THE WAMASAI WAIT FOR THE WORD TO FIRE.
It was the evening of the 22nd of September—that memorable date to which
public opinion assigned an influence as disastrous as that of the 1st of
January, 1000.
Twelve hours after the sun passed the meridian of Kilimanjaro, that is
to say, at midnight, the hand of Captain Nicholl would fire the terrible
mine.
From Kilimanjaro to Baltimore is one hundred and fourteen degrees, or a
difference in time of four hundred and fifty-six minutes. At the moment
of discharge it would be twenty-four minutes past five in the afternoon
in the great city of Maryland.
The weather was magnificent. The sun had just set on the plains of the
Wamasai behind a perfectly clear horizon. Barbicane & Co. could not have
wished for a better night, a calmer or a more star-lit one, in which to
hurl their projectile into space. There was not a cloud to mingle with
the artificial vapours developed by the deflagration of the
meli-melonite.
Who knows? Perhaps Barbicane and Nicholl were regretting that they could
not take their places inside the projectile? In the first second they
could have travelled over seventeen hundred miles! After having
penetrated the mysteries of the lunar world, they would have penetrated
those of the solar world, and under conditions differently interesting
from those of Hector Servadac on the comet Gallia!
The Sultan Bali-Bali, the great personages of his court; that is to say,
his minister of finance and his minister of works, and the staff of
black workmen, were gathered together to watch their final operation.
But, with commendable prudence, they had taken up their position three
miles away from the mouth of the mine, so as to suffer no inconvenience
from the disturbance of the atmosphere.
Around them were a few thousand natives from Kisongo and the villages in
the south of the province, who had been ordered by the Sultan to come
and admire the spectacle.
A wire connecting an electric battery with the detonator of the
fulminate in the tube lay ready to fire the meli-melonite.
As a prelude, an excellent repast had assembled at the same table the
Sultan, his American visitors, and the notabilities of the capital—the
whole at the cost of Bali-Bali, who did the thing all the better from
his knowing he would be reimbursed out of the ample purse of Barbicane &
Co.
It was eleven o’clock when the banquet, which had begun at half-past
seven, came to an end by a toast proposed by the Sultan in honour of the
engineers of the North Polar Practical Association and the success of
their undertaking.
In an hour the modification of the geographical and climatological
conditions of the Earth would be an accomplished fact.
Barbicane, his colleague, and the ten foremen began to take up their
places around the hut in which the electric battery was placed.
Barbicane, chronometer in hand, counted the minutes—and never did they
seem so long—those minutes which seemed not years, but centuries!
At ten minutes to twelve he and Captain Nicholl approached the apparatus
which put the wire in communication with the cannon of Kilimanjaro.
The Sultan, his court, the crowd of natives, formed an immense circle
round them.
It was essential that the discharge should take place at the precise
moment indicated in the calculations of J. T. Maston, that is at the
instant the sun touched the equinoctial line, which henceforth he would
never leave in his apparent orbit round the terrestrial spheroid.
Five minutes to twelve!
Four minutes to twelve!
Three minutes to twelve!
Two minutes to twelve!
One minute to twelve!
Barbicane followed the hand of the chronometer, which was lighted by a
lantern held by one of the foremen.
Captain Nicholl stood with his finger on the button of the apparatus
ready to close the circuit.
Twenty seconds to twelve!
Ten seconds!
There was not the suspicion of a shake in the hand of the impassible
Captain Nicholl. He and his friend were no more excited than when, shut
up in the projectile, they waited for the Columbiad to despatch them to
the Moon.
Five seconds!
One!
“FIRE!” said Barbicane.
And Nicholl’s finger pressed the button.
The noise was truly awful. The echoes rolled in thunders far beyond the
realm of the Wamasai. There was a shrill shriek of the projectile which
traversed the air under the impetus from milliards of milliards of
litres of gas developed by the instantaneous deflagration of two
thousand tons of meli-melonite. It seemed as though there had passed
over the surface of the Earth one of those storms in which are gathered
all the fury of Nature.
And the effect would have been no less terrible if all the guns of all
the artilleries of the world had been joined to the thunders of the sky
to give one long continuous roar together.