabling one to hear a speaker miles away.”
“I understand,” said I, for, after all, the Autophone did not impress
me as unfamiliar.
And with that we lapsed again into silence, a silence shared by all
the hundreds of passengers. For now that they had actually embarked
upon the voyage, their excitement seemed to have died down to a mood
of solemn waiting, a tense and painful waiting all too apparent in
the rigid, staring faces of the men and the women’s pale cheeks and
frightened eyes.
It was with relief that at length I saw the river growing white and
agitated ahead of us, and knew that we were not far from the valve
where the torrents were hurled in from the sea. Yet I was filled with
impatience before we swerved finally into a little side canal and our
boat came to a landing before a long granite dock whence a sister
ship was just leaving. I need hardly state that I lost no time in
stepping across the gangplank, as soon as the crowded state of the deck
permitted; and though we were still three or four miles from the glass
wall, I was thankful to be able to walk the distance.
* * * * *
To watch my two companions and myself set out along the clay footpath
toward the wall, one might have thought that we were athletes training
for a race. But if we moved rapidly, we were in no way exceptional, for
there were scores who easily kept pace with us.
For many minutes we hastened parallel to the Salty River. We passed
the long, white rapids; we passed the spot where the gigantic jet of
water shot thundering out of the pipe-like valve; we saw the wall
itself sloping down before us, and near the wall we could make out a
long, black mass which ultimately resolved itself into a multitude of
humans.
This multitude, as we drew near, showed itself to be in a wildly
agitated condition. Men and women were pacing frantically to and fro,
swarming and squirming like worms or ants; some were gesticulating
vehemently, some speaking in high-pitched tones audible from afar, some
merely standing petrified like men dealt a blow too great to bear.
Yet, as we took our places among them, we could observe nothing that
gave cause for alarm. To our right loomed the elongated, steely gray
valve, a great tube as high as a three-story building, which narrowed
as it approached the wall, and passed through it on a level with the
ground. And just before us sloped the wall itself, now roped off so
that we could not come within a stone’s throw, but apparently still
the same smooth, dark greenish barrier I had viewed months before.
No sign of any break or crack was visible, and it was almost with
disappointment that I noticed how flawless it seemed.
But while I stood there watching I heard a faint swishing sound, like
the lapping of sea-waves against the rocks. I may have been mistaken,
for amid the chattering and shouting of the mob and the distant roaring
of waters from the valve, it was difficult to be sure just what one
heard. But Gavison and Xanocles seemed to note that same ominous noise,
and both paused to listen, while the anxious expression on their faces
did not relieve my misgivings. “It’s the water working through the
inner layers of the glass,” I thought I heard Xanocles remark; but here
again I could not be sure, for even as he spoke a tumult of shouts
burst forth, and I turned in sudden fright to see what was the matter.
This time I did not have long to wait. On one of the great
roof-supporting stone columns a searchlight had been mounted; and
I observed that it was slowly swinging round, casting a piercing
illumination upon the wall from a bright, yellow eye glaring like the
headlight of a locomotive. For a moment it shook and wavered as if it
could not find a focus; then it became rigid and still, and a circle of
the wall, many yards across, stood out in brilliant relief.
Instantly the people began to press forward. So excited were they that
for a moment I almost lost touch with Gavison and Xanocles, and could
catch no glimpse of the illuminated patch of wall. And at the same time
shrill cries of terror and dismay broke forth. A man just to my rear
groaned as if in pain; a woman gave a half suppressed sob; somewhere
from the rear came a hysterical wailing. Then, when the circle in the
wall again became visible, I was wedged in so tightly that I scarcely
gave it any attention. It was only by degrees that I made out its
features, and saw what resembled an enormous piece of cracked crockery.
From an amorphous central blur several feet across, great seams and
fissures ran in a hundred directions, with long, spidery arms that
reached out like the roots of a tree, gradually growing thinner till
they vanished in vacancy. It seemed a miracle that the water had not
already burst through, for each of the scores of diverging cracks were
rods long and must have been many feet deep.
* * * * *
I do not know how long I stood staring blankly at that tragic break
in the glass. I was as one divested of power of thought or movement;
I merely hovered there transfixed, listening to the muttering and
sighing of the multitude. Strangely enough, it did not occur to me to
ask whether the damage could be repaired; it was as though I had known
all the while that it was beyond remedy ... and for the moment my
attitude was strangely detached, almost impersonal, as though I were
the external witness of melancholy and inexorable things....
Yet it was a highly personal thought that startled me back to myself.
Somehow, out, of some dim subconscious depth, there swept across my
mind the vision of two bright, blue eyes--and, with that vision, acute
fear seized me, and longing, and despair. That Atlantis should be in
danger was fearful enough--but that Aelios should be imperiled was a
thought almost too terrible for belief. And, accompanying that first
wild stab of alarm for her, there came a sharp desire to see her, to
be with her, to speak with her now; and, hopeful that she might be
somewhere in this crowd, I began to search all about me, and then to
thread my way at random through the dense ranks of people, scanning all
the faces in my anxiety, until Gavison and Xanocles, following me with
difficulty, began to ask irrelevantly whether the cracks were in the
wall or in my head.
But no Aelios was to be seen; and at last I was forced reluctantly to
abandon the quest. A dull and settled sadness had fallen over me; and,
depressed for no reason that I would have acknowledged, I expressed my
purpose of returning at once to Archeon, saying that I had already seen
everything there was to be seen.
“But you haven’t seen a thing yet,” demurred Xanocles, who seemed
determined that I should remain. “The submersible repair ships have not
yet arrived--and when they come, they should be a sight worth watching.”
And he slipped his arm about mine, and drew me with him toward the
wall, while I still protested that it would be better for me to return
to Archeon.
No doubt in the end I should have had my way, had not another hubbub
arisen to distract my attention. Once more the thousands of voices,
were lifted in excitement; but this time a note of joy was manifest,
and even seemed to predominate. At the same time, many hands pointed
eagerly toward the illuminated circle in the glass; and from just
behind me I heard a thankful murmur that sounded encouragingly like
“The repair ships; They’re here! They’re here!”
Indeed, the repair ships had arrived. Even through the darkest sections
of the wall, half a dozen faintly phosphorescent cigar-shaped forms
were dimly apparent. They were all rather small, scarcely more than
a third of the size of the X-111; but they seemed to be exceedingly
agile, and were darting lithely back and forth like great fishes, or
else were whirling or pirouetting or standing almost on end, as though
stricken with giddiness and unable to control their movements.
“They’re having the devil’s own time!” muttered Xanocles, as he stood
watching. “That’s the worst danger-spot in all the ocean, for the
waters are constantly in a whirlpool because of the torrents emptied
into the Salty River. But our men are brave, and somehow they’ll manage
it.”
“But how can they set about it?” I inquired, unable to imagine any way
of making repairs.
“It’s far from easy, but it can be done,” continued Xanocles. “One of
the ships will have to press itself against the wall, so closely that
there is no space between. Once all water has been excluded between
the vessel and the wall, you understand, the pressure on the ocean
side will keep the ship in place. And after the ship is in the proper
position, a porthole will be opened, and through this the men will pour
cement into the crack.”
Even as Xanocles explained, an anchor was dropped from one of the ships
into the rocky sea bottom; and the vessel, having steadied itself,
began to drift slowly toward the wall, so that at length its side was
pressed tightly against the cracked glass. Then a little circle of
light seemed suddenly to open on the ship’s side; and in that circle I
could make out the rigid, determined faces of half a dozen men, while
in their hands I could observe a variety of strange rods, tubes, and
lantern-like contrivances.
Pessimistic as I had been before, I could not but feel a burst of hope
when I watched the capable, courageous way in which these men set to
work. And evidently the waiting throng had become hopeful too, for
murmurs of admiration and approval were repeatedly on their lips; and
as they saw tube after tube of cement poured skilfully into the cracks,
they became almost mad with relief; and some began to clap their hands
and caper childishly, and some sighed in thanksgiving, and some wept
silently, for, after all, Atlantis seemed to have been saved!
Then, with the suddenness of a thunderbolt, all their hopes were dashed
out. So swiftly did disaster descend that none had a chance to say how
or whence it came--but it was disaster complete and irretrievable.
Perhaps it was that the anchor-chain holding the submarine had snapped,
or that some water had seeped in between the side of the vessel and
the glass wall. At all events, the submarine was plainly visible one
moment, the men pumping the viscid cement through long tubes to the
very extremities of the crack; and the next moment there was only a dim
shadow flitting away into a watery obscurity.
For an instant there was an awed silence. Then, as comprehension dawned
upon the crowd, a convulsive shudder swept it through and through, and
a howl of horror and dismay rang forth. Men glanced askance at their
neighbors, blank terror gaping from their eyes; and all at once, as
by a common impulse, hundreds pressed confusedly toward the wall, as
though they might succor thus those unfortunates lost in the briny
wastes. But many, conscious of the futility of all action, sadly
remained in their places, and mutely bowed their heads--a tribute of
respect for the drowned.
* * * * *
[Illustration: It was only by degrees that I made out its features,
and saw what resembled an enormous piece of cracked crockery. From an
amorphous central blur several feet across, great seams and fissures
ran in different directions with long spidery arms ... one of the ships
pressed itself against the wall, after which the port hole was opened
and the men poured cement into the cracks.]
* * * * *