As for Jonathan Farenheit, he strode up and down the narrow corridor that circulated within the rock around the central chimney, like a polar bear in its enclosure. While he walked, he frequently clenched his fists, lifted up his arms like sledgehammers, looking furiously to the right and left, muttering muffled curses. As Mikhail Ossipoff had said to Fricoulet, the American had a vindictive soul, and now had only one objective in life: to avenge himself on Fedor Sharp. It should be noted that it was not so much that he wanted to kill Sharp because the latter had killed 40 of his companions, or that he had stolen some $2,000,000 from the society of which he was president, as because he had put one over on him, Jonathan Farenheit, a citizen of free America. The Yankee considered Sharp’s conduct to be prejudicial to the honor of the Stars and Stripes, and to punish that insult, he would as readily have descended into the depths of the ocean and taken flight into the immensity of space.
Finally, Fricoulet’s repeating watch chimed 12 noon, the hour of the daily meal. They rushed through one last token dinner; then the little troop got read to descend to the bottom of the well to take their place in the cannonball-vehicle. The more time went by, the more evident the symptoms of an imminent eruption became.
The solfataras and fumaroles were, it is true, dormant, but in the volcanic depths, dull rumblings resounded like distant rolls of thunder; the lava took on a brownish tint again, and, under the influence of the gradually rising temperature, the snows of the upper cone were breaking up and running away in muddy streams. It was still calm, but it was a fearful calm, the precursor of a storm.
Selena, pressing close to her father, looked down into the terrible abyss hollowed out at her feet. The windlass, with its 500 meters of rope, had been left close to the well; Ossipoff and his friends went to it.
“Well,” said Flamermont gravely. “Who’s going down first?”
To say that the young man was emotionless would have been a lie, but he had noticed Selena’s pallor and he wanted to boost her morale by adopting a playful attitude.
Jonathan Farenheit stepped forward. “If you would like me to go down,” he said, “I’m ready.”
The former diplomat put a hand on his arm. “No, Monsieur,” he said. “It ought, if I might express myself thus, to be one of the family.” In order to reply to the American’s interrogative gaze, he added: “You don’t know how to open the manhole that grants entry to the vehicle.”
Farenheit made a gesture to indicate that he recognized the soundness of the argument.
“Well,” said Fricoulet, in his turn, “you’re family—you go.”
Without paying any heed to Selena’s anxious movement, the young man stepped into the skip suspended from the end of the rope, crouched down in the bottom and said, in a firm voice: “Let it go!”
The ratchet of the windlass was released; the rope began to unwind, and the Comte soon disappeared into the depths of the hole. Leaning over the abyss, Ossipoff and his companions sought to pierce the darkness, cocking their ears to capture any sound that might inform them as to the progress of the descent. All they heard, though, was the monotonous whirr of the rope on the windlass, and the light of the lamp that Gontran had taken with him was almost immediately absorbed by the thick darkness that filled the crater.
A quarter of an hour went by. Then an electric bell rang, indicating that the voyager had arrived at the bottom. The rope was brought back up. Ossipoff took his place in the skip and went down in his turn. Selena went next.
Only Fricoulet and Jonathan Farenheit remained.
“How are we going to do it?” asked the American.
“I don’t understand the question.”
“How will the last of us get down? It’s necessary to unlock the opening of the chimney, which the windlass is obstructing.”
The engineer shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t worry about that,” he said, as he caught the skip that had come up empty. “Embark,” he said. “I’ll take care of all that.”
Once the agreed signal had been sent from the bottom of the abyss by the American, Fricoulet set about removing everything that might be an obstacle to the shell’s passage. After half an hour of hard work, he succeeded in withdrawing the flying bridge and the pulley. Then he bucked a large belt around his body, similar to the ones that firemen employ. To the ring of the belt he fixed a small apparatus consisting of two pulleys, over the first of which he coiled the cable, while the second simply played the role of a friction brake. Then, seizing his lamp in one hand and the cable in the other, he let himself slide into the abyss. Two minutes later, to the amazement of his companions, he arrived without undue effort and went into the vehicle in which they were already gathered.
“Monsieur Fricoulet!” exclaimed Selena. “How did you come down 500 meters so easily?”
“By means of the simplest apparatus, Mademoiselle: a spiral descensor.” He pressed a button then, and the four incandescent lamps came on abruptly, vividly illuminating the interior of the large circular room.
At the sight of the not-very-sumptuous but comfortable and practical layout of the room, Jonathan Farenheit beamed. “Nice!” he said. “Here’s something well-planned!” One of the divans was folded down; the Yankee sank his fist into it to judge the quality of its springs. Then he passed his hand over the thick-piled carpet that covered the floor. He leaned back on the padded wall, then unhooked one of the hammocks and suspended it. When this careful inspection was concluded, he smiled again and murmured, in a tone of authentic satisfaction: “We’ll do okay here.” He turned to Ossipoff, who had watched this little maneuver with a docile impassivity, and said; “All my compliments, my dear sir; here’s a vehicle that’s nicely kitted out, and if its solidity matches its furniture, I think we’ll have a very agreeable journey.”
“You’re too kind, Mr. Farenheit,” the old man replied. “Really too kind…but you haven’t yet seen and admired everything.” So saying, he opened the storage compartments that contained the casks of water and other liquids, the vegetable conserves and a host of other foodstuffs whose necessity he had foreseen. He folded out the steps of the collapsible ladder, so that his companions might admire the reserves of liquid air, the sparkling kitchen equipment and the flasks in the laboratory situated in the upper part of the nose-cone.
The American’s enthusiasm was unbounded. “You’d swear you were in a sleeping-car!” he cried. He shook Gontran’s hand, saying: “If you lived in New York, you’d be a millionaire in six months.”
Flammermont kept his face straight, but he was secretly entertaining great apprehensions. Just as long, he thought, as we aren’t roasted on take-off or blasted into pieces during the journey. In addition to the fact that he had no desire to alienate the genuine amity that Ossipoff had for him, however, he saw Fricoulet so resolute, Selena so resigned and Farenheit so impatient that he would have blushed with shame if he thought that anyone suspected his emotion.
That last afternoon seemed interminable. When every last nook and cranny of the projectile had been inspected, the young engineer consulted his chronometer; it was 3 p.m. “In my opinion, Monsieur Ossipoff,” he said, “We should now begin our final preparations for departure.”
“Already!” that was the word that emerged from all their mouths. At the same time, Selena and Gontran blanched slightly. Although emotional, Jonathan Farenheit kept a straight face.
Only Mikhail Ossipoff remained calm; he turned to Flammermont. “What do you think?” he asked.
“I think that perhaps it would, indeed, be more prudent.” And apart from that, he thought that if, by chance, the eruption was early and they were taken unawares, they would be reduced to little pieces.
Fricoulet immediately turned the handle of the automatic air distribution apparatus, and sealed the door of the shell hermetically by means of bolts. Save for the engineer and Ossipoff, the other travelers looked at one another with a certain anxiety, carefully studying the manner in which their lungs were functioning in the new artificially-f
abricated air. And each of them thought, privately: As long as we don’t suffocate.
Gontran had taken out his watch, but the seconds and minutes went by and no indication of asphyxia was manifest. They were definitely breathing, and breathing marvelously.
“Hurrah for Mikhail Ossipoff!” cried Farenheit, throwing his cap in the air to render his enthusiasm more tangible.
Selena, recovered from her initial emotion, busied herself about the vehicle, exactly as if she were in her little house in St. Petersburg. Briskly, she set up the table in the middle of the common room and covered it with a white cloth, on which she set out cutlery.
“What!” cried Flammermont. “We’re eating already—but it’s only 5 p.m.”
“It seems to me that it’s preferable to eat before departure,” the young woman relied. “What do you think, Father?”
“That’s my opinion too,” said the old man.
Jonathan Farenheit already had his napkin around his neck. “Let’s go,” he said, rapping the table with the hilt of his knife. “Let’s do honor to this terrestrial meal—perhaps the last one we shall ever eat.”
Fricoulet added: “Who knows? Perhaps we’ll be supping with Hades this evening?”
This reminiscence of Greek mythology made a slight frisson run over Gontran’s epidermis. “You’re not very cheerful, you know!” he murmured. Nevertheless, after five minutes, thanks to an excellent Burgundy, the young diplomat had left his apprehensions at the bottom of his glass and, along with his companions, did great honor to Mademoiselle Ossipoff’s culinary talents. The captivation was so complete that no one even thought of consulting the clock suspended from one of the vehicle’s walls.
They were eating dessert, and Alcide Fricoulet had just filled a round of champagne glasses in preparation for making a toast to Mikhail Ossipoff, when the vehicle suddenly trembled on its base. One might have thought that the one of the powerful supports of the globe had just given way under the weight of the heaped-up Cordilleras; the ground was shaken by a prolonged trepidation, while muffled cracking sounds were heard throughout the granite mass.
They all put down the glasses they were lifting to their lips simultaneously and looked at their neighbors anxiously. The old scientist suddenly sat up straight. “The eruption!” he cried.
“The eruption,” repeated Fricoulet, mockingly. “Here’s to it!” Emptying his glass in a single draught, he added, in a ringing voice: “Messieurs, I drink to Ossipoff and to Cotopaxi, the two forces—one intellectual, the other brutal—thanks to which we’re departing in conquest of unknown worlds.”
Everyone followed his example; then all gazes turned to the clock; it marked 5:45 p.m.
“But we’re ahead of time,” stammered Gontran.
“It’s probably only the preliminaries to the eruption,” Fricoulet replied, coolly.
“What if we’re leaving before the time you indicated?” Jonathan Farenheit said, in his turn.
“That’s quite possible.”
“What do we do, if so?”
“Wait,” said Ossipoff. “One can’t fight against the blind forces of nature, especially against eruptions—hold them back and contain them by utilizing their enormous power, perhaps, but command them, never. I’ve taken measures to bring the explosion forward, in case it doesn’t happen until after the time I’ve appointed for the departure, but I can do nothing to delay it.”
No one replied to him, all of them being absorbed in their own thoughts, waiting for the fateful moment that would either activate the aged scientist’s audacious project or annihilate it. Outside, the volcanic crepitations and subterranean detonations were increasing; their violence was further magnified with every passing second. Now the vehicle was vibrating, shuddering on its two caissons of compressed air, and with each increasing trepidation, the travelers expected the vapors and the laval matter, finally clearing a passage, to send them into space or break their limbs. In spite of the increasing intensity of the quaking of the ground, however, the meal was concluded without difficulty.
For a moment, Ossipoff, who was listening attentively to the many noises confused in the space, went white; the dreadful thought crossed his mind that if the lava rising through the channels neighboring the chimney in which the vehicle was enclosed were to spread out over the chimney’s orifice, the projectile and its voyagers would then be buried beneath a mass of incandescent matter. In the silence that filled the vehicle, the clock struck six times.
“We have ten minutes more to remain on Earth,” murmured the old scientist.
“Under the Earth, you mean,” observed Gontran.
“Monsieur Ossipoff,” said Alcide Fricoulet, “don’t you think we should make our final preparations for departure?”
“What preparations?” asked the American.
“Firstly, to make sure that all the items of furniture are firmly attached, that the bolts on the portholes and lashings are screwed all the way down, in order that everything inside the vehicle resists the shock that that it will play the role of a full vessel…” So saying, the engineer carefully inspected the stowage and equipment of the celestial vehicle. He carefully closed all the doors of the glass-fronted cabinets, put a lid on the bichromate piles and bolted the storage lockers.
Eventually, he came down again. “However brutal the shock is,” the young man said, “everything should resist the formidable recoil of departure, and the vehicle will behave as if it were a solid block. It’s equally necessary that we should be firmly moored. For that, we need to introduce ourselves side by side in the ‘padded drawers’ I’ve prepared. In that fashion, the shock of departure won’t crush us against the walls of the vehicle with which we comprise a body.”
“Brr,” murmured Gontran, considering the “drawers” whose lids Fricoulet had just lifted. “They look like coffins!” To set an example for his companions, however, Flammermont slid into the box next to Selena, and the lid was lowered and secured.
Five minutes had gone by during these preparations, and in that short interval the elements had been unleashed in a frightful fashion. Horrible cracking sounds were shaking the buttresses of the mountain, which shook like the metal-plate of an overheated boiler. As the Spanish Jesuit Martinez da Campadores had predicted, the monstrous Cotopaxi had woken up after its long sleep, and subterranean vapors accumulated under enormous pressure were hissing and howling in its gigantic entrails.
“It’s as if the 500,000 devils of Hell had fallen to the bottom of this hole,” Alcide Fricoulet said, jokingly. He had remained standing while his companions wedged themselves against the walls of their boxes.
“Why aren’t you lying down?” asked Gontran.
“Because I still have something to do before the departure,” the engineer replied.
“6:08 p.m.!” announced Ossipoff, vibrantly. “Pay attention!”
“We’re finally on our way,” said the American joyously, rubbing his hands together energetically at the thought that he was finally about to go in pursuit of that scoundrel Sharp.
At the same moment, Fricoulet turned the switch of the commutator-interrupter placed across the wires conducting the current to the incandescent lamps, and the interior of the vehicle was abruptly plunged into darkness. Everyone immediately fell silent, and nothing was to be heard but the sounds of the five explorers’ labored breathing and the beating of their hearts. A few seconds went by in mortal anxiety.
Suddenly, a frightful shock shook the entire projectile, threatening to break the steel springs on which the boxes were suspended. The voyagers perceived a dull and prolonged sound, accompanied by shrill whistling; it seemed to pass right through them in an incendiary fashion, and they lost consciousness.
Meanwhile, under the indescribable pressure of several million cubic meters of subterranean gases, the projectile quit the crater of Cotopaxi in a fiery cloud, and sped through the entire terrestrial atmosphere in less than five seconds.
They had not heard the terrible detonation produced
by the abrupt release of gases so long accumulated and compressed within the flanks of the volcano. Their vehicle, as Ossipoff had explained to Selena, flew more rapidly than sound, and they were already floating in the absolute void to which a myriad of silver stars lent an incomparable dazzle.
Although the bold voyagers had been able to launch themselves into space, thanks to their speed, without even being conscious of the cataclysm that accompanied their departure, the same was not true for the whole of America. An immense plume of flames, more than 500 meters high, sprang forth above the crater of Cotopaxi and a frightful noise reverberated in the remotest layers of the atmosphere. The fiery plume was seen more than 100 leagues away by two ships at sea, crossing that part of the Pacific Ocean, while the air, violently agitated and driven back by the sudden exhalation of several million cubic meters of hot gas, was transformed into a furious storm-wind, whose ravages were incalculable.
That tempest—animated, according to the observations of the scientists of the New World by a wind-speed of 155 kilometers per hour—raced north-eastwards across the Gulf of Mexico, engulfing 15 ships that were sailing peacefully and were unexpectedly seized by whirlwinds and waterspouts. It crossed the United States, lifting roofs, blowing down houses and uprooting centenarian trees; in less than six hours, it vanished into the polar regions of Baffin Bay.
In the regions of equatorial America the terror was immense; an earthquake sent its breaking waves along the entire range of the Andes, from Quito to Valparaiso. But it was, above all, the region of the Codilleras known as the Knot of Pastos, that was most severely tested. The magnificent façade of the Jesuit College in Quito, so admired a few weeks earlier by Gontran de Flammermont, was split from top to bottom to a width of 20 centimeters. Several factory chimneys collapsed and 15 houses were cracked and dismembered, ripe for demolition. 80 leagues away in Guayaquil, the ground abruptly caved in and, 200 meters from the harbor, a crevasse several meters wide suddenly opened up, from which toxic gases emerged.
The Extraordinary Adventures of a Russian Scientist Across the Solar System (Vol. 1) Page 23
