CHAPTER XIII
STRANGE FREAKS OF THE NEBULA
We return to follow the fortunes of Cosmo Versal's Ark.
After he had so providentially picked up the crazed billionaire, AmosBlank, and his three companions, Cosmo ordered Captain Arms to bear awaysoutheastward, bidding farewell to the drowned shores of America, andsailing directly over the lower part of Manhattan, and western LongIsland. The navigation was not easy, and if the Ark had not been amarvelously buoyant vessel it would not long have survived. At thebeginning the heavy and continuous rain kept down the waves, and thesurface of the sea was comparatively smooth, but after a while a curiousphenomenon began to be noticed; immense billows would suddenly appear,rushing upon the Ark now from one direction and now from another, cantingit over at a dangerous angle, and washing almost to the top of the hugeellipsoid of the dome. At such times it was difficult for anybody tomaintain a footing, and there was great terror among the passengers. ButCosmo, and stout Captain Arms, remained at their post, relieving oneanother at frequent intervals, and never entrusting the sole charge ofthe vessel to any of their lieutenants.
Cosmo Versal himself was puzzled to account for the origin of the mightybillows, for it seemed impossible that they could be raised by the windnotwithstanding the fact that it blew at times with hurricane force. Butat last the explanation came of itself.
Both Cosmo and the captain happened to be on the bridge together when theysaw ahead something that looked like an enormous column as black as ink,standing upright on the surface of the water. A glance showed that it wasin swift motion, and, more than that, was approaching in a direct linetoward the Ark. In less than two minutes it was upon them.
The instant that it met the Ark a terrific roaring deafened them, and therounded front of the dome beneath their eyes disappeared under a deluge ofdescending water so dense that the vision could not penetrate it. Inanother half minute the great vessel seemed to have been driven to thebottom of the sea. But for the peculiar construction of the shelter of thebridge its occupants would have been drowned at their posts. As it was theywere soaked as if they had been plunged overboard. Impenetrable darknesssurrounded them.
But the buoyant vessel shook itself, rolled from side to side, and rosewith a staggering motion until it seemed to be poised on the summit of awatery mountain. Immediately the complete darkness passed, the awfuldownpour ceased, although the rain still fell in torrents, and the Arkbegan to glide downward with sickening velocity, as if it were slidingdown a liquid slope.
It was a considerable time before the two men, clinging to the supports ofthe bridge, were able to maintain their equilibrium sufficiently to renderit possible to utter a few connected words. As soon as he could speak withreasonable comfort Cosmo exclaimed:
"Now I see what it is that causes the billows, but it is a phenomenon thatI should never have anticipated. It is all due to the nebula. Evidentlythere are irregularities of some kind in its constitution which cause theformation of almost solid masses of water in the atmosphere--suspendedlakes, as it were--which then plunge down in a body as if a hundredthousand Niagaras were pouring together from the sky.
"These sudden accessions of water raise stupendous waves which sweep offin every direction, and that explains the billows that we haveencountered."
"Well, this nebular navigation beats all my experience," said Captain Arms,wiping the water out of his eyes. "I was struck by a waterspout once inthe Indian Ocean, and I thought that that capped the climax, but it wasonly a catspaw to this. Give me a clear offing and I don't care how muchwind blows, but blow me if I want to get under any more lakes in the sky."
"We'll have to take whatever comes," returned Cosmo, "but I don't thinkthere is much danger of running directly into many of these downpours aswe did into this one. Now that we know what they are, we can, perhaps,detect them long enough in advance to steer out of their way. Anyhow,we've got a good vessel under our feet. Anything but an ark of leviumwould have gone under for good, and if I had not covered the vessel withthe dome there would have been no chance for a soul in her."
As a matter of fact, the Ark did not encounter any more of the columns ofdescending water, but the frequent billows that were met showed that theywere careering over the face of the swollen sea in every direction.
But there was another trouble of a different nature. The absence of sunand stars deprived them of the ordinary means of discovering their place.They could only make a rough guess as to the direction in which they weregoing. The gyrostatic compasses gave them considerable assistance, andthey had perfect chronometers, but these latter could be of no use withoutcelestial observations of some kind.
At length Cosmo devised a means of obtaining observations that were ofsufficient value to partially serve their purpose. He found that whilethe disk of the sun was completely hidden in the watery sky, yet it waspossible to determine its location by means of the varying intensity ofthe light.
Where the sun was a concentrated glow appeared, shading gradually off onall sides. With infinite pains Cosmo, assisted by the experience of thecaptain, succeeded in determining the center of the maximum illumination,and, assuming that to represent the true place of the sun, they gotsomething in the nature of observations for altitude and azimuth, andCaptain Arms even drew on his chart "Sumner lines" to determine theposition of the Ark, although he smiled at the thought of their absurdinaccuracy. Still, it was the best they could do, and was better thannothing at all.
They kept a log going also, although, as the captain pointed out, it wasnot of much use to know how fast they were traveling, since they could notknow the precise direction, within a whole point of the compass, or perhapsseveral points.
"Besides," he remarked, "what do we know of the currents? This is not theold Atlantic. If I could feel the Gulf Stream I'd know whereabouts I was,but these currents come from all directions, and a man might as well tryto navigate in a tub of boiling water."
"But we can, at least, keep working eastward," said Cosmo. "My idea isfirst to make enough southing to get into the latitude of the SaharaDesert, and then run directly east, so as to cross Africa where there areno mountains, and where we shall be certain of having plenty of water underour keel.
"Then, having got somewhere in the neighborhood of Suez, we can steerdown into the region of the Indian Ocean, and circle round south of theHimalayas. I want to keep an eye on those mountains, and stay around theplace where they disappear, because that will be the first part of theearth to emerge from the flood and it is there that we shall ultimatelymake land."
"Well, we're averaging eight knots," said the captain, "and at that ratewe ought to be in the longitude of the African coast in about twenty days.How high will the water stand then?"
"My gages show," replied Cosmo, "that the regular fall amounts to exactlythe same thing as at the beginning--two inches a minute. Of course thespouts increase the amount locally, but I don't think that they addmaterially to the general rise of the flood. Two inches per minute means4,800 feet in twenty days. That'll be sufficient to make safe navigationfor us all the way across northern Africa. We'll have to be careful ingetting out into the Indian Ocean area, for there are mountains on bothsides that might give us trouble, but the higher ones will still be insight, and they will serve to indicate the location of the lower rangesalready submerged, but not covered deeply enough to afford safe going overthem."
"All right," said Captain Arms, "you're the commodore, but if we don'thang our timbers on the Mountains of the Moon, or the Alps, or old Ararat,I'm a porpoise. Why can't you keep circling round at a safe distance, inthe middle of the Atlantic, until all these reefs get a good depth ofwater on 'em?"
"Because," Cosmo replied, "even if we keep right on now it will probablytake two months, allowing for delays in getting round dangerous places,to come within sight of the Himalayas, and in two months the flood willhave risen nearly 15,000 feet, thus hiding many of the landmarks. If weshould hold off here a couple of months before starting eastward
nothingbut the one highest peak on the globe would be left in sight by the timewe arrived there, and that wouldn't be anything more than a rock, so thatwith the uncertainty of our navigation we might not be able to find it atall. I must know the spot where Tibet sinks, and then manage to keep inits neighborhood."
That ended the argument.
"Give me a safe port, with lights and bearings, and I'll undertake to hitit anywhere in the two hemispheres, but blow me if I fancy steering forthe top of the world by dead reckoning, or no reckoning at all," grumbledthe captain.
At night, of course, they had not even the slight advantage that theirobservations of the probable place of the sun gave them when it was abovethe horizon. Then they had to go solely by the indications of the compass.Still, they forged steadily ahead, and when they got into what they deemedthe proper latitude, they ran for the site of the drowned Sahara.
After about a week the billowing motion caused by the descent of the "lakesin the sky" ceased entirely, to their great delight, but the lawless nebulawas now preparing another surprise for them.
On the ninth night after their departure from their lodgment on thePalisades Cosmo Versal was sleeping in his bunk close by the bridge, wherehe could be called in an instant, dreaming perhaps of the glories of thenew world that was to emerge out of the deluge, when he was abruptlyawakened by the voice of Captain Arms, who appeared to be laboring underuncontrollable excitement.
"Tumble up quicker'n you ever did in your life!" he exclaimed, his bigbrown beard wagging almost in Cosmo's face. "The flood's over!"
Cosmo sprang out of bed and pulled on his coat in a second.
"What do you mean?" he demanded.
"Look for yourself," said the captain, pointing overhead.
Cosmo Versal glanced up and saw the sky ablaze with stars! The rain hadentirely ceased. The surface of the sea was almost as smooth as glass,though rising and falling slowly, with a long, rolling motion. The Arkrode steadily, shivering, like an ocean liner, under the impulse of itsengines, and the sudden silence, succeeding the ceaseless roar of thedownpour, which had never been out of their ears from the start of thevoyage, seemed supernatural.
"When did this happen?" he demanded.
"It began not more than five minutes ago. I was just saying to myself thatwe ought to be somewhere near the center of the old Atlantic as it used tobe, and wondering whether we had got our course laid right to go fairlybetween the Canaries and the Cape de Verdes, for I didn't want to beharpooned by Gogo or the Peak of Teneriffe, when all of a sudden therecame a lightening in the nor'east and the stars broke out there.
"I was so set aback that I didn't do anything for two or three minutes butstare at the stars. Then the rain stopped and a curtain seemed to roll offthe sky, and in a minute more it was clear down to the horizon all around.Then I got my wits together and ran to call you."
Cosmo glanced around and above, seeming to be as much astonished as thecaptain had been. He rubbed his huge bald dome and looked all round againbefore speaking. At last he said:
"It's the nebula again. There must be a hole in it."
"Its whole bottom's knocked out, I reckon," said the captain. "Maybe it'srun out of water--sort o' squeezed itself dry."
Cosmo shook his head.
"We are not yet in the heart of it," he said. "It is evident to me now thatwhat I took for the nucleus was only a close-coiled spiral, and we're runout of that, but the worst is yet to come. When we strike the center, thenwe'll catch it, and there'll be no more intermissions."
"How long will that be?" inquired Captain Arms.
"It may be a week, and it may be a month, though I hardly think it will beso long as that. The earth is going about twelve miles a second--that'smore than a million miles a day--directly toward the center of the nebula.It has taken ten days to go through the spiral that we have encountered,making that about ten million miles thick. It's not likely that the gapbetween this spiral and the nucleus of the nebula is more than thirtymillion miles across, at the most; so you see we'll probably be in thenucleus within a month, and possibly much less than a month."
Captain Arms took a chew of tobacco.
"We can get our bearings now," he remarked. "Look, there's the moon justrising, and on my word, she is going to occult Aldebaran within an hour.I'll get an observation for longitude, and another on Polaris for latitude.No running on submerged mountains for us now."
The captain was as good as his word, and when his observations had beenmade and the calculations completed he announced that the position of theArk was: Latitude, 16 degrees 10 minutes north; longitude, 42 degrees 28minutes west.
"Lucky for us," he exclaimed, "that the sky cleared. If we'd kept on aswe were going we'd have struck the Cape de Verdes, and if that hadhappened at night we'd probably have left our bones on a drowning volcano.We ought to have been ten or twelve degrees farther north to make a safepassage over the Sahara. What's the course now? Are you still for runningdown the Himalaya mountains?"
"I'll decide later what to do," said Cosmo Versal. "Make your northing,and then we'll cruise around a little and see what's best to be done."
When day came on, brilliant with sunshine, and the astonished passengers,hurrying out of their bunks, crowded about the now opened gangways and theportholes, which Cosmo had also ordered to be opened, and gazed withdelight upon the smooth blue sea, the utmost enthusiasm took possession ofthem.
The flood was over!
They were sure of it, and they shook hands with one another andcongratulated themselves and hurrahed, and gave cheers for the Ark andcheers for Cosmo Versal. Then they began to think of their drowned homesand of their lost friends, and sadness followed joy. Cosmo was mobbed byeager inquiries wherever he made his appearance.
Was it all over for good? Would the flood dry up in a few days? How longwould it be before New York would be free of water? Were they going rightback there? Did he think there was a chance that many had escaped in boatsand ships? Couldn't they pick up the survivors if they hurried back?
Cosmo tried to check the enthusiasm.
"It's too early for rejoicing," he assured them. "It's only a break inthe nebula. We've got a respite for a short time, but there's worsecoming. The drowning of the world will proceed. We are the onlysurvivors, except perhaps some of those who inhabited the highlands.Everything less than 2,400 feet above the former level of the sea is nowunder water. When the flood begins again it will keep on until it issix miles deep over the old sea margins."
"Why not go back and try to rescue those who you say may have foundsafety on the highlands?" asked one.
"I have chosen my company," he said, "and I had good reasons for thechoice I made. I have already added to the number, because simple humanitycompelled me, but I can take no more. The quantity of provisions aboardthe Ark is not greater than will be needed by ourselves. If the rest ofthe world is drowned it is not my fault. I did my best to warn them.Besides, we could do nothing in the way of rescue even if we should goback for that purpose. We could not approach the submerged plateaus. Wewould be aground before we got within sight of them."
These words went far to change the current of feeling among thepassengers. When they learned that there would be danger for themselvesin the course that had been proposed their humanity proved to be lessstrong than their desire for self-preservation. Nevertheless, as we shallsee, the Ark ultimately went back to America, though not for any reasonthat had yet been suggested.
Meanwhile the unexpected respite furnished by the sudden cessation of thedownpour from the sky had other important results, to which we now turn.