CHAPTER XVIII
NAVIGATING OVER DROWNED EUROPE
After the English king had so strangely become a member of its company theArk resumed its course in the direction of what had once been Europe. Thespot where the meeting with the _Jules Verne_ had occurred was west of CapeFinisterre and, according to the calculations of Captain Arms, in longitudefifteen degrees four minutes west; latitude forty-four degrees nine minutesnorth.
Cosmo decided to run into the Bay of Biscay, skirting its southern coast inorder to get a view of the Cantabrian Mountains, many of whose peaks, hethought, ought still to lie well above the level of the water.
"There are the Peaks of Europa," said Captain Arms, "which lie less thantwenty miles directly back from the coast. The highest point is eightthousand six hundred and seventy feet above sea level, or what used to besea level. We could get near enough to it, without any danger, to see howhigh the water goes."
"Do you know the locality?" demanded Cosmo.
"As well as I know a compass-card!" exclaimed the captain. "I've seen theEuropa peaks a hundred times. I was wrecked once on that coast, and beingof an inquiring disposition, I took the opportunity to go up into the rangeand see the old mines--and a curious sight it was, too. But the mostcurious sight of all was the shepherdesses of Tresvido, dressed just likethe men, in homespun breeches that never wore out. You'd meet 'em anywhereon the slopes of the Pico del Ferro, cruising about with their flocks. Andthe cheese that they made! There never was any such cheese!"
"Well, if you know the place so well," said Cosmo, "steer for it as fast asyou can. I'm curious to find out just how high this flood has gone, up tothe present moment."
"Maybe we can rescue a shepherdess," returned the captain, chuckling."She'd be an ornament to your new Garden of Eden."
They kept on until, as they approached longitude five degrees west, theybegan to get glimpses of the mountains of northern Spain. The coast was allunder deep water, and also the foothills and lower ranges, but some of thepeaks could be made out far inland. At length, by cautious navigation,Captain Arms got the vessel quite close to the old shore line of theAsturias, and then he recognized the Europa peaks.
"There they are," he cried. "I'd know 'em if they'd emigrated to the middleof Africa. There's the old Torre de Cerredo and the Pena Santa."
"How high did you say the main peak is?" asked Cosmo.
"She's eight thousand six hundred and seventy feet."
"From your knowledge of the coast, do you think it safe to run in closer?"
"Yes, if you're sure the water is not less than two thousand four hundredfeet above the old level we can get near enough to see the water-line onthe peaks, from the cro'nest, which is two hundred feet high."
"Go ahead, then."
They got closer than they had imagined possible, so close that, from thehighest lookout on the Ark, they were able with their telescopes to seevery clearly where the water washed the barren mountainsides at what seemedto be a stupendous elevation.
"I'm sorry about your shepherdesses," said Cosmo, smiling. "I don't thinkyou'd find any there to rescue if you could get to them. They must allhave been lost in the torrents that poured down those mountains."
"More's the pity," said Captain Arms. "That was a fine lot of women.There'll be no more cheese like what they made at Tresvido."
Cosmo inquired if the captain's acquaintance with the topography of therange enabled him to say how high that water was. The captain, after longinspection, declared that he felt sure that it was not less than fourthousand feet above the old coast line.
"Then," said Cosmo, "if you're right about the elevation of what you callthe Torre de Cerredo there must be four thousand six hundred and seventyfeet of its upper part still out of water. We'll see if that is so."
Cosmo made the measurements with instruments, and announced that the resultshowed the substantial accuracy of Captain Arms's guess.
"I suspected as much," he muttered. "Those tremendous downpours, which mayhave been worse elsewhere than where we encountered them, have increasedthe rise nearly seventy per cent, above what my gages indicated. Now that Iknow this," he continued, addressing the captain: "I'll change the courseof the Ark. I'm anxious to get into the Indian Ocean as soon as possible.It would be a great waste of time to go back in order to cross the Sahara,and with this increase of level it isn't necessary. We'll just set outacross southern France, keeping along north of the Pyrenees, and so downinto the region of the Mediterranean."
Captain Arms was astonished by the boldness of this suggestion, and atfirst he strongly objected to their taking such a course.
"There's some pretty high ground in southern France," he said. "There's theCevennes Mountains, which approach a good long way toward the Pyrenees. Areyou sure the depth of water is the same everywhere?"
"What a question for an old mariner to ask!" returned Cosmo. "Don't youknow that the level of the sea is the same everywhere? The flood doesn'tmake any difference. It seeks its level like any other water."
"But it may be risky steering between those mountains," persisted thecaptain.
"Nonsense! As long as the sky is clear you can get good observations, andyou ought to be navigator enough not to run on a mountain."
Cosmo Versal, as usual, was unalterable in his resolution--he only changedwhen he had reasons of his own--and the course of the Ark was laid,accordingly, for the old French coast of the Landes, so low that it was nowcovered with nearly four thousand feet of water. The feelings of thepassengers were deeply stirred when they learned that they were actuallysailing over buried Europe, and they gazed in astonishment at the waterbeneath them, peering down into it as if they sought to discover thedreadful secrets that it hid, and talking excitedly in a dozen languages.
The Ark progressed slowly, making not more than five or six knots, and onthe second day after they dropped the Penas de Europa they were passingalong the northern flank of the Pyrenees and over the basin in which hadlain the beautiful city of Pau. The view of the Pyrenees from this pointhad always been celebrated before the deluge as one of the most remarkablein the world.
Now it had lost its beauty, but gained in spectacular grandeur. All ofFrance, as far as the eye extended, was a sea, with long oceanic swellsslowly undulating its surface. This sea abruptly came to an end where itmet the mountains, which formed for it a coast unlike any that the hundredsof eyes which wonderingly surveyed it from the Ark had ever beheld.
Beyond the drowned vales and submerged ranges, which they knew lay beneaththe watery floor, before them, rose the heads of the Pic du Midi, the Picde Ger, the Pic de Bigorre, the Massif du Gabizos, the Pic Monne, anddozens of other famous eminences, towering in broken ranks like thebearskins of a "forlorn hope," resisting to the last, in pictures ofold-time battles.
Here, owing to the configuration of the drowned land it was possible forthe Ark to approach quite close to some of the wading mountains, and Cosmoseized the opportunity to make a new measure of the height of the flood,which he found to be surely not less than his former estimates had shown.
Surveying with telescopes the immense shoulders of the Monne, the Viscos,the d'Ardiden, and the nearer heights, when they were floating above thevalley of Lourdes, Cosmo and the captain saw the terrible effects that hadbeen produced by the torrents of rain, which had stripped off thevegetation whose green robe had been the glory of the high Pyrenees on theFrench side.
Presently their attention was arrested by some moving objects, and at asecond glance they perceived that these were human beings.
"Good Heaven!" exclaimed Cosmo Versal. "There are survivors here. They haveclimbed the mountains, and found shelter among the rocks. I should not havethought it possible."
"And there are women among them," said Captain Arms, lowering histelescope. "You will not leave them there!"
"But what can I do?"
"Lower away the boats," replied the captain. "We've got plenty of them."
"There may be thousands there," returned
Cosmo, musing. "I can't take themall."
"Then take as many as you can. By gad, sir, _I'll_ not leave 'em!"
By this time some of the passengers who had powerful glasses had discoveredthe refugees on the distant heights, and great excitement spread throughoutthe Ark. Cries arose from all parts of the vessel:
"Rescue them!" "Go to their aid!" "Don't let them perish!"
Cosmo Versal was in a terrible quandary. He was by no means withouthumanity, and was capable of deep and sympathetic feeling, as we have seen,but he already had as many persons in the Ark as he thought ought to betaken, considering the provision that had been made, and, besides, he couldnot throw off, at once, his original conviction of the necessity ofcarefully choosing his companions. He remained for a long time buried inthought, while the captain fumed with impatience and at last declared thatif Cosmo did not give the order to lower away the boats he would do ithimself.
At length Cosmo, yielding rather to his own humane feelings than to theurging of others, consented to make the experiment. Half a dozen leviumlaunches were quickly lowered and sent off, while the Ark, with slowedengines, remained describing a circle as near the mountains as it was safeto go. Cosmo himself embarked in the leading boat.
The powerful motors of the launches carried them rapidly to the high slopeswhere the unfortunates had sought refuge, and as they approached, and thepoor fugitives saw that deliverance was at hand, they began to shout, andcheer, and cry, and many of them fell on their knees upon the rocks andstretched their hands toward the heavens.
The launches were compelled to move with great caution when they got nearthe ragged sides of the submerged mountains (it was the Peyre Dufau onwhich the people had taken refuge), but the men aboard them were determinedto effect the rescue, and they regarded no peril too closely. At lastCosmo's launch found a safe landing, and the others quickly followed it.
When Cosmo sprang out on a flat rock a crowd of men, women, and children,weeping, crying, sobbing, and uttering prayers and blessings, instantlysurrounded him. Some wrung his hands in an ecstasy of joy, some embracedhim, some dropped on their knees before him and sought to kiss his hands.Cosmo could not restrain his tears, and the crews of the launches wereequally affected.
Many of these people could only speak the patois of the mountains, but somewere refugees from the resorts in the valleys below, and among these weretwo English tourists who had been caught among the mountains by the suddenrising of the flood. They exhibited comparative _sang froid_, and served asspokesmen for the others.
"Bah Jove!" exclaimed one of them, "but you're welcome, you know! This hasbeen a demnition close call! But what kind of a craft have you got outthere?"
"I'm Cosmo Versal."
"Then that's the Ark we've heard about! 'Pon honor, I should haverecognized you, for I've seen your picture often enough. You've come totake us off, I suppose?"
"Certainly," replied Cosmo. "How many are there?"
"All that you see here; about a hundred, I should say. No doubt there areothers on the mountains round. There must have been a thousand of us whenwe started, but most of them perished, overcome by the downpour, or sweptaway by the torrents. Lord Swansdown (indicating his companion, who bowedgravely and stiffly) and myself--I'm Edward Whistlington--set out to walkover the Pyrenees from end to end, after the excitement about the greatdarkness died out, and we got as far as the Marbore, and then running downto Gavarnie we heard news of the sea rising, but we didn't give too muchcredit to that, and afterward, keeping up in the heights, we didn't heareven a rumor from the world below.
"The sky opened on us like a broadside from an aerial squadron, and how weever managed to get here I'm sure I can hardly tell. We were actually_carried_ down the mountainsides by the water, and how it failed to drownus will be an everlasting mystery. Somehow, we found ourselves among thesepeople, who were trying to go _up_, assuring us that there was nothingbut water below. And at last we discovered some sort of shelter here--andhere we've been ever since."
"You cannot have had much to eat," said Cosmo.
"Not _too_ much, I assure you," replied the Englishman, with a melancholysmile. "But these people shared with us what little they had, or couldfind--anything and everything that was eatable. They're a devilish finelot, I tell you!
"When the terrible rain suddenly ceased and the sky cleared," he resumed,"we managed to get dry, after a day or two, and since then we've beenchewing leather until there isn't a shoe or a belt left. We thought atfirst of trying to build rafts--but then where could we go? It wasn't anyuse to sail out over a drowned country, with nothing in sight but themountains around us, which looked no better than the one we were barelyexisting on."
"Then I must get you aboard the Ark before you starve," said Cosmo.
"Many have died of starvation already," returned Whistlington. "You can'tget us off a moment too quick."
Cosmo Versal had by this time freed himself of every trace of thereluctance which he had at first felt to increasing the size of his ship'scompany by adding recruits picked up at random. His sympathies werethoroughly aroused, and while he hastened the loading and departure of thelaunches, he asked the Englishmen who, with the impassive endurance oftheir race, stayed behind to the last, whether they thought that there wereother refugees on the mountains whom they could reach.
"I dare say there are thousands of the poor devils on these peaks aroundus, wandering among the rocks," replied Edward Whistlington, "but I fancyyou couldn't reach 'em."
"If I see any I'll try," returned Cosmo, sweeping with his powerfultelescope all the mountain flanks within view.
At last, on the slopes of the lofty Mont Aigu across the submerged valleytoward the south, he caught sight of several human figures, one of whichwas plainly trying to make signals, probably to attract attention from theArk. Immediately, with the Englishmen and the remainder of those who hadbeen found on the Peyre Dufau, he hastened in his launch to the rescue.
They found four men and three women, who had escaped from the narrow valleycontaining the _bains de Gazost_, and who were in the last stages ofstarvation. These were taken aboard, and then, no more being in sight,Cosmo returned to the Ark, where the other launches had already arrived.
And these were the last that were rescued from the mighty range of thePyrenees, in whose deep valleys had lain the famous resorts of Cauterets,the Eaux Bonnes, the Eaux Chaudes, the Bagnieres de Luchon, the Bagnieresde Bigorre, and a score of others. No doubt, as the Englishmen had said,thousands had managed to climb the mountains, but none could now be seen,and those who may have been there were left to perish.
There was great excitement in the Ark on the arrival of the refugees. Thepassengers overwhelmed them with kind attentions, and when they hadsufficiently recovered, listened with wonder and the deepest sympathy totheir exciting tales of suffering and terror.
Lord Swansdown and Edward Whistlington were amazed to find their kingaboard the Ark, and the English members of the company soon formed a sortof family party, presided over by the unfortunate monarch. The rescuedpersons numbered, in all, one hundred and six.
The voyage of the Ark was now resumed, skirting the Pyrenees, but at anincreasing distance. Finally Captain Arms announced that, according to hisobservations, they were passing over the site of the ancient and populouscity of Toulouse. This recalled to Cosmo Versal's memory the beautifulscenes of the fair and rich land that lay so deep under the Ark, and hebegan to talk with the captain about the glories of its history.
He spoke of the last great conqueror that the world had known, Napoleon,and was discussing his marvelous career, and referring to the fact that hehad died on a rock in the midst of that very ocean which had now swallowedup all the scenes of his conquests, when the lookout telephoned down thatthere was something visible on the water ahead.
In a little while they saw it--a small moving object, which rapidlyapproached the Ark. As it drew nearer both exclaimed at once:
"The _Jules Verne!_"
There could
be no mistaking it. It was riding with its back just above thelevel of the sea; the French flag was fluttering from a small mast, andalready they could perceive the form of De Beauxchamps, standing in his oldattitude, with his feet below the rim of the circular opening at the top.Cosmo ordered the Stars and Stripes to be displayed in salute, and, greatlypleased over the encounter, hurried below and had the companion-ladder madeready.
"He's got to come aboard this time, anyhow!" he exclaimed. "I'll take norefusal. I want to know that fellow better."
But this time De Beauxchamps had no thought of refusing the hospitalitiesof the Ark. As soon as he was within hearing he called out:
"My salutations to M. Versal and his charming fellow-voyagers. May I bepermitted to come aboard and present myself in person? I have somethingdeeply interesting to tell."
Everybody in the Ark who could find a standing-place was watching the_Jules Verne_ and trying to catch a glimpse of its gallant captain, and tohear what he said; and the moment his request was preferred a babel ofvoices arose, amid which could be distinguished such exclamations as:
"Let him come!" "A fine fellow!" "Welcome, De Beauxchamps!" "Hurrah for the_Jules Verne!_"
King Richard was in the fore rank of the spectators, waving his hand to hispreserver.
"Certainly you can come aboard," cried Cosmo heartily, at the same timehastening the preparations for lowering the ladder. "We are all glad to seeyou. And bring your companions along with you."