II
The following Thursday afternoon a perspiring and dusty stranger fromSt. Louis, who, with the Metropolitan Art Museum as his objective, wastrudging wearily through Central Park, New York City, at two o'clock,paused to gaze with some interest at the obelisk known as Cleopatra'sNeedle. The heat rose in shimmering waves from the asphalt of theroadway, but the stranger was used to heat and he was conscientiouslyengaged in the duty of seeing New York. Opposite the Museum he seatedhimself upon a bench in the shade of a faded dogwood and wiped themoisture from his eyes. The glare from the unprotected boulevards wasterrific. Under these somewhat unfavourable conditions he was occupiedin studying the monument of Egypt's past magnificence when he felt aslight dragging sensation. It was indefinable and had no visualconcomitant. But it was as though the brakes were being gently appliedto a Pullman train. He was the only human being in the neighbourhood;not even a policeman was visible; and the experience gave him a creepyfeeling. Then to his amazement Cleopatra's Needle slowly toppled fromits pedestal and fell with a crash across the roadway. At first hethought it an optical illusion and wiped his eyes again, but it wasnothing of the kind. The monument, which had a moment before pointed tothe zenith, now lay shattered in three pieces upon the softeningconcrete of the drive. The stranger arose and examined the fragments ofthe monolith, one of which lay squarely across the road, barring allpassage. Round the pedestal were scattered small pieces of brokengranite, and from these, after looking about cautiously, he chose onewith care and placed it in his pocket.
"Gosh!" he whispered to himself as he hurried toward Fifth Avenue."That'll just be something to tell 'em at home! Eh, Bill?"
The dragging sensation experienced by the tourist from St. Louis wasfelt by many millions of people all over the world, but, as in mostcountries it occurred coincidently with pronounced earthquake shocks andtremblings, for the most part it passed unnoticed as a specific,individual phenomenon.
Hood, in the wireless room at Georgetown, suddenly heard in hisreceivers a roar like that of Niagara and quickly removed them from hisears. He had never known such statics. He was familiar with electricaldisturbances in the ether, but this was beyond anything in hisexperience. Moreover, when he next tried to use his instruments hediscovered that something had put the whole apparatus out of commission.About an hour later he felt a pronounced pressure in his eardrums, whichgradually passed off. The wireless refused to work for nearly eighthours, and it was still recalcitrant when he went off duty at seveno'clock. He had not felt the quivering of the earth round Washington,and being an unimaginative man he accepted the other facts of thesituation philosophically. The statics would pass, and then Georgetownwould be in communication with the rest of the world again, that wasall. At seven o'clock the night shift came in, and Hood borrowed apipeful of tobacco from him and put on his coat.
"Say, Bill, did you feel the shock?" asked the shift, hanging up his hatand taking a match from Hood.
"No," answered the latter, "but the statics have put the machine on theblink. She'll come round all right in an hour or so. The air's gummywith ions. Shock, did you say?"
"Sure. Had 'em all over the country. Say, the boys at the magneticobservatory claim their compass shifted east and west instead of northand south, and stayed that way for five minutes. Didn't you feel the airpressure? I should worry! And say, I just dropped into theMeteorological Department's office and looked at the barometer. She'djumped up half an inch in about two seconds, wiggled round some, andthen come back to normal. You can see the curve yourself if you askFraser to show you the self-registering barograph. Some doin's, I tellyou!"
He nodded his head with an air of importance.
"Take your word for it," answered Hood without emotion, save for aslight annoyance at the other's arrogation of superior information."'Tain't the first time there's been an earthquake since creation." Andhe strolled out, swinging to the doors behind him.
The night shift settled himself before the instruments with a look ofdreary resignation.
"Say," he muttered aloud, "you couldn't jar that feller with athirteen-inch bomb! He wouldn't even rub himself!"
Hood, meantime, bought an evening paper and walked slowly to thedistrict where he lived. It was a fine night and there was no particularexcitement in the streets. His wife opened the door.
"Well," she greeted him, "I'm glad you've come home at last. I was plumbscared something had happened to you. Such a shaking and rumbling andrattling I never did hear! Did you feel it?"
"I didn't feel nothin'!" answered Bill Hood. "Some one said there was ashock, that was all I heard about it. The machine's out of kilter."
"They won't blame you, will they?" she asked anxiously.
"You bet they won't!" he replied. "Look here, I'm hungry. Are thewaffles ready?"
"Have 'em in a jiffy!" she smiled. "You go in and read your paper."
He did as he was directed, and seated himself in a rocker under thegaslight. After perusing the baseball news he turned back to the frontpage. The paper was a fairly late edition, containing up-to-the-minutetelegraphic notes. In the centre column, alongside the announcement ofthe annihilation of three entire regiments of Silesians by the explosionof nitroglycerine concealed in dummy gun carriages, was the following:
CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLE FALLS
EARTHQUAKE DESTROYS FAMOUS MONUMENT
SHOCKS FELT HERE AND ALL OVER U. S.
Washington was visited by a succession of earthquake shocks early this afternoon, which, in varying force, were felt throughout the United States and Europe. Little damage was done, but those having offices in tall buildings had an unpleasant experience which they will not soon forget. A peculiar phenomenon accompanying this seismic disturbance was the variation of the magnetic needle by over eighty degrees from north to east and an extraordinary rise and fall of the barometer. All wireless communication had to be abandoned, owing to the ionizing of the atmosphere, and up to the time this edition went to press had not been resumed. Telegrams by way of Colon report similar disturbances in South America. In New York the monument in Central Park known as Cleopatra's Needle was thrown from its pedestal and broken into three pieces. The contract for its repair and replacement has already been let. The famous monument was a present from the Khedive of Egypt to the United States, and formerly stood in Alexandria. The late William H. Vanderbilt defrayed the expense of transporting it to this country.
Bill Hood read this with scant interest. The Giants had knocked theBraves' pitcher out of the box, and an earthquake seemed a small matter.His mind did not once revert to the mysterious message from Pax the daybefore. He was thinking of something far more important.
"Say, Nellie," he demanded, tossing aside the paper impatiently, "ain'tthose waffles ready yet?"