A TRULY EPIC REPLY.
Time advanced, and so probably did the works of Barbicane & Co., but
where was the mystery.
But if their works were to require a foundry capable of casting a gun a
million times larger than a four hundred pounder, and a projectile
weighing one hundred and eighty thousand tons, they would want thousands
of workmen; and where, oh! where could they be?
In what part of the old or new world had Barbicane & Co. installed
themselves so secretly as to be invisible to the nations around? Had
they gone to some desert island of the Pacific? But there are no desert
islands now. That they had gone to the Arctic or Antarctic regions was
extremely unlikely, for those were the very regions they intended to
displace.
There was no need to look for them all over the world, for J. T.
Maston’s note-book had revealed the fact that the shot must be fired
from near the Equator. Along the equinoctial line, they might be in
Brazil or Peru, or Sumatra, or Borneo, or Celebes, or New Guinea, but
surely they would have been discovered by the people in the
neighbourhood? All through Africa, too, they would be almost certain of
discovery. There remained the Maldive Islands, the Admiralty, Gilbert,
and Christmas Islands, the Galapagos and San Pedro Islands; but all
these had been searched, and no trace of Barbicane & Co. had been found.
And what did Alcide Pierdeux think of all this? More “sulphuric” than
ever, he knew no rest in considering the different consequences of the
problem. That Captain Nicholl had invented an explosive of such power
that its expansion was three or four thousand times greater than the
most violent explosives used in modern war, and five thousand six
hundred times stronger than “good old gunpowder,” was, he remarked,
“étonnant, not to say détonnant!” but it was not impossible. No one
knows what the future has in store for us in that kind of progress. In
the shifting of the Earth’s axis by means of the recoil of a gun there
was nothing to surprise him.
“It is evident,” he said to himself, “that every day the Earth receives
the counter-shock from every shock produced on its surface! It is
certain that when hundreds of thousands of men amuse themselves by
sending thousands of projectiles weighing pounds, or millions weighing
ounces, even when I walk or jump, or when I stretch out my arm, or when
a blood corpuscle circulates in my veins, it must in some way influence
the mass of our spheroid. But in the name of an integral will
Barbicane’s jolt be sufficient to upset the Earth? If the equations of
that brute Maston really demonstrate that, we must make up our minds to
it!”
In truth, Alcide could not but admire the ingenious calculations of the
secretary of the Gun Club, communicated by the Commission of Inquiry to
the mathematicians who could understand them. And Alcide, who read
algebra as if it were newspaper, found the study of them extremely
interesting.
But if the upset did come, what a dreadful state of affairs there would
be in the world! What cities thrown down, what mountains shaken, what
people destroyed by millions, what waters hurled from their beds, what
fearful terrors! It would be such an earthquake as had never quaked
before!
“If Nicholl’s powder,” he said, “was not quite so strong, the projectile
might return to give the Earth another shock either before or behind the
firing-point, after making the turn of the globe, and then everything
might soon be knocked back into place, after causing immense
destruction, nevertheless! But they are going to throw it overboard!
Thanks to their meli-melonite their shell will describe the half of a
hyperbola and never come back to beg pardon for having given that kick
to the terrestrial ball!”
And Alcide threw his arms about like the semaphore at Portsmouth
Dockyard, at the risk of breaking everything within a radius of six feet
of him.
“If the firing-point were known I could soon find the great circles in
which the alteration will be zero, and the places where it will reach
the maximum, so as to give folks notice to clear out and save themselves
from being smashed by their houses tumbling about their ears! But how am
I to know that firing-point?”
And he ran his fingers through the very little hair that had been left
him.
“The results of the shock may be much more complicated than they
imagine! Why should not the volcanoes take the opportunity to favour us
with a few disorderly eruptions, and, like a first voyager, displace
some of the matter in their insides? Why should not the uplifted ocean
take a header into some of the craters? There’s a chance for you! That
would give an explosion that might send the whole tellurian box of
tricks sky high, or rather sky higher! What do you say to that, you
confounded Maston? you obstinate mute! What do you mean by juggling with
our poor Earth as if it were a ball on a billiard-table?”
These alarming hypotheses of Sulphuric Alcide were taken up and
discussed by the newspapers all over the world. The pyrotechnic display
organized by Barbicane and Co. would end in waterspouts, tidal waves,
deluges, would it? But such catastrophes would only be partial!
Thousands of people would disappear, and the rest would hardly notice
anything worth mentioning! As the fatal day approached, fear came over
the bravest. It might have been the dreadful year 1000 from the way in
which the people generally conducted themselves.
What happened in that year 1000 it may be interesting to recall. Owing
to a passage in the Apocalypse, the people of Europe were persuaded that
the Day of Judgment was nigh. They waited for the signs of wrath; the
son of Perdition, Antichrist, was to be revealed.
“In the last year of the tenth century,” relates H. Martin, “everything
was interrupted—pleasures, business, interest, even the work in the
fields. ‘Why,’ said the people, ‘should we provide for a future that
will never come? Let us think of eternity, which will begin to-morrow.’
They provided only for their immediate needs; they handed over their
lands and castles to the monasteries to obtain their protection in the
kingdom in the skies which was about to come to them. Many of the deeds
of gift to the churches begin with the words, ‘The end of the world
approaching, and its ruin being imminent.’ When the end of the fatal
term arrived the people kept within the basilicas, the chapels, the
edifices consecrated to God, and waited in agony for the seven trumpets
of the seven angels of judgment to sound in the sky.”
As we know, New Year’s Day, 1000, was reached without any disturbance in
the laws of Nature. But this time the expectation of the catastrophe was
not based on a doubtful interpretation of a text. It was a change to be
applied to the earth’s equilibrium based on indisputable calculations,
which the progress of the ballistic and mechanical sciences rendered
quite possible. This time it was not the sea that would give back the
dead, but the sea that would engulph millions of the living.
Under these circumstances, the position of J. T. Maston became daily
more critical. Mrs. Scorbitt trembled lest he should become the victim
of the general mania. Sometimes she thought of advising him to speak the
word which he so obstinately kept to himself. But she dared not, and she
did well. It would have been to expose herself to a categorical refusal.
The city of Baltimore was a prey to terror, and it became difficult to
restrain the populace, who were being excited even unto madness by the
newspapers, by the telegrams which they published from the four angles
of the earth, to use the apocalyptic language of St John the Evangelist
in the days of Domitian. Assuredly, if J. T. Maston had lived under that
persecuting emperor, his business would soon have been settled. He would
have been thrown to the beasts. But he would have contented himself with
replying,—
“I am there already!”
But no matter what happened, he refused to reveal the position of place
_x_, knowing well that if he divulged it Barbicane and Nicholl would be
prevented from continuing their work.
After all, there was something grand in this struggle between one man
and the entire world. J. T. Maston increased in grandeur in the mind of
Mrs. Scorbitt, and also in the opinion of his colleagues of the Gun
Club. These gallant fellows were as obstinate as retired artillerymen,
and never swerved from their support of Barbicane & Co. The secretary of
the Gun Club reached such a height of celebrity that a number of persons
even wrote to him, as they do to famous criminals, to obtain a few lines
from the hand of the man who was going to upset the globe.
This was all very fine, but it was more and more dangerous. The populace
thronged day and night round the gaol of Baltimore. There was great
shouting and much tumult. The mob would have lynched J. T. Maston there
and then if they could; and the police saw the time was coming when they
could no longer protect him.
Desirous of satisfying the American mob, as well as the mob of other
countries, the Washington Government decided to bring J. T. Maston to
trial.
With a jury selected from the terrified masses, “the affair would not
hang about long,” to quote the words of Alcide, who felt a kind of
sympathy for the calculator’s tenacity.
On the 5th of September, the President of the Commission visited the
prisoner in his cell.
Mrs. Scorbitt, at his urgent request, was allowed to accompany him.
Perhaps at the last attempt the influence of this amiable lady might be
successful. It would not do to neglect anything. All means were
legitimate that might secure the word of the enigma. If they did not
succeed, they would see!
“They will see!” said the knowing ones. “Suppose they hang J. T. Maston,
and the catastrophe takes place all the same?”
At eleven o’clock, then, Maston found himself in the presence of John
Prestice and Evangelina Scorbitt.
“For the last time,” said Prestice, “will you answer me?”
“What about?” said Maston.
“Where has your colleague, Barbicane, gone to?”
“I have already told you a hundred times.”
“Repeat it for the hundred and first.”
“He has gone where he will fire the cannon.”
“And where will he fire the cannon?”
“Where Barbicane is at this present moment.”
“Take care, Maston!”
“Of what?”
“Of the consequences of your refusal to reply. The result will be—”
“That you will not discover what you have no right to know.”
“What we have the right to know.”
“That is not my opinion.”
“We are going to put you on your trial.”
“You can put me on my trial.”
“And the jury will find you guilty.”
“Let them find me guilty.”
“And the sentence will immediately be given and immediately executed.”
“Very well.”
“Dear Maston!” said Evangelina, whose heart trembled at the prospect.
“Oh! Mrs. Scorbitt,” said J. T. Maston.
She bowed her head, and was silent.
“Would you like to know what the sentence will be?”
“Yes, if you like.”
“You will be hanged, as you deserve.”
“Really.”
“And you will be hanged, sir, as sure as two and two make four.”
“Then, sir, I shall have a chance,” said the phlegmatic Maston. “If you
were only the least bit of a mathematician you would not say as sure as
two and two make four. What is it that proves that all mathematicians up
to now have not been mad in asserting that the sum of two numbers is
equal to that of their parts, that two and two make exactly four?”
“Sir!” exclaimed the president, completely puzzled.
“Ah!” continued Maston. “If you had said as sure as one and one make
two, all right! That is absolutely evident, for it is no longer a
theorem, it is a definition.”
At this lesson in arithmetic, the president of the Commission retired,
while Mrs. Scorbitt’s eyes were ablaze with admiration for the
extraordinary abilities of her beloved calculator.