DESCENT INTO THE UNKNOWN.
The Miami now proceeded to eat up latitude at a rate that would have
indicated a perfectly phenomenal speed for the ship if the curvature of
the earth, where they were, were such that some seventy miles equaled
one degree, as would be the case in the inhabited portions of the globe.
Eighty-nine degrees, eighty-eight, eighty-seven, were successively
indicated by the sextant.
A night shift was put at the wheel and the engine and the rest turned
in. When they awoke, it was noon. The captain estimated that they were
well below eighty degrees, as the sun had set behind them.
"If we are still on the outer surface of the earth," said Ferreira
hesitantly, "we'll strike Siberia to-morrow at this rate. But I'm
beginning to believe the truth of that story which the boss read us."
The wind blew from dead ahead, and was quite warm.
By midnight, the sun was well up in the sky, and a sextant-reading
showed that they had reached latitude 60°. In spite of the bright sun,
the northern lights now showed brilliantly to the south of them.
"According to our clock," announced the Portuguese, "we are on the
120th meridian. At 60° north latitude, 120° east longitude, we ought,
by rights just now, to be crossing southern Siberia, and about to enter
Manchuria. And yet here it is open sea! Furthermore, we can't have come
as far as thirty normal degrees of latitude in this short time. So I
guess this cock-and-bull magazine yarn must be the truth, after all."
"According to our clocks it's midnight," remarked Murphy, "and yet look
at the sun! And last noon, it was pitch dark. This has daylight saving
beat a mile for complications!"
"But you forget," explained Captain Ferreira, "that we are on the other
side of the earth now, where night is day and day is night."
"Then let's shift our clocks," suggested some one, "and start going to
bed when it's dark and getting up when it's light."
"You forget," objected Scarface, "that we are not on the other side of
the earth, at all. We are passing over the rim of the polar hole into
the center of the earth. And, if the story is correct, it will soon be
noon all day long every day."
"What I can't figure out," interjected Tom Jones, "is why the sun
doesn't rise in the west and set in the east, now that we are inside
the polar rim."
"It does," replied Ferreira.
"No such thing," exclaimed Tom, shocked out of his usual politeness.
"Look here. When the sun rose, I faced north, and the sun rose on my
right. Right hand is east, when you face north, isn't it?"
"Not when you've gone over the top and got inside the earth," explained
the captain. "You see, when you're inside the earth, the sun rises in
the west; but, as the west is now on the right-hand side of you when
facing north, everything looks natural, just as before."
"It all depends on how you define 'east' and 'west,' doesn't it?" Tom
objected, still unconvinced. "How would you define them?"
* * * * *
"Suppose you had pasteboard globe representing the earth," explained
Ferreira, "the kind you get in school, you know."
"Yes?" said Tom, interestedly.
"Well, on the outside of the earth, 'east' means the direction toward
which the surface of the earth is turning, doesn't it? Let's imagine
you draw an arrow on the globe, representing east."
"Yes."
"Well, suppose you open up the globe to get a look at the inside of the
pasteboard, which would represent where we are now, and suppose you
draw an arrow on the inside, in exactly the same direction as the arrow
on the outside, its head just under the head of the outside arrow, tail
under tail. This inside arrow would point east, too, wouldn't it?"
"Yes, if it's drawn as you describe," Jones admitted.
Then triumphantly, "That inside arrow would point to the left of north;
and so east is to the left of north inside the earth."
"Oh, I see," interjected Jimmy, with a snicker. "East is west and west
is east, and never the twain shall meet."
"Not at all!" replied Ferreira testily, nettled by his chief's levity.
"Here I get converted to your theory, and explain it logically, and
then you go and make fun of it."
"Well, it's all clear as mud to me," asserted Little Arty. "Let's eat."
Sun setting in the morning, and rising in the evening. Sun setting in
the east and rising in the west. East and west reversed from where they
should be. It was all wrong!
"Fortunately this won't last long," said Tom, "or we'd go crazy."
The ship plowed on in darkness lit by the pink beams of the aurora
borealis. And the location of the aurora was all wrong, too, lying
south of them instead of north.
No stars showed in the southern part of the sky. It was as though a
great bowl was gradually closing over the heavens from the south,
slowly blotting the stars out with a distinct line of advance. And the
edge of this bowl was faintly illumined, like the surface of the moon.
When next the sun rose, it rose from behind the rim of this bowl,
rather than from the horizon. And then they observed what they had not
noted before--that although there was a well-defined horizon ahead of
them and behind them, which looked abnormally near, yet on each side
of them the sea seemed to stretch away forever, curving up rather than
down, until it merged into the sky in the distance.
Of course! To each side of them stretched the inside surface of the
earth, curving ever upward; whereas behind and in front of them the
water bent sharply across the edge of the polar rim.
By midnight, when the sun was almost overhead, their reading showed 25°
latitude, and yet they knew that they were only a few miles inside the
earth.
Soon the sun set behind the opposite edge of the rim, which by now
had enveloped nearly half the sky. As they chugged on, they anxiously
awaited its reappearance on their left, but it never reappeared.
Instead, about fifteen hours later, a new and redder orb showed above
the southern horizon, and rose slowly as they sped toward it.
"The central sun!" cried Jimmy.
Yet, in spite of their reading, it was hard to persuade some of them
that they had not turned off their course; for a sun, by rights, ought
to rise in the east or, at least, in the west, in this topsy-turvy
world, rather than in the south.
Their gyro-compass, however, showed that they were still headed due
south, and their gyro latitude-indicator appeared to show that they
were a bit below the equator. Yet the climate was merely temperate; and
whenever the wind blew from the north, quite chilly; in other words,
like spring or fall in Massachusetts or Chicago.
* * * * *
Land now appeared; many small islands among which the Miami threaded
her way.
Some of the larger islands they explored, but found nothing of interest
except some quite sizable rodents which they killed for meat. Tom was
thrilled at this new world, of whose existence he had never dreamed,
but this did not prevent him from keeping constantly on the alert for
a chance to escape or regain control of the yacht. Scarface, however,
never left Tom or any of Tom's former employees on the Miami, without
making sure that they were outnumbered by fully-armed men of his own.
Scarface himself was as interested as Tom in this new world. So was
Captain Antone Ferreira. But the rest of the party appeared either
indifferent or bored. Nick Fratelli kept his views to himself.
One day they were resting after their return from an exploring
expedition on shore. Arty was trying to get Sydney, Australia, his
favorite station, on the air, with Friday as an attentive listener. But
he didn't have any luck.
"It's no use," Arty asserted sadly. "Can't hardly get a thing now. Ever
since we passed that place which Ferreira calls 90°, I've been having
more trouble with the set. First all the little stations faded out. And
then things kept on getting worse and worse, until to-day I can't tune
in on even WEAF, KDKA or WLW. All I've got left now is WGY, I suppose
on account of its extra-short wave."
"Ain't that awful!" snorted Nick the Rat, with mock sympathy. "What do
you expect us to do about it? Weep?"
Arty gave him a black look, but said nothing. He was used to Nick's
gibes at his interest in radio. Nick left the room.
The little ex-jockey continued twiddling the knobs. Scarface sat in his
private cabin, reading. Charley Loy was in the galley. Nick Fratelli
and little Terry were in the bunk room. The rest of the crew were
variously employed, and all was quiet.
But things didn't stay quiet long. It was the lull before the storm. A
loud commotion was heard in the bunk room, and then Nick rushed out,
with his face streaming blood.
"That damn little cat scratched me!" he snarled.
"Tabby?" asked Arty incredulously.
"Tabby, me eye!" replied Nick. "It was Terry Ferreira."
"Well," drawled Arty, "what were you doing to him?"
"Him?" exclaimed Nick scornfully; but just then the child burst through
the door with cheeks aflame, and shouted: "You beast--I'll teach you to
get fresh with me. Can't you leave a girl alone?"
"Girl?" gasped Arty.
"Sure she's a girl," grinned Nick, "and she's going to be my girl,
too. I seen her first. But she's a young wild cat, and will have to be
tamed."
* * * * *
"Your girl?" sneered Terry, "You dirty bum! I'd rather have even
Charley Loy or Friday for my boy-friend than you."
"I'll teach you to talk back to me!" shouted Nick, advancing menacingly
toward her.
"None of that, Rat!" snapped Arty. "Come on, Friday."
As the two leaped between Terry and her tormentor, a door at the other
end of the mess-room opened.
"Well," said a calm and level voice, "what's the disturbance?"
It was Scarface.
"Nick has insulted a lady, and so we was rescuing her," explained Arty.
"She's mine!" asserted Nick belligerently. "I seen her first."
"Lady? She?" inquired their chief in a bewildered voice.
"Me," said Terry, proud of being the cause of so much commotion.
Scarface advanced into the center of the room.
"You--a girl?" he asked.
"Sure," answered little Terry. "What did you think I was? Besides, no
one ever asked you to take me on this trip; I was shanghaied, I never
told you I wasn't a girl, did I? And this has all been such fun, until
that beast started to get mushy."
"Well, I'll be--" began Arty, but words failed him.
"Then your name isn't Terry?" asked Scarface.
"Sure it is," she replied. "Theresa Ferreira. Terry, for short. But,
Mr. Jimmy, you'll keep that wop away from me, won't you?"
"Keeping bums away from ladies is one of the easiest things I do,"
asserted Scarface. "You will occupy my stateroom."
"Ah," sneered Nick the Rat, "so you want her for yourself, do you?
Well, I seen her first; and let me tell you, Scarface--"
He stopped abruptly. He was looking into the muzzle of an automatic.