Nothing but a perusal of the newspapers, magazines, and scientific
journals of the day could give any idea of the enthusiastic interest
which was shown all over the civilized world in Roland Clewe's account
of the discovery of the north pole. His paper on the subject, which was
the first intimation the public had of the great news, was telegraphed
to every part of the world and translated into nearly every written
language. Sardis became a Mecca for explorers and scientific people at
home and abroad, and honors of every kind were showered by geographical
and other learned societies upon Clewe and the brave company who had
voyaged under the ice.
Each member of the party who had sailed on the Dipsey became a hero and
spent most of those days in according receptions to reporters, scholars,
travellers, sportsmen, and as many of the general public as could be
accommodated.
Sarah Block received her numerous visitors in the parlor of the house
which had been occupied by Mr. Clewe (and which he had vacated in her
favor the moment he had heard an intimation that she would like to have
it), in a beautiful gown made of the silky fibre from the pods of the
American milk-weed, then generally used in the manufacture of the finest
fabrics.
Sarah fully appreciated her position as the woman who had visited the
pole, a position not only unique at the time, but which she believed
would always remain so. In every way she endeavored to make her
appearance suitable to her new position. She wore the best clothes that
her money could buy, and furnished her new house very handsomely. She
discarded her old silver andirons and fender, which required continual
cleaning, and which would not have been tolerated by her except that
they were made of a metal which was now so cheap as to be used for
household utensils, and she put in their place a beautiful set of
polished brass, such as people used in her mother's time. Whenever Sarah
found any one whom she considered worthy to listen, she gave a very
full account of her adventures, never omitting the loss of her warm and
comfortable shoes, which misfortune, together with the performances of
Rovinski, and all the dangers consequent, and the acquaintance of
the tame and lonely whale, she attributed to the fact that there were
thirteen people on board.
Sammy's accounts were in a more cheerful key, and his principles were
not affected by his success. He never had believed that there was any
good in finding the pole, and he did not believe it now. When they got
there, it was just like any other part of the ocean, and it required a
great deal of arithmetic and navigation to find out where it was,
even when they were looking at it; besides, as he had found out to his
disgust, even when they had discovered it, it was not the real pole to
which the needle of the compass points.
Moreover, if there had been any distinctive mark about it, except the
buoy which they had anchored there, and even if it really were the pole
to which needles should point, there was no particular good in finding
it, unless other people could get there. But in regard to any other
expedition reaching the open polar sea under the ice, Sammy had grave
doubts. If a whale could not get out of that sea there was every reason
why nobody else should try to get into it; the Dipsey's entrance was
the barest scratch, and he would not try it again if the north pole were
marked out by a solid mountain of gold.
Roland Clewe refused in all personal interviews to receive the
laudations offered him as the discoverer of the pole. It was true that
the expedition had been planned by him, and all the arrangements and
mechanisms which had insured its success were of his invention, but he
steadily insisted that Mr. Gibbs and Sammy, as representatives of the
party, should be awarded the glory of the great discovery.
The remarkable success of this most remarkable expedition aroused a
widespread spirit of arctic exploration. Not only were voyages under the
ice discussed and planned, but there was a strong feeling in favor of
overland travel by means of the electric-motor sledges; and in England
and Norway expeditions were organized for the purpose of reaching the
polar sea in this way. It was noticed in most that was written and
said upon this subject that one of the strongest inducements for arctic
expeditions was the fact that there would be found on the shores of the
polar sea a telegraph station, by means of which instantaneous news of
success could be transmitted.
The interest of sportsmen, especially of the hunters of big game, was
greatly excited by the statement that there was a whale in the polar
sea. These great creatures being extinct everywhere else, it would be a
unique and crowning glory to capture this last survivor of his race; and
there were many museums of natural history which were already discussing
contracts with intending polar whalers for the purchase of the skeleton
of the last whale.
During all this time of enthusiasm and excitement, Roland Clewe made
no reference, in any public way, to his great discovery, which, in his
opinion, far surpassed in importance to the world all possible arctic
discoveries. He was busily engaged in increasing the penetrating
distance of his Artesian ray, and when the public mind should have
sufficiently recovered from the perturbation into which it had been
thrown by the discovery of the pole, he intended to lay before it the
results of his researches into the depths of the earth.
At last the time arrived when he was ready for the announcement of the
great achievement of his life. The machinery for the production of the
Artesian ray had been removed to the larger building which had contained
the automatic shell, and was set up very near the place where the mouth
of the great shaft had been.
The lenses were arranged so that the path of the great ray should run
down alongside of the shaft and but a few feet from it. The screen was
set up as it had been in the other building, and everything was made
ready for the operations of the photic borer.
The address which Roland Clewe now delivered to the company was made
as brief and as much to the point as possible. The description of the
Artesian ray was listened to with the deepest interest and with a vast
amount of unexpressed incredulity. What he subsequently said regarding
his automatic shell and its accidental descent through fourteen miles
of the earth's crust, excited more interest and more incredulity, not
entirely unexpressed. Clewe was well known as a man of science, an
inventor, an electrician of rare ability, and a person of serious
purpose and strict probity, but it was possible for a man of great
attainments and of the highest moral character to become a little
twisted in his intellect.
When at last the speaker told of his descent into the shaft; of
his passage fourteen miles into the interior of the earth; of his
discoveries, on which he based his theory that the centre of our globe
is one vast diamond, there was a general laugh from the reporters'
quarter, and the men of science began to move uneasily in their seats
and to talk to each other. Professor Tippengray, her silver hair brushed
smoothly back from her pale countenance, sat looking at the speaker
through her gold spectacles, as if the rays from her bright eyes would
penetrate into the very recesses of his soul. Not an atom of doubt was
in her mind; she never doubted, she believed or she disbelieved. At
present she believed; she had come there to do that, and she would wait,
and when the proper time had come to disbelieve she would do so.
If there had been any disposition in the audience to considerately
leave the man of shattered intellect to the care of his friends, it
disappeared when Clewe said that he would now be glad to show to all
present the workings of the Artesian ray. Crazy as he might be, they
wanted to wait and see what he had done. The workmen who had charge of
the machinery were on hand, and in a few moments a circle of light was
glowing on the ground within the screen. Clewe now announced that he
would take those present, one at a time, inside the enclosure and show
them how light could be made to penetrate miles downward into the solid
earth and rock.
Professor Tippengray was the first one invited to step within the
screen. Clewe stood at the entrance ready to explain or to hand her
the necessary telescopes; and as the portion of her body which remained
visible was between him and the light, there was nothing to disturb his
nerves.
The lenses were so set that they could penetrate almost instantly to
the depth which had previously been reached, but Clewe made his ray
move downward somewhat slowly; he did not wish, especially to the first
observer, to show everything at once.
As she beheld at her feet a great lighted well, extending downward
beyond the reach of her sharp eyes, Professor Tippengray stepped back
with a scream which caused nearly everybody in the audience to start to
his feet. Clewe expected this. He raised his hand to the company, asking
them to keep still; then he handed Professor Tippengray a stick.
“Take this,” he said, “and strike that disk of light; you will find it
as solid ground as that you stand on.” She did so.
“It is solid!” she gasped; “but where is the end of the stick?”
He turned off the light; there was the end of the stick, and there
was the little patch of sandy gravel, which he stepped upon, stamping
heavily as he did so. He then retired outside the screen. Professor
Tippengray turned to the audience.
“It is all right, gentlemen,” she said; “there is nothing to be afraid
of. I am going on with the investigation.”
Down, down, down went the light, and, telescope in hand, she stood close
to the shining edge of the apparent shaft.
“Presently,” Clewe said, “you will see the end of the shaft which my
Artesian ray is making; then you will perceive a vast expanse of lighted
nothingness; that is the great cleft in the diamond which I described to
you. In this, apparently suspended in light, you will notice the broken
conical end of an enormous iron shell, the shell which made the real
tunnel down which I descended in the car.”
At this she turned around and looked at him. Even into her strong mind
the sharp edge of distrust began to insert itself.
“Look!” said he.
She looked through her telescope. There was the cave of light; there was
the shattered end of the shell.
The hands which held the telescope began to tremble. Quickly Clewe drew
her away.
“Now,” said he, “do you believe?”
For a few moments she could not speak, and then she whispered, “I
believe that I have seen what you have told me I should see.”
Now succeeded a period of intense excitement, such as was perhaps never
before known in an assembly of scientific people. One by one, each
person was led by Clewe inside the screen and shown the magical shaft of
light. Each received the revelation according to his nature. Some were
dumfounded and knew not what to think, others suspected all sorts of
tricks, especially with the telescopes, but a well-known optician, who
by Clewe's request had brought a telescope of his own, quickly disproved
all suspicions of this kind. Many could not help doubting what they had
seen, but it was impossible for them to formulate their doubts, with
that wonderful shaft of light still present to their mental visions.
For more than two hours Roland Clewe exhibited the action of his
Artesian ray. Then he called the company to order. He had shown them his
shaft of light, and now he would give them some facts in regard to the
real shaft made by the automatic shell.
Every man who had been concerned in Mr. Clewe's descent into the shaft,
and those who had assisted in the sounding and the photographing, as
well as the persons who had been present when Rovinski was drawn up
from its depths, now came forward and gave his testimony. Clewe then
exhibited the photographs he had taken with his suspended camera, and
to the geologists present these were revelations of absorbing interest;
seeing so much that they understood, it was difficult to doubt what they
saw and did not understand.
Now that what Clewe had just told them was substantiated by a number of
witnesses, and now that they had heard from these men that a plummet, a
camera, and a car had been lowered fourteen miles into the bowels of the
earth, they had no reason to suppose that the great shaft had existed
only in the imagination of one crazy man, and they could not believe
that all these assistants and workmen were lunatics or liars. Still they
doubted. Clewe could see that in their faces as they intently listened
to him.
“My friends,” said he, “I have set before you nearly all the facts
connected with my experience in the shaft, but one important fact I have
not yet mentioned. I am quite sure that few, if any of you, believe that
I descended into the cleft of a great diamond lying beneath what we call
the crust of the earth. I will now state that before I left that cavity
I picked up some fragments of the material of which it is composed,
which were splintered off when my shell fell into it. I will show you
one of them.”
A man brought a table covered with a blue cloth, and from one of his
pockets Clewe drew a small bag. Opening this, he took out a diamond
which he had brought up from the cave of light, and placed it on the
middle of the table.
“This,” he said, “is a fragment of the mass of diamond into which I
descended. I have called it 'The Great Stone of Sardis.'”
Nobody spoke, nobody seemed to breathe. The huge diamond, of the
form and size of a large lemon, lay glowing upon the dark cloth, its
irregular facets--all of them clean-cut and polished, the results
of fracture--absorbed and reflected the light, and a halo of subdued
radiance surrounded the great gem like a tender mist.
“I brought away a number of fragments of the diamond,” said Clewe, his
voice sounding as if he spoke into an empty hall, “and some of them have
been tested by two of the gentlemen present. Here are the stones which
have been tested.” And he laid some small pieces on the cloth. “They are
of the same material as the large one. I brought them all from what I
believe to be the great central core of the earth.”
Everybody pressed forward, they surrounded the table. One of the
jewelers reverently took up the great stone; then in his other hand he
took one of the smaller fragments, which he instantly recognized from
its peculiar shape. He looked from one to the other; presently he said:
“They are the same substances. This is a diamond.” And he laid the great
stone back upon the cloth.
“Is there any other place on the surface of this earth, or is there any
mine,” inquired a shrill voice from the company, “where one could get a
diamond like that?”
“There is no such place known to mortal man,” replied the jeweler.
“Then,” said the same shrill voice, which belonged to a professor from
Harvard, “I think it is the duty of every one present, whose mind is
capable of it, to believe that the centre of this earth, or a part of
that centre, is a vast diamond; at the same time I would say that my
mind is not capable of such a belief.”
The public excitement produced by the announcement of the discovery of
the pole was a trifle compared to that resulting from the news of the
proceedings of that day. Clewe's address, with full accounts by the
reporters, was printed everywhere, and it was not long before the
learned world had given itself up to the discussion.
From this controversy Roland Clewe kept himself aloof. He had done all
that he wanted to do, he had shown all that he cared to show; now he
would let other people investigate his facts and his reasonings and
argue about them; he would retire--he had done enough.
Professor Tippengray was one of the most enthusiastic defenders of
Clewe's theories, and wrote a great deal on the subject.
“Granted,” she said, in one of her articles, “that the carboniferous
minerals, of which the diamond is one, are derived from vegetable
matter, and that wood and plants must have existed before the diamond,
where, may I ask, did the prediamond-forests derive their carbon? In
what form did it exist before they came into being?”
In another essay she said:
“Half a century ago it was discovered that a man could talk through
a thousand miles of wire, and yet now we doubt that a man can descend
through fourteen miles of rock.”
As to the Artesian ray itself, there could be no doubt whatever, for
when Clewe, in one of his experiments, directed it horizontally through
a small mountain and objects could be plainly discerned upon the other
side, discussions in regard to the genuineness of the action of the
photic borer were useless.
In medicine, as well as surgery, the value of the Artesian ray was
speedily admitted by the civilized world. To eliminate everything
between the eye of the surgeon and the affected portion of a human
organism was like the rising of the sun upon a hitherto benighted
region.
In the winter, Margaret Raleigh and Roland Clewe were married. They
travelled; they lived and loved in pleasant places; and they returned
the next year rich in new ideas and old art trophies. They bought a fine
estate, and furnished it and improved it as an artist paints a picture,
without a thought of the cost of the colors he puts upon it. They were
rich enough to have everything they cared to wish for. Undue toil and
troubled thought had been the companions of Roland Clewe for many a
year, and their company had been imposed upon him by his poverty; now
he would not, nor would his wife, allow that companionship to be imposed
upon him by his riches.
The Great Stone of Sardis was sold to a syndicate of kings, each member
of which was unwilling that this dominant gem of the world should belong
exclusively to any royal family other than his own. When a coronation
should occur, each member of the syndicate had a right to the use of
the jewel; at other times it remained in the custody of one of the great
bankers of the world, who at stated periods allowed the inhabitants of
said planet to gaze upon its transcendent brilliancy.
But the Works at Sardis were not given up. Margaret was not jealous
of her rival, Science, and if Roland had ceased to be an inventor, a
discoverer, a philosopher, simply because he had become a rich and happy
husband, he would have ceased to be the Roland she had loved so long.
The discovery of the north pole had given him fame and honor; for,
notwithstanding the fact that he had never been there, he was always
considered as the man who had given to the world its only knowledge of
its most northern point.
But in his heart Roland Clewe placed little value upon this discovery.
Before Mr. Gibbs had announced the exact location of the north pole, all
the students of geography had known where it was; before the eyes of the
party on the Dipsey had rested upon the spot pointed out by Mr. Gibbs,
it was well understood that the north pole was either an invisible point
on the surface of ice or an invisible point on the surface of water.
If no possible good could result from a journey such as the Dipsey had
made, no subsequent good of a similar kind could ever be expected; for
the next submarine vessel which attempted a northern journey under the
ice was as likely to remain under the ice as it was to emerge into the
open air; and if any one reached the open sea upon motor sledges, it
would be necessary for them to carry boats with them if they desired so
much as a sight of that weather-vane which, no matter how the wind blew,
always pointed to the south.
It was the Artesian ray which Clewe considered the great achievement of
his life, and to this he intended to devote the remainder of his working
days. It was his object to penetrate deeper and deeper with this ray
into the interior of the earth. He could always provide himself with
telescopes which would show him the limit reached by his photic borer,
and so long as that limit was a transparent disk, illuminated by his
great ray, so long he would believe in the existence of the diamond
centre of the earth. But when the penetrating light reached something
different, then would come the time for a change in his theories.
Discussion and controversy in regard to the discoveries of the Artesian
ray continued, often with great earnestness and heat, in learned
circles, and there were frequent demands upon Clewe to demonstrate the
truth of his descent of fourteen miles below the surface of the earth by
an actual exhibition of the shaft he had made or by the construction of
another.
But to such requests Clewe turned a deaf ear. It would be impossible for
him to open his old shaft. If in any way he could remove the rocks and
soil which now blocked up its upper portion for a distance of half a
mile, it would be impossible to reconstruct any portion which had been
obstructed. The smooth and polished walls of the shaft, which gave Clewe
such assurance of safety from falling fragments, would not exist if the
tunnel were opened.
As to a new shaft--that would require a new automatic shell, and this
Clewe was not willing to construct. In fact, rather than make a new
opening to the cave of light, he would prefer that people should doubt
that any such cave existed. The more he thought of his own descent into
that great cleft, the more he thought of the horrible danger of sliding
down some invisible declivity to awful, unknown regions; the more he
thought of the mysterious death of Rovinski, the more firmly did he
determine that not by his agency should a human being descend again to
those mysterious depths. He would do all that he could to enable men to
see into the interior of this earth, but he would do nothing to help any
man to get there.
The controversies in regard to their discoveries and theory disturbed
Roland and Margaret not a whit; they worked steadily, with energy and
zeal, and, above all, they worked without that dreadful cloud which so
frequently overhangs the laborer in new fields--the fear that the means
of labor will disappear before the object of the work shall come in
view.
One morning in the early summer, Roland rushed into the room where
Margaret sat.
“I have made a discovery!” he exclaimed. “Come quickly, I want to show
it to you!”
The heart of the young wife sank. During all these happy days the only
shadow that ever flitted across her sky was the thought that some novel
temptation of science might turn her husband from the great work to
which he had dedicated himself. Much that he had purposed to do, he had,
at her earnest solicitation, set aside in favor of what she considered
the greatest task to which a human being could give his time, his labor,
and his thought. It had been long since she had heard her husband speak
of a new discovery, and the words chilled her spirit.
“Come,” he said, “quickly!” And, taking her by the hand, he led her out
upon the lawn.
Over the soft green turf, under the beautiful trees, by the bright
flowers of the parterres and through the natural beauty of the charming
park, he led her; but not a word did she say of the soft colors and the
soft air. Not a flower did she look at. It seemed to her as if she trod
a bleak and stony road. She dreaded what she might hear, what she might
see.
He led her hastily through a gate in the garden wall; they passed
through the garden, and, whispering to her to step lightly, they entered
a quiet, shady spot beyond the house grounds.
“This way,” he whispered. “Stoop down. Do you see that shining thing
with bright-red patches of color? It is an old tomato-can; a robin has
built her nest in it; there are three dear little birds inside; the
mother-bird is away, and I wanted you to come before she returned. Isn't
it lucky that I should have found that? And here, in our own grounds?
I don't believe there was ever another robin who made her nest in a
tomato-can!”
Doubtless the two birds who had made that nest sincerely loved each
other; and there were at that moment a great many other birds, and a
great many men and women, in the same plight, but never anywhere did any
human being possess a soul so happy as that of Margaret at that moment.
“Roland,” she said, “when I first knew you, you would not have noticed
such a little thing as that.”
“I couldn't afford it,” he said.
“It is the sweetest charm of all your triumphs!” said she.
“What is?” he asked.
“That you feel able to afford it now,” answered Margaret.
Samuel Block and his wife Sarah found that life grew pleasanter as they
grew older. Fortunate winds had blown down to them from the distant
north; the substantial rewards of the enterprise were eminently
satisfactory, and the honors which came to them were not at all
unwelcome even to the somewhat cynical Samuel.
Sitting one evening with his wife before a cheering fire--for both of
them were wedded to the old-fashioned ways of keeping warm--Sammy laid
down the daily paper with a smile.
“There's an account here,” he said, “of a lot o' fools who are goin' to
fit out a submarine-ship to try to go under the ice to the pole, as we
did. They may get there, and they may get back; they may get there, and
they may never get back; and they may never get there, and never get
back; but whichever of the three it happens to be, it'll be of no more
good than if they measured a mile to see how many inches there was in
it.”
“Sammy,” exclaimed Sarah, “I do think you are old enough to stop talkin'
such nonsense as that. To be sure, there was a good many things that I
objected to in that voyage to the pole. In the first place, there was
thirteen people on board, which was the greatest mistake ever committed
by a human explorin' party; and then, agin, there was no provision for
keepin' whales from bumpin' the ship, and if you knew the number of
hours that I laid awake on that Dipsey thinkin' what would happen if the
frolicsome whale determined not to be left alone, and should follow us
into narrow quarters, you would understand my feelin's on that subject;
but as to sayin' there wasn't no good in the expedition--I think that's
downright wickedness. Look at that fender; look at them andirons, them
beautiful brass candlesticks, and that shovel and tongs, with handles
shinin' like gold! If it hadn't been that we discovered the pole, and so
got able to afford good furniture, all those handsome things would have
been made of common silver, just as if they was pots and kittles, or
garden-spades!”
End of Project Gutenberg's The Great Stone of Sardis, by Frank R. Stockton