by Jules Verne
CHAPTER XXI.
J. T. MASTON RECALLED.
"It is 'they' come back again!" the young midshipman had said; andevery one had understood him. No one doubted but that that meteor wasthe projectile of the Gun Club. As to the travellers which it enclosed,opinions were divided regarding their fate.
"They are dead!" said one.
"They are alive!" said another; "the crater is deep, and the shock wasdeadened."
"But they must have wanted air," continued a third speaker; "they musthave died of suffocation."
"Burnt!" replied a fourth; "the projectile was nothing but an incandescentmass as it crossed the atmosphere."
"What does it matter!" they exclaimed unanimously; "living or dead, wemust pull them out!"
But Captain Blomsberry had assembled his officers, and "with theirpermission," was holding a council. They must decide upon somethingto be done immediately. The more hasty ones were for fishing up theprojectile. A difficult operation, though not an impossible one. But thecorvette had no proper machinery, which must be both fixed and powerful;so it was resolved that they should put in at the nearest port, and giveinformation to the Gun Club of the projectile's fall.
This determination was unanimous. The choice of the port had to bediscussed. The neighbouring coast had no anchorage on 27 deg. lat. Higherup, above the peninsula of Monterey, stands the important town from whichit takes its name; but, seated on the borders of a perfect desert, itwas not connected with the interior by a network of telegraphic wires,and electricity alone could spread these important news fast enough.
Some degrees above opened the bay of San Francisco. Through the capitalof the gold country communication would be easy with the heart of theUnion. And in less than two days the "Susquehanna," by putting on highpressure, could arrive in that port. She must therefore start at once.
The fires were made up; they could set off immediately. Two thousandfathoms of line were still out, which Captain Blomsberry, not wishing tolose precious time in hauling in, resolved to cut.
"We will fasten the end to a buoy," said he, "and that buoy will show usthe exact spot where the projectile fell."
"Besides," replied Lieutenant Bronsfield, "we have our situationexact--27 deg. 7' north lat. and 41 deg. 37' west long."
"Well, Mr. Bronsfield," replied the captain, "now, with your permission,we will have the line cut."
A strong buoy, strengthened by a couple of spars, was thrown into theocean. The end of the rope was carefully lashed to it; and, left solelyto the rise and fall of the billows, the buoy would not sensibly deviatefrom the spot.
At this moment the engineer sent to inform the captain that steam wasup and they could start, for which agreeable communication the captainthanked him. The course was then given north-north-east, and the corvette,wearing, steered at full steam direct for San Francisco. It was three inthe morning.
Four hundred and fifty miles to cross; it was nothing for a good vessellike the "Susquehanna." In thirty-six hours she had covered that distance;and on the 14th of December, at twenty-seven minutes past one at night,she entered the bay of San Francisco.
At the sight of a ship of the national navy arriving at full speed, withher bowsprit broken, public curiosity was greatly roused. A dense crowdsoon assembled on the quay, waiting for them to disembark.
After casting anchor, Captain Blomsberry and Lieutenant Bronsfieldentered an eight-oared cutter, which soon brought them to land.
They jumped on to the quay.
"The telegraph?" they asked, without answering one of the thousandquestions addressed to them.
The officer of the port conducted them to the telegraph-office througha concourse of spectators. Blomsberry and Bronsfield entered, while thecrowd crushed each other at the door.
Some minutes later a fourfold telegram was sent out--the first to theNaval Secretary at Washington; the second to the Vice-President of the GunClub, Baltimore; the third to the Hon. J. T. Maston, Long's Peak, RockyMountains; the fourth to the Sub-Director of the Cambridge Observatory,Massachusetts.
It was worded as follows:--
"In 20 deg. 7' north lat., and 41 deg. 37' west long., on the 12th of December, at 17 past one in the morning, the projectile of the Columbiad fell into the Pacific. Send instructions.--Blomsberry, Commander 'Susquehanna.'"
Five minutes afterwards the whole town of San Francisco learned the news.Before six in the evening the different States of the Union had heardthe great catastrophe; and after midnight, by the cable, the whole ofEurope knew the result of the great American experiment.
We will not attempt to picture the effect produced on the entire worldby that unexpected denouement.
On receipt of the telegram the Naval Secretary telegraphed to theSusquehanna to wait in the bay of San Francisco without extinguishingher fires. Day and night she must be ready to put to sea.
The Cambridge Observatory called a special meeting; and, with thatcomposure which distinguishes learned bodies in general, peacefullydiscussed the scientific bearings of the question. At the Gun Club therewas an explosion. All the gunners were assembled. Vice-President theHon. Wilcome was in the act of reading the premature despatch, in whichJ. T. Maston and Belfast announced that the projectile had just beenseen in the gigantic reflector of Long's Peak, and also that it was heldby lunar attraction, and was playing the part of under satellite to thelunar world.
We know the truth on that point.
But on the arrival of Blomsberry's despatch, so decidedly contradictingJ. T. Maston's telegram, two parties were formed in the bosom of the GunClub. On one side were those who admitted the fall of the projectile, andconsequently the return of the travellers; on the other, those who believedin the observations of Long's Peak, concluded that the commander of theSusquehanna had made a mistake. To the latter the pretended projectilewas nothing but a meteor! nothing but a meteor, a shooting globe, whichin its fall had smashed the bows of the corvette. It was difficult toanswer this argument, for the speed with which it was animated must havemade observation very difficult. The commander of the Susquehanna andher officers might have made a mistake in all good faith; one argumenthowever, was in their favour, namely, that if the projectile had fallenon the earth, its place of meeting with the terrestrial globe could onlytake place on this 27 deg. north lat., and (taking into consideration thetime that had elapsed, and the rotary motion of the earth) between theforty-first and the forty-second degree of west longitude. In any case,it was decided in the Gun Club that Blomsberry brothers, Bilsby, andMajor Elphinstone should go straight to San Francisco, and consult as tothe means of raising the projectile from the depths of the ocean.
These devoted men set off at once; and the railroad, which will sooncross the whole of central America, took them as far as St. Louis, wherethe swift mail-coaches awaited them. Almost at the same moment in whichthe Secretary of Marine, the Vice-President of the Gun Club, and theSub-Director of the Observatory received the despatch from San Francisco,the Honourable J. T. Maston was undergoing the greatest excitement hehad ever experienced in his life, an excitement which even the burstingof his pet gun, which had more than once nearly cost him his life, hadnot caused him. We may remember that the Secretary of the Gun Club hadstarted soon after the projectile (and almost as quickly) for the stationin Long's Peak, in the Rocky Mountains, J. Belfast, Director of theCambridge Observatory, accompanying him. Arrived there, the two friendshad installed themselves at once, never quitting the summit of theirenormous telescope. We know that this gigantic instrument had been set upaccording to the reflecting system, called by the English "front view."This arrangement subjected all objects to but one reflection, makingthe view consequently much clearer; the result was that, when they weretaking observations, J. T. Maston and Belfast were placed in the upperpart of the instrument and not in the lower, which they reached by acircular staircase, a masterpiece of lightness, while below them openeda metal well terminated by the metallic mirror, which measured 280 feetin depth.
> It was on a narrow platform placed above the telescope that the twosavants passed their existence, execrating the day which hid the moonfrom their eyes, and the clouds which obstinately veiled her during thenight.
What, then, was their delight when, after some days of waiting, on thenight of the 5th of December, they saw the vehicle which was bearing theirfriends into space! To this delight succeeded a great deception, when,trusting to a cursory observation, they launched their first telegramto the world, erroneously affirming that the projectile had become asatellite of the moon, gravitating in an immutable orbit.
From that moment it had never shown itself to their eyes--a disappearanceall the more easily explained, as it was then passing behind the moon'sinvisible disc; but when it was time for it to reappear on the visibledisc, one may imagine the impatience of the fuming J. T. Maston and hisnot less impatient companion. Each minute of the night they thought theysaw the projectile once more, and they did not see it. Hence constantdiscussions and violent disputes between them, Belfast affirming thatthe projectile could not be seen, J. T. Maston maintaining that "it hadput his eyes out."
"It is the projectile!" repeated J. T. Maston.
"No," answered Belfast; "it is an avalanche detached from a lunarmountain."
"Well, we shall see it to-morrow."
"No, we shall not see it any more. It is carried into space."
"Yes!"
"No!"
And at these moments, when contradictions rained like hail, the well-knownirritability of the Secretary of the Gun Club constituted a permanentdanger for the Honorable Belfast. The existence of these two togetherwould soon have become impossible; but an unforeseen event cut shorttheir everlasting discussions.
During the night, from the 14th to the 15th of December, the twoirreconcilable friends were busy observing the lunar disc, J. T. Mastonabusing the learned Belfast as usual, who was by his side; the Secretaryof the Gun Club maintaining for the thousandth time that he had just seenthe projectile, and adding that he could see Michel Ardan's face lookingthrough one of the scuttles, at the same time enforcing his argument bya series of gestures which his formidable hook rendered very unpleasant.
At this moment Belfast's servant appeared on the platform (it wasten at night) and gave him a despatch. It was the commander of the"Susquehanna's" telegram.
Belfast tore the envelope and read, and uttered a cry.
"What!" said J. T. Maston.
Illustration: THE UNFORTUNATE MAN HAD DISAPPEARED.
"The projectile!"
"Well!"
"Has fallen to the earth!"
Another cry, this time a perfect howl, answered him. He turned towards J.T. Maston. The unfortunate man, imprudently leaning over the metal tube,had disappeared in the immense telescope. A fall of 280 feet! Belfast,dismayed, rushed to the orifice of the reflector.
He breathed. J. T. Maston, caught by his metal hook was holding on byone of the rings which bound the telescope together, uttering fearfulcries.
Belfast called. Help was brought, tackle was let down, and they hoistedup, not without some trouble, the imprudent Secretary of the Gun Club.
He reappeared at the upper orifice without hurt.
"Ah!" said he, "if I had broken the mirror?"
"You would have paid for it," replied Belfast severely.
"And that cursed projectile has fallen?" asked J. T. Maston.
"Into the Pacific!"
"Let us go!"
A quarter of an hour after the two savants were descending the declivityof the Rocky Mountains; and two days after, at the same time as theirfriends of the Gun Club, they arrived at San Francisco, having killedfive horses on the road.
Elphinstone, the brothers Blomsberry, and Bilsby rushed towards them ontheir arrival.
"What shall we do?" they exclaimed.
"Fish up the projectile," replied J. T. Maston, "and the sooner thebetter."
