STRANGE FREAKS OF THE NEBULA
We return to follow the fortunes of Cosmo Versál's Ark.
After he had so providentially picked up the crazed billionaire, Amos
Blank, and his three companions, Cosmo ordered Captain Arms to bear away
southeastward, bidding farewell to the drowned shores of America, and
sailing directly over the lower part of Manhattan, and western Long
Island. The navigation was not easy, and if the Ark had not been a
marvelously buoyant vessel it would not long have survived. At the
beginning the heavy and continuous rain kept down the waves, and the
surface of the sea was comparatively smooth, but after a while a curious
phenomenon began to be noticed; immense billows would suddenly appear,
rushing upon the Ark now from one direction and now from another, canting
it over at a dangerous angle, and washing almost to the top of the huge
ellipsoid of the dome. At such times it was difficult for anybody to
maintain a footing, and there was great terror among the passengers. But
Cosmo, and stout Captain Arms, remained at their post, relieving one
another at frequent intervals, and never entrusting the sole charge of
the vessel to any of their lieutenants.
Cosmo Versál himself was puzzled to account for the origin of the mighty
billows, for it seemed impossible that they could be raised by the wind
notwithstanding the fact that it blew at times with hurricane force. But
at last the explanation came of itself.
Both Cosmo and the captain happened to be on the bridge together when they
saw ahead something that looked like an enormous column as black as ink,
standing upright on the surface of the water. A glance showed that it was
in swift motion, and, more than that, was approaching in a direct line
toward the Ark. In less than two minutes it was upon them.
The instant that it met the Ark a terrific roaring deafened them, and the
rounded front of the dome beneath their eyes disappeared under a deluge of
descending water so dense that the vision could not penetrate it. In
another half minute the great vessel seemed to have been driven to the
bottom of the sea. But for the peculiar construction of the shelter of the
bridge its occupants would have been drowned at their posts. As it was they
were soaked as if they had been plunged overboard. Impenetrable darkness
surrounded them.
But the buoyant vessel shook itself, rolled from side to side, and rose
with a staggering motion until it seemed to be poised on the summit of a
watery mountain. Immediately the complete darkness passed, the awful
downpour ceased, although the rain still fell in torrents, and the Ark
began to glide downward with sickening velocity, as if it were sliding
down a liquid slope.
It was a considerable time before the two men, clinging to the supports of
the bridge, were able to maintain their equilibrium sufficiently to render
it possible to utter a few connected words. As soon as he could speak with
reasonable comfort Cosmo exclaimed:
"Now I see what it is that causes the billows, but it is a phenomenon that
I should never have anticipated. It is all due to the nebula. Evidently
there are irregularities of some kind in its constitution which cause the
formation of almost solid masses of water in the atmosphere--suspended
lakes, as it were--which then plunge down in a body as if a hundred
thousand Niagaras were pouring together from the sky.
"These sudden accessions of water raise stupendous waves which sweep off
in every direction, and that explains the billows that we have
encountered."
"Well, this nebular navigation beats all my experience," said Captain Arms,
wiping the water out of his eyes. "I was struck by a waterspout once in
the Indian Ocean, and I thought that that capped the climax, but it was
only a catspaw to this. Give me a clear offing and I don't care how much
wind blows, but blow me if I want to get under any more lakes in the sky."
"We'll have to take whatever comes," returned Cosmo, "but I don't think
there is much danger of running directly into many of these downpours as
we did into this one. Now that we know what they are, we can, perhaps,
detect them long enough in advance to steer out of their way. Anyhow,
we've got a good vessel under our feet. Anything but an ark of levium
would have gone under for good, and if I had not covered the vessel with
the dome there would have been no chance for a soul in her."
As a matter of fact, the Ark did not encounter any more of the columns of
descending water, but the frequent billows that were met showed that they
were careering over the face of the swollen sea in every direction.
But there was another trouble of a different nature. The absence of sun
and stars deprived them of the ordinary means of discovering their place.
They could only make a rough guess as to the direction in which they were
going. The gyrostatic compasses gave them considerable assistance, and
they had perfect chronometers, but these latter could be of no use without
celestial observations of some kind.
At length Cosmo devised a means of obtaining observations that were of
sufficient value to partially serve their purpose. He found that while
the disk of the sun was completely hidden in the watery sky, yet it was
possible to determine its location by means of the varying intensity of
the light.
Where the sun was a concentrated glow appeared, shading gradually off on
all sides. With infinite pains Cosmo, assisted by the experience of the
captain, succeeded in determining the center of the maximum illumination,
and, assuming that to represent the true place of the sun, they got
something in the nature of observations for altitude and azimuth, and
Captain Arms even drew on his chart "Sumner lines" to determine the
position of the Ark, although he smiled at the thought of their absurd
inaccuracy. Still, it was the best they could do, and was better than
nothing at all.
They kept a log going also, although, as the captain pointed out, it was
not of much use to know how fast they were traveling, since they could not
know the precise direction, within a whole point of the compass, or perhaps
several points.
"Besides," he remarked, "what do we know of the currents? This is not the
old Atlantic. If I could feel the Gulf Stream I'd know whereabouts I was,
but these currents come from all directions, and a man might as well try
to navigate in a tub of boiling water."
"But we can, at least, keep working eastward," said Cosmo. "My idea is
first to make enough southing to get into the latitude of the Sahara
Desert, and then run directly east, so as to cross Africa where there are
no mountains, and where we shall be certain of having plenty of water under
our keel.
"Then, having got somewhere in the neighborhood of Suez, we can steer
down into the region of the Indian Ocean, and circle round south of the
Himalayas. I want to keep an eye on those mountains, and stay around the
place where they disappear, because that will be the first part of the
earth to emerge from the flood and it is there that we shall ultimately
make land."
"Well, we're averaging eight knots," said the captain, "and at that rate
we ought to be in the longitude of the African coast in about twenty days.
How high will the water stand then?"
"My gages show," replied Cosmo, "that the regular fall amounts to exactly
the same thing as at the beginning--two inches a minute. Of course the
spouts increase the amount locally, but I don't think that they add
materially to the general rise of the flood. Two inches per minute means
4,800 feet in twenty days. That'll be sufficient to make safe navigation
for us all the way across northern Africa. We'll have to be careful in
getting out into the Indian Ocean area, for there are mountains on both
sides that might give us trouble, but the higher ones will still be in
sight, and they will serve to indicate the location of the lower ranges
already submerged, but not covered deeply enough to afford safe going over
them."
"All right," said Captain Arms, "you're the commodore, but if we don't
hang our timbers on the Mountains of the Moon, or the Alps, or old Ararat,
I'm a porpoise. Why can't you keep circling round at a safe distance, in
the middle of the Atlantic, until all these reefs get a good depth of
water on 'em?"
"Because," Cosmo replied, "even if we keep right on now it will probably
take two months, allowing for delays in getting round dangerous places,
to come within sight of the Himalayas, and in two months the flood will
have risen nearly 15,000 feet, thus hiding many of the landmarks. If we
should hold off here a couple of months before starting eastward nothing
but the one highest peak on the globe would be left in sight by the time
we arrived there, and that wouldn't be anything more than a rock, so that
with the uncertainty of our navigation we might not be able to find it at
all. I must know the spot where Tibet sinks, and then manage to keep in
its neighborhood."
That ended the argument.
"Give me a safe port, with lights and bearings, and I'll undertake to hit
it anywhere in the two hemispheres, but blow me if I fancy steering for
the top of the world by dead reckoning, or no reckoning at all," grumbled
the captain.
At night, of course, they had not even the slight advantage that their
observations of the probable place of the sun gave them when it was above
the horizon. Then they had to go solely by the indications of the compass.
Still, they forged steadily ahead, and when they got into what they deemed
the proper latitude, they ran for the site of the drowned Sahara.
After about a week the billowing motion caused by the descent of the "lakes
in the sky" ceased entirely, to their great delight, but the lawless nebula
was now preparing another surprise for them.
On the ninth night after their departure from their lodgment on the
Palisades Cosmo Versál was sleeping in his bunk close by the bridge, where
he could be called in an instant, dreaming perhaps of the glories of the
new world that was to emerge out of the deluge, when he was abruptly
awakened by the voice of Captain Arms, who appeared to be laboring under
uncontrollable excitement.
"Tumble up quicker'n you ever did in your life!" he exclaimed, his big
brown beard wagging almost in Cosmo's face. "The flood's over!"
Cosmo sprang out of bed and pulled on his coat in a second.
"What do you mean?" he demanded.
"Look for yourself," said the captain, pointing overhead.
Cosmo Versál glanced up and saw the sky ablaze with stars! The rain had
entirely ceased. The surface of the sea was almost as smooth as glass,
though rising and falling slowly, with a long, rolling motion. The Ark
rode steadily, shivering, like an ocean liner, under the impulse of its
engines, and the sudden silence, succeeding the ceaseless roar of the
downpour, which had never been out of their ears from the start of the
voyage, seemed supernatural.
"When did this happen?" he demanded.
"It began not more than five minutes ago. I was just saying to myself that
we ought to be somewhere near the center of the old Atlantic as it used to
be, and wondering whether we had got our course laid right to go fairly
between the Canaries and the Cape de Verdes, for I didn't want to be
harpooned by Gogo or the Peak of Teneriffe, when all of a sudden there
came a lightening in the nor'east and the stars broke out there.
"I was so set aback that I didn't do anything for two or three minutes but
stare at the stars. Then the rain stopped and a curtain seemed to roll off
the sky, and in a minute more it was clear down to the horizon all around.
Then I got my wits together and ran to call you."
Cosmo glanced around and above, seeming to be as much astonished as the
captain had been. He rubbed his huge bald dome and looked all round again
before speaking. At last he said:
"It's the nebula again. There must be a hole in it."
"Its whole bottom's knocked out, I reckon," said the captain. "Maybe it's
run out of water--sort o' squeezed itself dry."
Cosmo shook his head.
"We are not yet in the heart of it," he said. "It is evident to me now that
what I took for the nucleus was only a close-coiled spiral, and we're run
out of that, but the worst is yet to come. When we strike the center, then
we'll catch it, and there'll be no more intermissions."
"How long will that be?" inquired Captain Arms.
"It may be a week, and it may be a month, though I hardly think it will be
so long as that. The earth is going about twelve miles a second--that's
more than a million miles a day--directly toward the center of the nebula.
It has taken ten days to go through the spiral that we have encountered,
making that about ten million miles thick. It's not likely that the gap
between this spiral and the nucleus of the nebula is more than thirty
million miles across, at the most; so you see we'll probably be in the
nucleus within a month, and possibly much less than a month."
Captain Arms took a chew of tobacco.
"We can get our bearings now," he remarked. "Look, there's the moon just
rising, and on my word, she is going to occult Aldebaran within an hour.
I'll get an observation for longitude, and another on Polaris for latitude.
No running on submerged mountains for us now."
The captain was as good as his word, and when his observations had been
made and the calculations completed he announced that the position of the
Ark was: Latitude, 16 degrees 10 minutes north; longitude, 42 degrees 28
minutes west.
"Lucky for us," he exclaimed, "that the sky cleared. If we'd kept on as
we were going we'd have struck the Cape de Verdes, and if that had
happened at night we'd probably have left our bones on a drowning volcano.
We ought to have been ten or twelve degrees farther north to make a safe
passage over the Sahara. What's the course now? Are you still for running
down the Himalaya mountains?"
"I'll decide later what to do," said Cosmo Versál. "Make your northing,
and then we'll cruise around a little and see what's best to be done."
When day came on, brilliant with sunshine, and the astonished passengers,
hurrying out of their bunks, crowded about the now opened gangways and the
portholes, which Cosmo had also ordered to be opened, and gazed with
delight upon the smooth blue sea, the utmost enthusiasm took possession of
them.
The flood was over!
They were sure of it, and they shook hands with one another and
congratulated themselves and hurrahed, and gave cheers for the Ark and
cheers for Cosmo Versál. Then they began to think of their drowned homes
and of their lost friends, and sadness followed joy. Cosmo was mobbed by
eager inquiries wherever he made his appearance.
Was it all over for good? Would the flood dry up in a few days? How long
would it be before New York would be free of water? Were they going right
back there? Did he think there was a chance that many had escaped in boats
and ships? Couldn't they pick up the survivors if they hurried back?
Cosmo tried to check the enthusiasm.
"It's too early for rejoicing," he assured them. "It's only a break in
the nebula. We've got a respite for a short time, but there's worse
coming. The drowning of the world will proceed. We are the only
survivors, except perhaps some of those who inhabited the highlands.
Everything less than 2,400 feet above the former level of the sea is now
under water. When the flood begins again it will keep on until it is
six miles deep over the old sea margins."
"Why not go back and try to rescue those who you say may have found
safety on the highlands?" asked one.
"I have chosen my company," he said, "and I had good reasons for the
choice I made. I have already added to the number, because simple humanity
compelled me, but I can take no more. The quantity of provisions aboard
the Ark is not greater than will be needed by ourselves. If the rest of
the world is drowned it is not my fault. I did my best to warn them.
Besides, we could do nothing in the way of rescue even if we should go
back for that purpose. We could not approach the submerged plateaus. We
would be aground before we got within sight of them."
These words went far to change the current of feeling among the
passengers. When they learned that there would be danger for themselves
in the course that had been proposed their humanity proved to be less
strong than their desire for self-preservation. Nevertheless, as we shall
see, the Ark ultimately went back to America, though not for any reason
that had yet been suggested.
Meanwhile the unexpected respite furnished by the sudden cessation of the
downpour from the sky had other important results, to which we now turn.