A CHANGE IN PUBLIC OPINION.
A month had elapsed since the meeting in the rooms of the Gun Club, and
a change had taken place in public opinion.
The advantages of altering the axis of rotation were being forgotten;
and the disadvantages were being enlarged upon. It was impossible that a
catastrophe could be avoided, for any change must necessarily be
occasioned by a violent shock. What the catastrophe would be no one
could say. Was this amelioration of climate desirable? Who would gain by
it except the Eskimos, Laps, and Samoyeds, who had nothing to lose?
The Major and his allies were indefatigable in their prophecies of evil.
“It is evident,” said Karkof “that the projectors will do all they can
to protect the United States from the consequences of the shock.”
“But can they?” asked Harald. “When you shake a tree all the branches
shake.”
“And,” said the Dutchman, “when you are hit in the stomach does not your
whole body shake?”
“That is what that famous clause meant!” said Todrin. “Here are the
geographical and meteorological modifications!”
“Yes,” said Baldenak. “But suppose the change of axis throws the seas
out of their existing basins?”
“And if the ocean level is lowered at different points,” said Jansen,
“some people may find themselves so high up in the world that
communication with them will be impossible!”
“If they go up too high they will not be able to breathe!” said Harald.
“Would you like to see Baltimore as high as Mont Blanc?” asked Donellan.
This modification of the axis was evidently a public danger.
A change of 23° 28′ would produce a considerable displacement in the
seas, owing to the flattening at the Poles. The Earth was thus
threatened with similar disasters to those that, it is believed, have
recently occurred in Mars. There entire continents, among others Libya
and Schiaparelli, have been submerged, as shown by the faint blue
replacing the faint red. Lake Moeris has disappeared. North and south
there have been changes, and the oceans have withdrawn from many
localities they formerly occupied. If a few charitable souls have been
much affected at the “floods in Mars”—almost as much as to open
subscriptions for the sufferers—what would they do for the floods on the
Earth?
Protests came in by every post. The United States Government was urged
to interfere.
“Look at these Yankees,” said one. “They want to hang the globe on
another axletree! As if the old one, after all these centuries, had worn
out! But is it not as sound as it was at the beginning?”
And there was Sulphuric Alcide at work trying to find out the nature and
direction of the shock that J. T. Maston had arranged. Once master of
the secret, he would very soon know what parts of the Earth were in
danger.
It was not likely that the United States would suffer. Barbicane & Co.
were quite Yankees enough to take care of their own country. Evidently
the new Continent between the Arctic Sea and the Gulf of Mexico had
nothing to fear. It was even possible that North America would gain a
considerable accession of territory.
“That may be,” said the nervous people who only saw the perilous side of
things. “But are you sure? Supposing J. T. Maston has made a mistake?
Supposing Barbicane makes a mistake when he puts Maston’s theory in
practice? Such a thing can happen to the cleverest artillerists! They do
not always score a bull’s-eye!”
These fears were sedulously worked upon by the Major and the opposition.
Todrin published a number of articles in a leading Canadian newspaper.
Harald rushed into print in a Swedish journal. Colonel Boris Karkof
tried his hand in a Russian one. The Americans began to take sides. The
_New York Tribune_ and the _Boston Journal_ took up their parable
against Barbicane. In vain the North Polar Practical Association tried
to stem the rising tide. In vain Mrs. Scorbitt paid ten dollars a line
for serious articles, humorous articles, and smart, scathing paragraphs
treating the dangers as chimerical. In vain the enthusiastic widow
endeavoured to show that if ever hypothesis was unjustifiable, it was
that which assumed that J. T. Maston was capable of an error!
Neither Barbicane nor his co-directors took the trouble to say anything.
They let the talk go on without making any change in their habits. They
seemed to be thoroughly absorbed in the immense preparations
necessitated by their undertaking. The revulsion of public opinion
seemed to concern them not in the least.
But in spite of all Mrs. Scorbitt could do, it soon came about that
Impey Barbicane, Captain Nicholl, and J. T. Maston began to be looked
upon as dangers to society. So high grew the clamour that the Federal
Government had to interfere, and call upon them to declare their
intentions. What were their means of action? How did they intend to
substitute one axis for another? What would be the consequences of the
substitution? What parts of the globe would the substitution endanger?
The excitement raging in every State in the Union allowed of no
hesitation on the part of the Washington Government. A Commission of
Inquiry, composed of engineers, mathematicians, hydrographers, and
geographers, to the number of fifty, presided over by the celebrated
John Prestice, was appointed on the 19th of February, with full powers
to investigate the affair, and put a stop to it if necessary.
Impey Barbicane was requested to attend before the Commission.
Barbicane did not come.
The police went to look for him at his residence, 95, Cleveland Street,
Baltimore.
Barbicane was there no longer.
Where was he?
They did not know.
When had he gone away?
Five weeks ago, on the 11th of January, he had left Maryland in company
with Captain Nicholl.
Where had they gone?
No one could say.
Evidently the two members of the Gun Club were on their way to the
mysterious region where preparations would begin under their direction.
But where could that be?
It was important to know, if the scheme of these dangerous projectors
was to be nipped in the bud.
The effect of this departure of Barbicane and Nicholl was immense. The
popular wrath rose like the rising of the equinoctial tide against the
North Polar Practical Association.
But there was one man who ought to know what had become of Impey
Barbicane and his colleague. There was one who ought to be able to
reply, and that instantly.
J. T. Maston!
J. T. Maston was requested to appear before the Commission.
He did not go!
Had he then left Baltimore? Had he gone with his colleagues, to help in
the work of which the world awaited the results with such very natural
alarm?
No! J. T. Maston was still to be found at Ballistic Cottage. He was
still incessantly at work, but now on other calculations, which he only
left to spend an occasional evening with Mrs. Scorbitt at New Park.
A policeman was sent with an order from the president of the Commission.
The policeman reached the cottage, knocked at the door, entered the
hall, and had a warm reception from Fire-Fire and a cool one from J. T.
Maston.
However, the secretary of the Gun Club thought it as well to go quietly,
and he appeared before the Commission complaining bitterly of having
been interrupted in his occupation.
The first question put to him was,—
“Do you know the whereabouts of Impey Barbicane and Captain Nicholl?”
“I do,” said J. T. Maston, “but I am not authorized to tell you.”
Second question,—
“Are these two men occupied in the preparations for their intended
modification of the terrestrial axis?”
“That,” said J. T. Maston, “is part of the secret with which I am
entrusted, and I refuse to say.”
Would he submit his calculations to the Commission, that they might
judge if the project of the Association could be accomplished?
“No, certainly not!” said J. T. Maston. “It is my right as a free
American citizen to keep from anybody the result of my work!”
“But if that is your right, Mr. Maston,” said President Prestice
solemnly, as if he spoke in the name of the entire world, “it may be
your duty to speak in face of the anxiety that exists.”
J. T. Maston did not think it was his duty. He had only one duty—to keep
silent; and he would keep silent.
In spite of their persistence, their supplications, their threats, the
members of the Commission of Inquiry could get nothing out of the man
with the iron hook. Never would they have believed that so much
obstinacy lurked within a gutta-percha cranium!
J. T. Maston left as he had arrived, and that he was congratulated on
his valiant defence by Mrs. Scorbitt we need hardly say.
When the result of J. T. Maston’s appearance was made known, public
opinion took a form that was really serious for his safety. The pressure
on the Government became so great that Secretary John S. Wright had to
obtain permission from the President to act _manu militari_.
On the evening of the 13th of March, J. T. Maston was in his workroom at
Ballistic Cottage, absorbed in his algebra, when the bell of the
telephone tinkled nervously.
“Hallo, there! Hallo, there!” murmured the instrument in a way that
showed great anxiety.
“Who’s there?” asked J. T. Maston.
“Mrs. Scorbitt.”
“What is it?”
“Be on your guard! I have just heard that this very night—”
The sentence had not been finished when the door of Ballistic Cottage
was burst open by a push from several shoulders, and up the staircase
came an extraordinary tumult. There was a voice protesting; then other
voices silencing it; then a bump as of a fallen body—bump, bump—it was
the negro, Fire-Fire, rolling downstairs after an unavailing defence of
his master’s home—bump, bump; the door of the workroom flew open;
policemen rushed in; the excitable Maston seized a revolver; instantly
he was disarmed; a policeman laid his hand on the papers on the desk;
Maston slipped free and dashed at a note-book; the police were after
him; before they could reach him he had torn out the last leaf, clapped
it to his mouth, and gulped it down as if it had been a pill!
“Now!” said he in the tone of a Leonidas at Thermopylæ. “_Now_ you can
do your duty.”
An hour afterwards he was in the gaol at Baltimore.
And that was probably the best thing that could have happened to him,
for the populace were in such a state of excitement that the police
might have found themselves powerless to protect him.