CHAPTER XXI.
NEWS FOR MARSTON!
In a few minutes, consciousness had restored order on board the _Susquehanna_, but the excitement was as great as ever. They had escaped by a hairsbreadth the terrible fate of being both burned and drowned without a moment"s warning, without a single soul being left alive to tell the fatal tale; but on this neither officer nor man appeared to bestow the slightest thought. They were wholly engrossed with the terrible catastrophe that had befallen the famous adventurers. What was the loss of the _Susquehanna_ and all it contained, in comparison to the loss experienced by the world at large in the terrible tragic _denouement_ just witnessed? The worst had now come to the worst. At last the long agony was over forever. Those three gallant men, who had not only conceived but had actually executed the grandest and most daring enterprise of ancient or modern times, had paid by the most fearful of deaths, for their sublime devotion to science and their unselfish desire to extend the bounds of human knowledge! Before such a reflection as this, all other considerations were at once reduced to proportions of the most absolute insignificance.
But was the death of the adventurers so very certain after all? Hope is hard to kill. Consciousness had brought reflection, reflection doubt, and doubt had resuscitated hope.
"It"s they!" had exclaimed the little Midshipman, and the cry had thrilled every heart on board as with an electric shock. Everybody had instantly understood it. Everybody had felt it to be true. Nothing could be more certain than that the meteor which had just flashed before their eyes was the famous projectile of the Baltimore Gun Club. Nothing could be truer than that it contained the three world renowned men and that it now lay in the black depths of the Pacific Ocean.
But here opinions began to diverge. Some courageous b.r.e.a.s.t.s soon refused to accept the prevalent idea.
"They"re killed by the shock!" cried the crowd.
"Killed?" exclaimed the hopeful ones; "Not a bit of it! The water here is deep enough to break a fall twice as great."
"They"re smothered for want of air!" exclaimed the crowd.
"Their stock may not be run out yet!" was the ready reply. "Their air apparatus is still on hand."
"They"re burned to a cinder!" shrieked the crowd.
"They had not time to be burned!" answered the Band of Hope. "The Projectile did not get hot till it reached the atmosphere, through which it tore in a few seconds."
"If they"re neither burned nor smothered nor killed by the shock, they"re sure to be drowned!" persisted the crowd, with redoubled lamentations.
"Fish "em up first!" cried the Hopeful Band. "Come! Let"s lose no time!
Let"s fish "em up at once!"
The cries of Hope prevailed. The unanimous opinion of a council of the officers hastily summoned together by the Captain was to go to work and fish up the Projectile with the least possible delay. But was such an operation possible? asked a doubter. Yes! was the overwhelming reply; difficult, no doubt, but still quite possible. Certainly, however, such an attempt was not immediately possible as the _Susquehanna_ had no machinery strong enough or suitable enough for a piece of work involving such a nicety of detailed operations, not to speak of its exceeding difficulty. The next unanimous decision, therefore, was to start the vessel at once for the nearest port, whence they could instantly telegraph the Projectile"s arrival to the Baltimore Gun Club.
But what _was_ the nearest port? A serious question, to answer which in a satisfactory manner the Captain had to carefully examine his sailing charts. The neighboring sh.o.r.es of the California Peninsula, low and sandy, were absolutely dest.i.tute of good harbors. San Diego, about a day"s sail directly north, possessed an excellent harbor, but, not yet having telegraphic communication with the rest of the Union, it was of course not to be thought of. San Pedro Bay was too open to be approached in winter. The Santa Barbara Channel was liable to the same objection, not to mention the trouble often caused by kelp and wintry fogs. The bay of San Luis Obispo was still worse in every respect; having no islands to act as a breakwater, landing there in winter was often impossible.
The harbor of the picturesque old town of Monterey was safe enough, but some uncertainty regarding sure telegraphic communications with San Francisco, decided the council not to venture it. Half Moon Bay, a little to the north, would be just as risky, and in moments like the present when every minute was worth a day, no risk involving the slightest loss of time could be ventured.
Evidently, therefore, the most advisable plan was to sail directly for the bay of San Francisco, the Golden Gate, the finest harbor on the Pacific Coast and one of the safest in the world. Here telegraphic communication with all parts of the Union was a.s.sured beyond a doubt.
San Francisco, about 750 miles distant, the _Susquehanna_ could probably make in three days; with a little increased pressure, possibly in two days and a-half. The sooner then she started, the better.
The fires were soon in full blast. The vessel could get under weigh at once. In fact, nothing delayed immediate departure but the consideration that two miles of sounding line were still to be hauled up from the ocean depths. Rut the Captain, after a moment"s thought, unwilling that any more time should be lost, determined to cut it. Then marking its position by fastening its end to a buoy, he could haul it up at his leisure on his return.
"Besides," said he, "the buoy will show us the precise spot where the Projectile fell."
"As for that, Captain," observed Brownson, "the exact spot has been carefully recorded already: 27 7" north lat.i.tude by 41 37" west longitude, reckoning from the meridian of Washington."
"All right, Lieutenant," said the Captain curtly. "Cut the line!"
A large cone-shaped metal buoy, strengthened still further by a couple of stout spars to which it was securely lashed, was soon rigged up on deck, whence, being hoisted overboard, the whole apparatus was carefully lowered to the surface of the sea. By means of a ring in the small end of the buoy, the latter was then solidly attached to the part of the sounding line that still remained in the water, and all possible precautions were taken to diminish the danger of friction, caused by the contrary currents, tidal waves, and the ordinary heaving swells of ocean.
It was now a little after three o"clock in the morning. The Chief Engineer announced everything to be in perfect readiness for starting.
The Captain gave the signal, directing the pilot to steer straight for San Francisco, north-north by west. The waters under the stern began to boil and foam; the ship very soon felt and yielded to the power that animated her; and in a few minutes she was making at least twelve knots an hour. Her sailing powers were somewhat higher than this, but it was necessary to be careful in the neighborhood of such a dangerous coast as that of California.
Seven hundred and fifty miles of smooth waters presented no very difficult task to a fast traveller like the _Susquehanna_, yet it was not till two days and a-half afterwards that she sighted the Golden Gate. As usual, the coast was foggy; neither Point Lobos nor Point Boneta could be seen. But Captain Bloomsbury, well acquainted with every portion of this coast, ran as close along the southern sh.o.r.e as he dared, the fog-gun at Point Boneta safely directing his course. Here expecting to be able to gain a few hours time by signalling to the outer telegraph station on Point Lobos, he had caused to be painted on a sail in large black letters: "THE MOONMEN ARE BACK!" but the officers in attendance, though their fog-horn could be easily heard--the distance not being quite two miles--were unfortunately not able to see it.
Perhaps they did see it, but feared a hoax.
Giving the Fort Point a good wide berth, the _Susquehanna_ found the fog gradually clearing away, and by half-past three the pa.s.sengers, looking under it, enjoyed the glorious view of the Contra Costa mountains east of San Francisco, which had obtained for this entrance the famous and well deserved appellation of the Golden Gate. In another half hour, they had doubled Black Point, and were lying safely at anchor between the islands of Alcatraz and Yerba Buena. In less than five minutes afterwards the Captain was quickly lowered into his gig, and eight stout pairs of arms were pulling him rapidly to sh.o.r.e.
The usual crowd of idlers had collected that evening on the summit of Telegraph Hill to enjoy the magnificent view, which for variety, extent, beauty and grandeur, is probably unsurpa.s.sed on earth. Of course, the inevitable reporter, hot after an item, was not absent. The _Susquehanna_ had hardly crossed the bar, when they caught sight of her.
A government vessel entering the bay at full speed, is something to look at even in San Francisco. Even during the war, it would be considered rather unusual. But they soon remarked that her bowsprit was completely broken off. _Very_ unusual. Something decidedly is the matter. See! The vessel is hardly anch.o.r.ed when the Captain leaves her and makes for Megg"s Wharf at North Point as hard as ever his men can pull! Something _must_ be the matter--and down the steep hill they all rush as fast as ever their legs can carry them to the landing at Megg"s Wharf.
The Captain could hardly force his way through the dense throng, but he made no attempt whatever to gratify their ill dissembled curiosity.
"Carriage!" he cried, in a voice seldom heard outside the din of battle.
In a moment seventeen able-bodied cabmen were trying to tear him limb from limb.
"To the telegraph office! Like lightning!" were his stifled mutterings, as he struggled in the arms of the Irish giant who had at last succeeded in securing him.
"To the telegraph office!" cried most of the crowd, running after him like fox hounds, but the more knowing ones immediately began questioning the boatmen in the Captain"s gig. These honest fellows, nothing loth to tell all that they knew and more that they invented, soon had the satisfaction of finding themselves the centrepoint of a wonder stricken audience, greedily swallowing up every item of the extraordinary news and still hungrily gaping for more.
By this time, however, an important dispatch was flying east, bearing four different addresses: To the Secretary of the U.S. Navy, Washington; To Colonel Joseph Wilc.o.x, Vice-President _pro tem._, Baltimore Gun Club, Md; To J.T. Marston, Esq. Long"s Peak, Grand County, Colorado; and To Professor Wenlock, Sub-Director of the Cambridge Observatory, Ma.s.s.
This dispatch read as follows:
"In lat.i.tude twenty-seven degrees seven minutes north and longitude forty-one degrees thirty-seven minutes west shortly after one o"clock on the morning of twelfth instant Columbiad Projectile fell in Pacific--send instructions--
BLOOMSBURY,
_Captain_, SUSQUEHANNA."
In five minutes more all San Francisco had the news. An hour later, the newspaper boys were shrieking it through the great cities of the States. Before bed-time every man, woman, and child in the country had heard it and gone into ecstasies over it. Owing to the difference in longitude, the people of Europe could not hear it till after midnight.
But next morning the astounding issue of the great American enterprise fell on them like a thunder clap.
We must, of course, decline all attempts at describing the effects of this most unexpected intelligence on the world at large.
The Secretary of the Navy immediately telegraphed directions to the _Susquehanna_ to keep a full head of steam up night and day so as to be ready to give instant execution to orders received at any moment.
The Observatory authorities at Cambridge held a special meeting that very evening, where, with all the serene calmness so characteristic of learned societies, they discussed the scientific points of the question in all its bearings. But, before committing themselves to any decided opinion, they unanimously resolved to wait for the development of further details.
At the rooms of the Gun Club in Baltimore there was a terrible time. The kind reader no doubt remembers the nature of the dispatch sent one day previously by Professor Belfast from the Long"s Peak observatory, announcing that the Projectile had been seen but that it had become the Moon"s satellite, destined to revolve around her forever and ever till time should be no more. The reader is also kindly aware by this time that such dispatch was not supported by the slightest foundations in fact. The learned Professor, in a moment of temporary cerebral excitation, to which even the greatest scientist is just as liable as the rest of us, had taken some little meteor or, still more probably, some little fly-speck in the telescope for the Projectile. The worst of it was that he had not only boldly proclaimed his alleged discovery to the world at large but he had even explained all about it with the well known easy pomposity that "Science" sometimes ventures to a.s.sume. The consequences of all this may be readily guessed. The Baltimore Gun Club had split up immediately into two violently opposed parties. Those gentlemen who regularly conned the scientific magazines, took every word of the learned Professor"s dispatch for gospel--or rather for something of far higher value, and more strictly in accordance with the highly advanced scientific developments of the day. But the others, who never read anything but the daily papers and who could not bear the idea of losing Barbican, laughed the whole thing to scorn. Belfast, they said, had seen as much of the Projectile as he had of the "Open Polar Sea,"
and the rest of the dispatch was mere twaddle, though a.s.serted with all the sternness of a religious dogma and enveloped in the usual scientific slang.
The meeting held in the Club House, 24 Monument Square, Baltimore, on the evening of the 13th, had been therefore disorderly in the highest degree. Long before the appointed hour, the great hall was densely packed and the greatest uproar prevailed. Vice-President Wilc.o.x took the chair, and all was comparatively quiet until Colonel Bloomsbury, the Honorary Secretary in Marston"s absence, commenced to read Belfast"s dispatch. Then the scene, according to the account given in the next day"s _Sun_, from whose columns we condense our report, actually "beggared description." Roars, yells, cheers, counter-cheers, clappings, hissings, stampings, squallings, whistlings, barkings, mewings, c.o.c.k crowings, all of the most fearful and demoniacal character, turned the immense hall into a regular pandemonium. In vain did President Wilc.o.x fire off his detonating bell, with a report on ordinary occasions as loud as the roar of a small piece of ordnance. In the dreadful noise then prevailing it was no more heard than the fizz of a lucifer match.
Some cries, however, made themselves occasionally heard in the pauses of the din. "Read! Read!" "Dry up!" "Sit down!" "Give him an egg!" "Fair play!" "Hurrah for Barbican!" "Down with his enemies!" "Free Speech!"
"Belfast won"t bite you!" "He"d like to bite Barbican, but his teeth aren"t sharp enough!" "Barbican"s a martyr to science, let"s hear his fate!" "Martyr be hanged; the Old Man is to the good yet!" "Belfast is the grandest name in Science!" "Groans for the grandest name!" (Awful groans.) "Three cheers for Old Man Barbican!" (The exceptional strength alone of the walls saved the building, from being blown out by an explosion in which at least 5,000 pairs of lungs partic.i.p.ated.)
"Three cheers for M"Nicholl and the Frenchman!" This was followed by another burst of cheering so hearty, vigorous and long continued that the scientific party, or _Belfasters_ as they were now called, seeing that further prolongation of the meet was perfectly useless, moved to adjourn. It was carried unanimously. President Wilc.o.x left the chair, the meeting broke up in the wildest disorder--the scientists rather crest fallen, but the Barbican men quite jubilant for having been so successful in preventing the reading of that detested dispatch.