TO PARIS UNDER THE SEA
De Beauxchamps accepted Cosmo Versál's invitation to bring his
companions with him into the Ark. The submersible was safely moored
alongside, where she rode easily in company with the larger vessel, and
all mounted the companion-ladder. The Frenchman's six companions were
dressed, like himself, in the uniform of the army.
"Curious," muttered Captain Arms in Cosmo's ear, "that these _soldiers_
should be the only ones to get off--and in a vessel, too. What were the
seamen about?"
"What were _our_ seamen about?" returned Cosmo. "How many of _them_ got
off? I warned them that ships would not do. But it was a bright idea of
this De Beauxchamps and his friends to build a submersible. It didn't
occur to me, or I would have advised their construction everywhere for
small parties. But it would never have done for us. A submersible would
not have been capacious enough for the party I wanted to take."
By this time the visitors were aboard, and Cosmo and the others who
could get near enough to grasp them by the hand greeted them effusively.
King Richard received De Beauxchamps with emotion, and thanked him again
and again for having saved his life; but, in the end, he covered his
face and said in a broken voice:
"M. De Beauxchamps, my gratitude to you is very deep--but, oh, the
queen--the queen--and the children! I should have done better to perish
with them."
Cosmo and De Beauxchamps soothed him as well as they could, and the
former led the way into the grand saloon, in order that as many as
possible might see and greet their visitors, who had come so
mysteriously up out of the sea.
All of the Frenchmen were as affable as their leader, and he presented
them in turn. De Beauxchamps conversed almost gaily with such of the
ladies as had sufficient command of their feelings to join the throng
that pressed about him and his companions. He was deeply touched by the
story of the recent rescue of his countrymen from the Pyrenees, and he
went among them, trying to cheer them up, with the _élan_ that no
misfortune can eradicate from the Gallic nature.
At length Cosmo reminded him that he had said that he had some
interesting news to communicate.
"Yes," said De Beauxchamps, "I have just come from a visit to Paris."
Exclamations of amazement and incredulity were heard on all sides.
"It is true," resumed the Frenchman, though now his voice lost all its
gayety. "I had conceived the project of such a visit before I met the
Ark and transferred His Majesty, the King of England, to your care. As
soon as that was done I set out to make the attempt."
"But tell me first," interrupted Cosmo, "how you succeeded in finding
the Ark again."
"That was not very difficult," replied De Beauxchamps, smiling. "Of
course, it was to some extent accidental, for I didn't _know_ that you
would be here, navigating over France; but I had an idea that you
_might_ come this way if you had an intention of seeing what had
happened to Europe. It is my regular custom to rise frequently to the
surface to take a look around and make sure of my bearings, and you know
that the Ark makes a pretty large point on the waters. I saw it long
before you caught sight of me."
"Very well," said Cosmo. "Please go on with your story. It must, indeed,
be an extraordinary one."
"I was particularly desirous of seeing Paris again, deep as I knew her
to lie under the waves," resumed De Beauxchamps, "because it was my
home, and I had a house in the Champs Elysées. You cannot divorce the
heart of a Frenchman from his home, though you should bury it under
twenty oceans."
"Your family were lost?"
"Thank God, I had no family. If I had had they would be with me. My
companions are all like myself in that respect. We have lost many
friends, but no near relatives. As I was saying, I started for France,
poor drowned France, as soon as I left you. With the powerful
searchlight of the _Jules Verne_ I could feel confident of avoiding
obstructions; and, besides, I knew very closely the height to which the
flood had risen, and having the topography of my country at my fingers'
ends, as does every officer of the army, I was able to calculate the
depth at which we should run in order to avoid the hilltops."
"But surely," said Cosmo, "it is impossible--at least, it seems so to
me--that you can descend to any great depth--the pressure must be
tremendous a few hundred feet down, to say nothing of possible
thousands."
"All that," replied the Frenchman, "has been provided for. You probably
do not know to what extent we had carried experiments in France on the
deep submersion of submarines before their general abandonment when they
were prohibited by international agreement in war. I was myself perhaps
the leader in those investigations, and in the construction of the
_Jules Verne_ I took pains to improve on all that had hitherto been
done.
"Without going into any description of my devices, I may simply remind
you nature has pointed out ways of avoiding the consequences of the
inconceivable pressures which calculation indicates at depths of a
kilometer, or more, in her construction of the deep-sea fishes. It was
by a study of them that I arrived at the secret of both penetrating to
depths that would theoretically have seemed entirely impossible and of
remaining at such depths."
"Marvelous!" exclaimed Cosmo; "marvelous beyond belief!"
"I may add," continued De Beauxchamps, smiling at the effect that his
words had had upon the mind of the renowned Cosmo Versál, "that the
peculiar properties of levium, which you so wisely chose for your Ark,
aided _me_ in quite a different way. But I must return to my story.
"We passed over the coast of France near the point where I knew lay the
mouth of the Loire. I could have found my way by means of the compass
sufficiently well; but since the sky was clear I frequently came to the
surface in order, for greater certainty, to obtain sights of the sun and
stars.
"I dropped down at Tours and at Blois, and we plainly saw the walls of
the old châteaux in the gleam of the searchlight below us. There were
monsters of the deep, such as the eye of man never beheld, swimming
slowly about them, many of them throwing a strange luminosity into the
water from their phosphorescent organs, as if they were inspecting these
novelties of the sea-bottom.
"Arrived over Orleans, we turned in the direction of Paris. As we
approached the site of the city I sank the submersible until we almost
touched the higher hills. My searchlight is so arranged that it can be
directed almost every way--up, down, to this side, and to that--and we
swept it round us in every direction.
"The light readily penetrated the water and revealed sights which I have
no power to describe, and some--reminders of the immense population of
human beings which had there met its end--which I would not describe if
I could. To see a drowned face suddenly appear outside the window,
almost within touch--ah, that was too horrible!
"We passed over Versailles, with the old palace still almost intact;
over Sèvres, with its porcelain manufactory yet in part standing--the
tidal waves that had come up the river from the sea evidently caused
much destruction just before the downpour began--and finally we
'entered' Paris.
"We could see the embankments of the Seine beneath us as we passed up
its course from the Point du Jour. From the site of the Champ de Mars I
turned northward in search of the older part of the Champs Élysées,
where my house was, and we came upon the great Arc de Triomphe, which,
you remember, dates from the time of Napoleon.
"It was apparently uninjured, even the huge bronze groups remaining in
their places, and the searchlight, traversing its face, fell upon the
heroic group on the east façade of the Marseillaise. You must have seen
that, M. Versál?"
"Yes, many a time," Cosmo replied. "The fury in the face of the female
figure representing the spirit of war, chanting the 'Marseillaise,' and,
sword in hand, sweeping over the heads of the soldiers, is the most
terrible thing of human making that I ever looked upon."
"It was not so terrible as another thing that our startled eyes beheld
there," said De Beauxchamps. "Coiled round the upper part of the arch,
with its head resting directly upon that of the figure of which you
speak, was a monstrous, ribbon-shaped creature, whose flat, reddish
body, at least a meter in width and apparently thirty meters long, and
bordered with a sort of floating frill of a pinkish color, undulated
with a motion that turned us sick at heart.
"But the head was the most awful object that the fancy of a madman could
conceive. There were two great round, projecting eyes, encircled with
what I suppose must have been phosphorescent organs, which spread around
in the water a green light that was absolutely horrifying.
"I turned away the searchlight, and the eyes of that creature stared
straight at us with a dreadful, stony look; and then the effect of the
phosphorescence, heightened by the absence of the greater light, became
more terrible than before. We were unmanned, and I hardly had nerve
enough to turn the submersible away and hurry from the neighborhood."
"I had not supposed," said Cosmo, "that creatures of such a size could
live in the deeper parts of the sea."
"I know," returned De Beauxchamps, "that many have thought that the
abysmal creatures were generally of small size, but they knew nothing
about it. What could one have expected to learn of the secrets of life
in the ocean depths from the small creatures which alone the trawls
brought to the surface? The great monsters could not be captured in that
way. But we have _seen_ them--seen them taking possession of beautiful,
drowned Paris--and we know what they are."
The fascinated hearers who had crowded about to listen to the narrative
of De Beauxchamps shuddered at this part of it, and some of the women
turned away with exclamations of horror.
"I see that I am drawing my picture in too fearful colors," he said,
"and I shall refrain from telling of the other inhabitants of the abyss
that we found in possession of what I, as a Frenchman, must call the
most splendid capital that the world contained.
"Oh, to think that all that beauty, all those great palaces filled with
the master-works of art, all those proud architectural piles, all that
scene of the most joyous life that the earth contained, is now become
the dwelling-place of the terrible _fauna_ of the deep, creatures that
never saw the sun; that never felt the transforming force of the
evolution which had made the face of the globe so glorious; that never
quitted their abysmal homes until this awful flood spread their empire
over the whole earth!"
There was a period of profound silence while De Beauxchamps's face
worked spasmodically under the influence of emotions, the sight of which
would alone have sufficed to convince his hearers of the truth of what
he had been telling. Finally Cosmo Versál, breaking the silence, asked:
"Did you find your home?"
"Yes. It was there. I found it out. I illuminated it with the
searchlight. I gazed into the broken windows, trying to peer through the
watery medium that filled and darkened the interior. The roof was
broken, but the walls were intact. I thought of the happy, happy years
that I had passed there when I _had_ a family, and when Paris was an
Eden, the sunshine of the world. And then I wished to see no more, and
we rose out of the midst of that sunken city and sought the daylight far
above.
"I had thought to tell you," he continued, after a pause, "of the
condition in which we found the great monuments of the city--of the
Pantheon, yet standing on its hill with its roof crushed in; of Nôtre
Dame--a wreck, but the towers still standing proudly; of the old palace
of the Louvre, through whose broken roofs and walls we caught glimpses
of the treasures washed by the water within--but I find that I have not
courage to go on. I had imagined that it would be a relief to speak of
these things, but I do not find it so."
"After leaving Paris, then you made no other explorations?" said Cosmo.
"None. I should have had no heart for more. I had seen enough. And yet I
do not regret that I went there. I should never have been content not to
have seen my beautiful city once more, even lying in her watery shroud.
I loved her living; I have seen her dead. It is finished. What more is
there, M. Versál?" With a sudden change of manner: "You have predicted
all this, and perhaps you know more. Where do _we_ go to die?"
"We shall _not_ die," replied Cosmo Versál forcefully. "The Ark and your
_Jules Verne_ will save us."
"To what purpose?" demanded the Frenchman, his animation all gone. "Can
there be any pleasure in floating upon or beneath the waves that cover a
lost world? Is a brief prolongation of such a life worth the effort of
grasping for?"
"Yes," said Cosmo with still greater energy. "We may still _save the
race_. I have chosen most of my companions in the Ark for that purpose.
Not only may we save the race of man, but we may lead it up upon a
higher plane; we may apply the principles of eugenics as they have never
yet been applied. You, M. De Beauxchamps, have shown that you are of the
stock that is required for the regeneration of the world."
"But where can the world be regenerated?" asked De Beauxchamps with a
bitter laugh. "There is nothing left but mountain-tops."
"Even they will be covered," said Cosmo.
"Do you mean that the deluge has not yet reached its height?"
"Certainly it has not. We are in an open space in the enveloping nebula.
After a little we shall enter the nucleus, and then will come the
worst."
"And yet you talk of saving the race!" exclaimed the Frenchman with
another bitter laugh.
"I do," replied Cosmo, "and it will be done."
"But how?"
"Through the re-emergence of land."
"That recalls our former conversation," put in Professor Abel Able. "It
appears to me impossible that, when the earth is once covered with a
universal ocean, it can ever disappear or materially lower its level.
Geological ages would be required for the level of the water to be
lowered even a few feet by the escape of vapor into space."
"No," returned Cosmo Versál, "I have demonstrated that that idea is
wrong. Under the immense pressure of an ocean rising six miles above the
ancient sea level the water will rapidly be forced into the interstices
of the crust, and thus a material reduction of level will be produced
within a few years--five at the most. That will give us a foothold. I
have no doubt that even now the water around us is slightly lowering
through that cause.
"But in itself that will not be sufficient. I have gone all over this
ground in my original calculations. The intrusion of the immense mass of
ocean water into the interior of the crust of the earth will result in a
grand geological upheaval. The lands will re-emerge above the new sea
level as they emerged above the former one through the internal stresses
of the globe."
The scientific men present listened with breathless interest, but some
of them with many incredulous shakings of the head.
"You must be aware," continued Cosmo, addressing them particularly,
"that it has been demonstrated that the continents and the great
mountain ranges are buoyed up, and, as it were, are floating somewhat
like slags on the internal magma. The mean density of the crust is less
under the land and the mountains than under the old sea-beds. This is
especially true of the Himalayan region.
"That uplift is probably the most recent of all, and it is there, where
at present the highest land of the globe exists, that I expect that the
new upheaval will be most strongly manifested. It is for that reason,
and not merely because it is now the highest part of the earth, that I
am going with the Ark to Asia."
"But," said Professor Jeremiah Moses, "the upheaval of which you speak
may produce a complete revolution in the surface of the earth, and if
new lands are upthrust they may appear at unexpected points."
"Not at all," returned Cosmo. "The tectonic features of the globe were
fixed at the beginning. As Asia has hitherto been the highest and the
greatest mass of land, it will continue to be so in the future. It is
there, believe me, that we shall replant the seed of humanity."
"Do you not think," asked Professor Alexander Jones, "that there will be
a tremendous outburst of volcanic energy, if such upheavals occur, and
may not that render the re-emerging lands uninhabitable?"
"No doubt," Cosmo replied, "every form of plutonic energy will be
immensely re-enforced. You remember the recent outburst of all the
volcanoes when the sea burst over the borders of the continents. But
these forces will be mainly expended in an effort of uplifting.
Unquestionably there will be great volcanic spasms, but they will not
prevent the occupation of the broadening areas of land which will not be
thus affected."
"Upon these lands," exclaimed Sir Wilfrid Athelstone, in a loud voice,
"I will develop life from the barren minerals of the crust. The age of
chemical parthenogenesis will then have dawned upon the earth, and man
will have become a creator."
"Will the Sir Englishman give me room for a word!" cried Costaké
Theriade, raising his tall form on his toes and agitating his arms in
the air. "He will create not anything! It is _I_ that will unloose the
energies of the atoms of matter and make of the new man a new god."
Cosmo Versál quieted the incipient outbreak of his jealous "speculative
geniuses," and the discussion of his theory was continued for some time.
At length De Beauxchamps, shrugging his shoulders, exclaimed, with a
return of his habitual gayety:
"_Très bien! Vive_ the world of Cosmo Versál! I salute the new Eve that
is to come!"