THE GREAT STONE OF SARDIS

BY FRANK R. STOCKTON




CONTENTS


CHAPTER

I.       THE ARRIVAL OF THE EUTERPE-THALIA

II.      THE SARDIS WORKS

III.     MARGARET RALEIGH

IV.      THE MISSION OF SAMUEL BLOCK V. UNDER WATER

VI.      VOICES FROM THE POLAR SEAS

VII.     GOOD NEWS GOES FROM SARDIS

VIII.    THE DEVIL ON THE DIPSEY

IX.      THE ARTESIAN RAY

X.      "LAKE SHIVER"

XI.      THEY BELIEVE IT IS THE POLAR SEA

XII.     CAPTAIN HUBBELL TAKES COMMAND

XIII.    LONGITUDE EVERYTHING

XIV.     A REGION OF NOTHINGNESS

XV.      THE AUTOMATIC SHELL

XVI.     THE TRACK OF THE SHELL

XVII.    CAPTAIN HUBBELL DECLINES TO GO WHALING

XVIII.   MR. MARCY'S CANAL

XIX.     THE ICY GATEWAY

XX.     "THAT IS HOW I LOVE YOU"

XXI.     THE CAVE OF LIGHT

XXII.    CLEWE'S THEORY

XXIII.   THE LAST DIVE OF THE DIPSEY

XXIV.    ROVINSKI COMES TO THE SURFACE

XXV.     LAURELS






THE GREAT STONE OF SARDIS




CHAPTER I

THE ARRIVAL OF THE EUTERPE-THALIA


It was about noon of a day in early summer that a westward-bound
Atlantic liner was rapidly nearing the port of New York.  Not long
before, the old light-house on Montauk Point had been sighted,
and the company on board the vessel were animated by the knowledge
that in a few hours they would be at the end of their voyage.

The vessel now speeding along the southern coast of Long Island
was the Euterpe-Thalia, from Southampton.  On Wednesday morning
she had left her English port, and many of her passengers were
naturally anxious to be on shore in time to transact their business
on the last day of the week.  There were even some who expected to
make their return voyage on the Melpomene-Thalia, which would
leave New York on the next Monday.

The Euterpe-Thalia was one of those combination ocean vessels
which had now been in use for nearly ten years, and although the
present voyage was not a particularly rapid one, it had been made
in a little less than three days.

As may be easily imagined, a vessel like this was a very
different craft from the old steamers which used to cross the
Atlantic--"ocean greyhounds" they were called--in the latter part
of the nineteenth century.

It would be out of place here to give a full description of the
vessels which at the period of our story, in 1947, crossed the
Atlantic at an average time of three days, but an idea of their
construction will suffice.  Most of these vessels belonged to the
class of the Euterpe-Thalia, and were, in fact, compound marine
structures, the two portions being entirely distinct from each
other.  The great hull of each of these vessels contained nothing
but its electric engines and its propelling machinery, with the
necessary fuel and adjuncts.

The upper portion of the compound vessel consisted of decks and
quarters for passengers and crew and holds for freight.  These
were all comprised within a vast upper hull, which rested upon
the lower hull containing the motive power, the only point of
contact being an enormous ball-and-socket joint.  Thus, no matter
how much the lower hull might roll and pitch and toss, the upper
hull remained level and comparatively undisturbed.

Not only were comfort to passengers and security to movable
freight gained by this arrangement of the compound vessel, but it
was now possible to build the lower hull of much less size than
had been the custom in the former days of steamships, when the
hull had to be large enough to contain everything.  As the more
modern hull held nothing but the machinery, it was small in
comparison with the superincumbent upper hull, and thus the force
of the engine, once needed to propel a vast mass through the
resisting medium of the ocean, was now employed upon a
comparatively small hull, the great body of the vessel meeting
with no resistance except that of the air.

It was not necessary that the two parts of these compound vessels
should always be the same.  The upper hulls belonging to one of
the transatlantic lines were generally so constructed that they
could be adjusted to any one of their lower or motive-power
hulls.  Each hull had a name of its own, and so the combination
name of the entire vessel was frequently changed.

It was not three o'clock when the Euterpe-Thalia passed through
the Narrows and moved slowly towards her pier on the Long Island
side of the city.  The quarantine officers, who had accompanied
the vessel on her voyage, had dropped their report in the
official tug which had met the vessel on her entrance into the
harbor, and as the old custom-house annoyances had long since
been abolished, most of the passengers were prepared for a speedy
landing.

One of these passengers--a man about thirty-five--stood looking
out over the stern of the vessel instead of gazing, as were most
of his companions, towards the city which they were approaching.
He looked out over the harbor, under the great bridge gently
spanning the distance between the western end of Long Island and
the New Jersey shore--its central pier resting where once lay the
old Battery--and so he gazed over the river, and over the houses
stretching far to the west, as if his eyes could catch some signs
of the country far beyond.  This was Roland Clewe, the hero of
our story, who had been studying and experimenting for the past
year in the scientific schools and workshops of Germany.  It was
towards his own laboratory and his own workshops, which lay out
in the country far beyond the wide line of buildings and
settlements which line the western bank of the Hudson, that his
heart went out and his eyes vainly strove to follow.

Skilfully steered, the Thalia moved slowly between high stone
piers of massive construction; but the Euterpe, or upper part of
the vessel, did not pass between the piers, but over them both,
and when the pier-heads projected beyond her stern the motion of
the lower vessel ceased; then the great piston, which supported
the socket in which the ball of the Euterpe moved, slowly began
to descend into the central portion of the Thalia, and as the
tide was low, it was not long before each side of the upper hull
rested firmly and securely upon the stone piers.  Then the socket
on the lower vessel descended rapidly until it was entirely clear
of the ball, and the Thalia backed out from between the piers to
take its place in a dock where it would be fitted for the voyage
of the next day but one, when it would move under the Melpomene,
resting on its piers a short distance below, and, adjusting its
socket to her ball, would lift her free from the piers and carry
her across the ocean.

The pier of the Euterpe was not far from the great Long Island and
New Jersey Bridge, and Roland Clewe, when he reached the broad
sidewalk which ran along the river-front, walked rapidly towards
the bridge. When he came to it he stepped into one of the
elevators, which were placed at intervals along its sides from the
waterfront to the far-distant point where it touched the land, and
in company with a dozen other pedestrians speedily rose to the top
of the bridge, on which moved two great platforms or floors, one
always keeping on its way to the east, and the other to the west.
The floor of the elevator detached itself from the rest of the
structure and kept company with the movable platform until all of
its passengers had stepped on to the latter, when it returned with
such persons as wished to descend at that point.

As Clewe took his way along the platform, walking westward with
it, as if he would thus hasten his arrival at the other end of
the bridge, he noticed that great improvements had been made
during his year of absence.  The structures on the platforms, to
which people might retire in bad weather or when they wished
refreshments, were more numerous and apparently better appointed
than when he had seen them last, and the long rows of benches on
which passengers might sit in the open air during their transit
had also increased in number.  Many people walked across the
bridge, taking their exercise, while some who were out for the
air and the sake of the view walked in the direction opposite to
that in which the platform was moving, thus lengthening the
pleasant trip.

At the great elevator over the old Battery many passengers went
down and many came up, but the wide platforms still moved to the
east and moved to the west, never stopping or changing their rate
of speed.

Roland Clewe remained on the bridge until he had reached its
western end, far out on the old Jersey flats, and there he took a
car of the suspended electric line, which would carry him to his
home, some fifty miles in the interior.  The rails of this line
ran along the top of parallel timbers, some twenty feet from the
ground, and below and between these rails the cars were
suspended, the wheels which rested on the rails being attached
near the top of the car.  Thus it was impossible for the cars to
run off the track; and as their bottoms or floors were ten or
twelve feet from the ground, they could meet with no dangerous
obstacles.  In consequence of the safety of this structure, the
trains were run at a very high speed.

Roland Clewe was a man who had given his life, even before he
ceased to be a boy, to the investigation of physical science and
its applications, and those who thought they knew him called him
a great inventor; but he, who knew himself better than any one
else could know him, was aware that, so far, he had not invented
anything worthy the power which he felt within himself.

After the tidal wave of improvements and discoveries which had
burst upon the world at the end of the nineteenth century there
had been a gradual subsidence of the waters of human progress,
and year by year they sank lower and lower, until, when the
twentieth century was yet young, it was a common thing to say
that the human race seemed to have gone backward fifty or even a
hundred years.

It had become fashionable to be unprogressive.  Like old
furniture in the century which had gone out, old manners,
customs, and ideas had now become more attractive than those
which were modern and present.  Philosophers said that society
was retrograding, that it was becoming satisfied with less than
was its due; but society answered that it was falling back upon
the things of its ancestors, which were sounder and firmer, more
simple and beautiful, more worthy of the true man and woman, than
all that mass of harassing improvement which had swept down upon
mankind in the troubled and nervous days at the end of the
nineteenth century.

On the great highways, smooth and beautiful, the stage-coach had
taken the place to a great degree of the railroad train; the
steamship, which moved most evenly and with less of the jarring
and shaking consequent upon high speed, was the favored vessel
with ocean travellers.  It was not considered good form to read
the daily papers; and only those hurried to their business who
were obliged to do so in order that their employers might attend
to their affairs in the leisurely manner which was then the
custom of the business world.

Fast horses had become almost unknown, and with those who still
used these animals a steady walker was the favorite.  Bicycles
had gone out as the new century came in, it being a matter of
course that they should be superseded by the new electric
vehicles of every sort and fashion, on which one could work the
pedals if he desired exercise, or sit quietly if his inclinations
were otherwise, and only the very young or the intemperate
allowed themselves rapid motion on their electric wheels.  It
would have been considered as vulgar at that time to speed over a
smooth road as it would have been thought in the nineteenth
century to run along the city sidewalk.

People thought the world moved slower; at all events, they hoped
it would soon do so.  Even the wiser revolutionists postponed
their outbreaks.  Success, they believed, was fain to smile upon
effort which had been well postponed.

Men came to look upon a telegram as an insult; the telephone was
preferred, because it allowed one to speak slowly if he chose.
Snap-shot cameras were found only in the garrets.  The fifteen
minutes' sittings now in vogue threw upon the plate the color of
the eyes, hair, and the flesh tones of the sitter.  Ladies wore
hoop skirts.

But these days of passivism at last passed by; earnest thinkers
had not believed in them; they knew they were simply reactionary,
and could not last; and the century was not twenty years old when
the world found itself in a storm of active effort never known in
its history before.  Religion, politics, literature, and art were
called upon to get up and shake themselves free of the drowsiness
of their years of inaction.

On that great and crowded stage where the thinkers of the world
were busy in creating new parts for themselves without much
reference to what other people were doing in their parts, Roland
Clewe was now ready to start again, with more earnestness and
enthusiasm than before, to essay a character which, if acted as
he wished to act it, would give him exceptional honor and fame,
and to the world, perhaps, exceptional advantage.




CHAPTER II

THE SARDIS WORKS


At the little station of Sardis, in the hill country of New
Jersey, Roland Clewe alighted from the train, and almost
instantly his hand was grasped by an elderly man, plainly and
even roughly dressed, who appeared wonderfully glad to see him.
Clewe also was greatly pleased at the meeting.

"Tell me, Samuel, how goes everything?" said Clewe, as they
walked off.  "Have you anything to say that you did not
telegraph?  How is your wife?"

"She's all right," was the answer.  "And there's nothin'
happened, except, night before last, a man tried to look into
your lens-house."

"How did he do that?" exclaimed Clewe, suddenly turning upon his
companion.  "I am amazed!  Did he use a ladder?"

Old Samuel grinned.  "He couldn't do that, you know, for the
flexible fence would keep him off.  No; he sailed over the place
in one of those air-screw machines, with a fan workin' under the
car to keep it up."

"And so he soared up above my glass roof and looked down, I
suppose?"

"That's what he did," said Samuel; "but he had a good deal of
trouble doin' it.  It was moonlight, and I watched him."

"Why didn't you fire at him?" asked Clewe.  "Or at least let fly
one of the ammonia squirts and bring him down?"

"I wanted to see what he would do," said the old man.  "The
machine he had couldn't be steered, of course.  He could go up
well enough, but the wind took him where it wanted to.  But I
must give this feller the credit of sayin' that he managed his
basket pretty well.  He carried it a good way to the windward of
the lens-house, and then sent it up, expectin' the wind to take
it directly over the glass roof, but it shifted a little, and so
he missed the roof and had to try it again.  He made two or three
bad jobs of it, but finally managed it by hitchin' a long cord to
a tree, and then the wind held him there steady enough to let him
look down for a good while."

"You don't tell me that!" cried Clewe.  "Did you stay there and
let him look down into my lens-house?"

The old man laughed.  "I let him look down," said he, "but he
didn't see nothin'.  I was laughin' at him all the time he was at
work.  He had his instruments with him, and he was turnin' down
his different kinds of lights, thinkin', of course, that he could
see through any kind of coverin' that we put over our machines;
but, bless you! he couldn't do nothin', and I could almost hear
him swear as he rubbed his eyes after he had been lookin' down
for a little while."

Clewe laughed.  "I see," said he.  "I suppose you turned on the
photo-hose."

"That's just what I did," said the old man.  "Every night while
you were away I had the lens-room filled with the revolving-light
squirts, and when these were turned on I knew there was no
gettin' any kind of rays through them.  A feller may look through
a roof and a wall, but he can't look through light comin' the
other way, especially when it's twistin' and curlin' and
spittin'."

"That's a capital idea," said Clewe.  "I never thought of using
the photo-hose in that way.  But there are very few people in
this world who would know anything about my new lens machinery
even if they saw it.  This fellow must have been that Pole,
Rovinski.  I met him in Europe, and I think he came over here not
long before I did."

"That's the man, sir," said Samuel.  "I turned a needle searchlight
on him just as he was givin' up the business, and I have got a little
photograph of him at the house.  His face is mostly beard, but
you'll know him."

"What became of him?" asked Clewe.

"My light frightened him," he said, "and the wind took him over
into the woods.  I thought, as you were comin' home so soon, I
wouldn't do nothin' more.  You had better attend to him
yourself."

"Very good," said Clewe.  "I'll do that."

The home of Roland Clewe, a small house plainly furnished, but
good enough for a bachelor's quarters, stood not half a mile from
the station, and near it were the extensive buildings which he
called his Works.  Here were laboratories, large machine-shops in
which many men were busy at all sorts of strange contrivances in
metal and other materials; and besides other small edifices there
was a great round tower-like structure, with smooth iron walls
thirty feet high and without windows, and which was lighted and
ventilated from the top.  This was Clewe's special workshop; and
besides old Samuel Block and such workmen as were absolutely
necessary and could be trusted, few people ever entered it but
himself.  The industries in the various buildings were diverse,
some of them having no apparent relation to the others.  Each of
them was expected to turn out something which would revolutionize
something or other in this world, but it was to his lens-house
that Roland Clewe gave, in these days, his special attention.
Here a great enterprise was soon to begin, more important in his
eyes than anything else which had engaged human endeavor.

When sometimes in his moments of reflection he felt obliged to
consider the wonders of applied electricity, and give them their
due place in comparison with the great problem he expected to
solve, he had his moments of doubt.  But these moments did not
come frequently.  The day would arrive when from his lens-house
there would be promulgated a great discovery which would astonish
the world.

During Roland Clewe's absence in Germany his works had been left
under the general charge of Samuel Block.  This old man was not a
scientific person; he was not a skilled mechanic; in fact, he had
been in early life a shoemaker.  But when Roland Clewe, some five
years before, had put up his works near the little village of
Sardis, he had sent for Block, whom he had known all his life and
who was at that time the tenant of a small farm, built a cottage
for him and his wife, and told him to take care of the place.
From planning the grounds and superintending fences, old Sammy
had begun to keep an eye upon builders and mechanics; and, being
a very shrewd man, he had gradually widened the sphere of his
caretaking, until, at this time, he exercised a nominal
supervision over all the buildings.  He knew what was going on in
each; he had a good idea, sometimes, of the scientific basis of
this or that bit of machinery, and had gradually become
acquainted with the workings and management of many of the
instruments; and now and then he gave to his employer very good
hints in regard to the means of attaining an end, more especially
in the line of doing something by instrumentalities not intended
for that purpose.  If Sammy could take any machine which had been
constructed to bore holes, and with it plug up orifices, he would
consider that he had been of advantage to his kind.

Block was a thoroughly loyal man.  The interests of his employer
were always held by him first and above everything.  But although
the old man understood, sometimes very well, and always in a fair
degree, what the inventor was trying to accomplish, and
appreciated the magnitude and often the amazing nature of his
operations, he never believed in any of them.

Sammy was a thoroughly old-fashioned man.  He had been born and
had grown up in the days when a steam-locomotive was good enough
and fast enough for any sensible traveller, and he greatly
preferred a good pair of horses to any vehicle which one steered
with a handle and regulated the speed thereof with a knob.
Roland Clew e might devise all the wonderful contrivances he
pleased, and he might do all sorts of astonishing things with
them, but Sammy would still be of the opinion that, even if the
machines did all that they were expected to do, the things they
did generally would not be worth the doing.

Still, the old man would not interfere by word or deed with any
of the plans or actions of his employer.  On the contrary, he
would help him in every possible way--by fidelity, by suggestion,
by constant devotion and industry; but, in spite of all that, it
was one of the most firmly founded principles of his life that
Roland Clewe had no right to ask him to believe in the value of
the wild and amazing schemes he had on hand.

Before Roland Clewe slept that night he had visited all his
workshops, factories, and laboratories.  His men had been busily
occupied during his absence under the directions of their various
special managers, and those in charge were of the opinion that
everything had progressed as favorably and as rapidly as should
have been expected; but Roland Clewe was not satisfied, even
though many of his inventions and machines were much nearer
completion than he had expected to find them.  The work necessary
to be done in his lens-house before he could go on with the great
work of his life was not yet finished.

As well as he could judge, it would be a month or two before he
could devote himself to those labors in his lens-house the
thought of which had so long filled his mind by day, and even
during his sleep.




CHAPTER III

MARGARET RALEIGH

After breakfast the-following morning Roland Clewe mounted his
horse and rode over to a handsome house which stood upon a hill
about a mile and a half from Sardis.  Horses, which had almost
gone out of use during the first third of the century, were now
getting to be somewhat in fashion again.  Many people now
appreciated the pleasure which these animals had given to the
world since the beginning of history, and whose place, in an
aesthetic sense, no inanimate machine could supply.  As Roland
Clewe swung himself from the saddle at the foot of a broad flight
of steps, the house door was opened and a lady appeared.

"I saw you coming!" she exclaimed, running down the steps to meet
him.

She was a handsome woman, inclined to be tall, and some five
years younger than Clewe.  This was Mrs. Margaret Raleigh,
partner with Roland Clewe in the works at Sardis, and, in fact,
the principal owner of that great estate.  She was a widow, and
her husband had been not only a man of science, but a very rich
man; and when he died, at the outset of his career, his widow
believed it her duty to devote his fortune to the prosecution and
development of scientific works.  She knew Roland Clewe as a hard
student and worker, as a man of brilliant and original ideas, and
as the originator of schemes which, if carried out successfully,
would place him among the great inventors of the world.

She was not a scientific woman in the strict sense of the word,
but she had a most thorough and appreciative sympathy with all
forms of physical research, and there was a distinctiveness and
grandeur in the aims towards which Roland Clewe had directed his
life work which determined her to unite, with all the power of
her money and her personal encouragement, in the labors he had
set for himself.

Therefore it was that the main part of the fortune left by
Herbert Raleigh had been invested in the shops and foundries at
Sardis, and that Roland Clewe and Margaret Raleigh were partners
and co-owners in the business and the plant of the establishment.

"I am glad to welcome you back," said she, her hand in his.  "But
it strikes me as odd to see you come upon a horse; I should have
supposed that by this time you would arrive sliding over the
tree-tops on a pair of aerial skates."

"No," said he.  "I may invent that sort of thing, but I prefer to
use a horse.  Don't you remember my mare?  I rode her before I
went away.  I left her in old Sammy's charge, and he has been
riding her every day."

"And glad enough to do it, I am sure," said she, "for I have
heard him say that the things he hates most in this world are
dead legs.  'When I can't use mine,' he said, 'let me have some
others that are alive.'  This is such a pretty creature," she
added, as Clewe was looking about for some place to which he
might tie his animal, "that I have a great mind to learn to ride
myself!"

"A woman on a horse would be a queer sight," said he; and with
this they went into the house.

The conference that morning in Mrs. Raleigh's library was a long
and somewhat anxious one.  For several years the money of the
Raleigh estate had been freely and generously expended upon the
enterprises in hand at the Sardis Works, but so far nothing of
important profit had resulted from the operations.  Many things
had been carried on satisfactorily and successfully to various
stages, but nothing had been finished; and now the two partners
had to admit that the work which Clewe had expected to begin
immediately upon his return from Europe must be postponed.

Still, there was no sign of discouragement in the voices or the
faces--it may be said, in the souls--of the man and woman who sat
there talking across a table.  He was as full of hope as ever he
was, and she as full of faith.

They were an interesting couple to look upon.  He, dark, a little
hollow in the cheeks, a slight line or two of anxiety in the
forehead, a handsome, well-cut mouth, without beard, and a frame
somewhat spare but strong; a man of graceful but unaffected
action, dressed in a riding-coat, breeches, and leather leggings.
She, her cheeks colored with earnest purpose, her gray eyes
rather larger than usual as she looked up from the paper where
she had been calculating, was dressed in the simple artistic
fashion of the day.  The falling folds of the semi-clinging
fabrics accommodated themselves well to a figure which even at
that moment of rest suggested latent energy and activity.

"If we have to wait for the Artesian ray," she said, "we must try
to carry out something else.  People are watching us, talking of
us, expecting something of us; we must give them something.  Now
the question is, what shall that be?"

"The way I look at it is this," said her companion.  "For a long
time you have been watching and waiting and expecting something,
and it is time that I should give you something; now the question
is--"

"Not at all," said she, interrupting.  "You arrogate too much to
yourself.  I don't expect you to give anything to me.  We are
working together, and it is both of us who must give this poor
old world something to satisfy it for a while, until we can
disclose to it that grand discovery, grander than anything that
it has ever even imagined.  I want to go on talking about it, but
I shall not do it; we must keep our minds tied down to some
present purpose.  Now, Mr. Clewe, what is there that we can take
up and carry on immediately?  Can it be the great shell?"

Clewe shook his head.

"No," said he; "that is progressing admirably, but many things
are necessary before we can experiment with it."

"Since you were away," said she, "I have often been down to the
works to look at it, but everything about it seems to go so
slowly.  However, I suppose it will go fast enough when it is
finished."

"Yes," said he.  "I hope it will go fast enough to overturn the
artillery of the world; but, as you say, don't let us talk about
the things for which we must wait.  I will carefully consider
everything that is in operation, and to-morrow I will suggest
something with which we can go on."

"After all," said she, as they stood together before parting, "I
cannot take my mind from the Artesian ray."

"Nor can I," he answered; "but for the present we must put our
hands to work at something else."

The Artesian ray, of which these two spoke, was an invention upon
which Roland Clewe had been experimenting for a long time, and
which was and had been the object of his labors and studies while
in Europe.  In the first decade of the century it had been
generally supposed that the X ray, or cathode ray, had been
developed and applied to the utmost extent of its capability.  It
was used in surgery and in mechanical arts, and in many varieties
of scientific operations, but no considerable advance in its line
of application had been recognized for a quarter of a century.
But Roland Clewe had come to believe in the existence of a photic
force, somewhat similar to the cathode ray, but of infinitely
greater significance and importance to the searcher after
physical truth.  Simply described, his discovery was a powerful
ray produced by a new combination of electric lights, which would
penetrate down into the earth, passing through all substances
which it met in its way, and illuminating and disclosing
everything through which it passed.

All matter likely to be found beneath the surface of the earth in
that part of the country had been experimented upon by Clewe, and
nothing had resisted the penetrating and illuminating influence
of his ray--well called Artesian ray, for it was intended to bore
into the bowels of the earth.  After making many minor trials of
the force and powers of his light, Roland Clewe had undertaken
the construction of a massive apparatus, by which he believed a
ray could be generated which, little by little, perhaps foot by
foot, would penetrate into the earth and light up everything
between the farthest point it had attained and the lenses of his
machine.  That is to say, he hoped to produce a long hole of
light about three feet in diameter and as deep as it was possible
to make it descend, in which he could see all the various strata
and deposits of which the earth is composed.  How far he could
send down this piercing cylinder of light he did not allow
himself to consider.  With a small and imperfect machine he had
seen several feet into the ground; with a great and powerful
apparatus, such as he was now constructing, why should he not
look down below the deepest point to which man's knowledge had
ever reached?  Down so far that he must follow his descending
light with a telescope; down, down until he had discovered the
hidden secrets of the earth!

The peculiar quality of this light, which gave it its great
preeminence over all other penetrating rays, was the power it
possessed of illuminating an object; passing through it; rendering
it transparent and invisible; illuminating the opaque substance it
next met in its path, and afterwards rendering that transparent. If
the rocks and earth in the cylindrical cavities of light which
Clewe had already produced in his experiments had actually been
removed with pickaxes and shovels, the lighted hole a few feet in
depth could not have appeared more real, the bottom and sides of
the little well could not have been revealed more sharply and
distinctly; and yet there was no hole in the ground, and if one
should try to put his foot into the lighted perforation he would
find it as solid as any other part of the earth.




CHAPTER IV

THE MISSION OF SAMUEL BLOCK


Not far from the works at Sardis there was a large pond, which
was formed by the damming of a stream which at this point ran
between high hills.  In order to obtain a sufficient depth of
water for his marine experiments, Roland Clewe had built an
unusually high and strong dam, and this body of water, which was
called the lake, widened out considerably behind the dam and
stretched back for more than half a mile.

He was standing on the shore of this lake, early the next morning,
in company with several workmen, examining a curious-looking
vessel which was moored near by, when Margaret Raleigh came
walking towards him.  When he saw her he left the men and went
to meet her.

"You could not wait until I came to your house to tell you what I
was going to do?" he said, smiling.

"No," she answered, "I could not.  The Artesian ray kept me awake
nearly all night, and I felt that I must quiet my mind as soon as
I could by giving it something real and tangible to take hold of.
Now what is it that you are going to do?  Anything in the ship
line?"

"Yes," said he, "it is something in that line.  But let us walk
back a little; I am not quite ready to tell the men everything.
I have been thinking," he said, as they moved together from the
lake, "of that practical enterprise which we must take up and
finish, in order to justify ourselves to the public and those who
have in various ways backed up our enterprises, and I have
concluded that the best thing I can do is to carry out my plan of
going to the north pole."

"What!" she exclaimed.  "You are not going to try to do that
--you, yourself?"  And as she spoke, her voice trembled a little.

"Yes," said he, "I thought I would go myself, or else send
Sammy."

She laughed.

"Ridiculous!" said she.  "Send Sammy Block!  You are joking?"

"No," said he, "I am not.  I have been planning the expedition,
and I think Sammy would be an excellent man to take charge of it.
I might go part of the way--at least, far enough to start him--and
I could so arrange matters that Sammy would have no difficulty
in finishing the expedition, but I do not think that I could give
up all the time that such an enterprise deserves.  It is not enough
to merely find the pole; one should stay there and make
observations which would be of service."

"But if Sammy finishes the journey himself," she said, "his will
be the glory."

"Let him have it," replied Clewe.  "If my method of arctic
exploration solves the great problem of the pole, I shall be
satisfied with the glory I get from the conception.  The mere
journey to the northern end of the earth's axis is of slight
importance.  I shall be glad to have Sammy go first, and have as
many follow him as may choose to travel in that direction."

"Yet it is a great achievement," said she.  "I would give much to
be the first human being who has placed his foot upon the north
pole."

"You would get it wet, I am afraid," said Clewe, smiling; "but
that is not the kind of glory I crave.  If I can help a man to go
there, I shall be very willing to do so, provided he will make me
a favorable report of his discoveries."

"Tell me all about it," she said--"when will you start?  How many
will go?"

"There is some work to be done on that boat," said he.  "Let me
set the men at it, and then we will go into the office, and I
will lay everything before you."

When they were seated in a quiet little room attached to one of
the large buildings, Roland Clewe made ready to describe his
proposed arctic expedition to his partner, in whose mind the
wonderful enterprise had entered, driving out the disturbing
thoughts of the Artesian ray.

"You have told me about it before," said she, "but I am not quite
sure that I have it all straight in my mind.  You will go, I
suppose, in a submarine boat--that is, whoever goes will go in
it?"

"Yes," said he, "for part of the way.  My plan is to proceed in
an ordinary vessel as far north as Cape Tariff, taking the
Dipsey, my submarine boat, in tow.  The exploring party, with the
necessary stores and instruments, will embark on the Dipsey, but
before they start they will make a telegraphic connection with
the station at Cape Tariff.  The Dipsey will carry one of those
light, portable cables, which will be wound on a drum in her
hold, and this will be paid out as she proceeds on her way.
Thus, you see, by means of the cable from Cape Tariff to St.
Johns, we can be in continual communication with Sammy, no matter
where he may go; for there is no reason to suppose that the ocean
in those northern regions is too deep to allow the successful
placing of a telegraphic cable.

"My plan is a very simple one, but as we have not talked it over
for some time, I will describe it in full.  All explorers who
have tried to get to the north pole have met with the same bad
fortune.  They could not pass over the vast and awful regions of
ice which lay between them and the distant point at which they
aimed; the deadly ice-land was always too much for them; they
died or they turned back.

"When flying-machines were brought to supposed perfection, some
twenty years ago, it was believed that the pole would easily be
reached, but there were always the wild and wicked winds, in
which no steering apparatus could be relied upon.  We may steer
and manage our vessels in the fiercest storms at sea, but when
the ocean moves in one great tidal wave our rudders are of no
avail.  Everything rushes on together, and our strongest ships
are cast high upon the land.

"So it happened to the Canadian Bagne, who went in 1927 in the
best flying-ship ever made, and which it was supposed could be
steadily kept upon its way without regard to the influence of the
strongest winds; but a great hurricane came down from the north,
as if square miles of atmosphere were driving onward in a steady
mass, and hurled him and his ship against an iceberg, and nothing
of his vessel but pieces of wood and iron, which the bears could
not eat, was ever seen again.  This was the last polar expedition
of that sort, or any sort; but my plan is so easy of
accomplishment--at least, so it seems to me--and so devoid of risk
and danger, that it amazes me that it has never been tried before.
In fact, if I had not thought that it would be such a comparatively
easy thing to go to the pole, I believe I should have been there
long ago; but I have always considered that it could be done at
some season when more difficult and engrossing projects were not
pressing upon me.

"What I propose to do is to sink down below the bottom of the ice
in the arctic regions, and then to proceed in a direct line
northward to the pole.  The distance between the lower portions
of the ice and the bottom of the Arctic Ocean I believe to be
quite sufficient to allow me all the room needed for navigation.
I do not think it necessary to even consider the contingency of
the greatest iceberg or floe reaching the bottom of the arctic
waters; consequently, without trouble or danger, the Dipsey can
make a straight course for the extreme north.

"By means of the instruments the Dipsey will carry it will be
comparatively easy to determine the position of the pole, and
before this point is reached I believe she will find herself in
an open sea, where she may rise to the surface.  But if this
should not be the case, a comparatively thin place in the ice
will be chosen, and a great opening blown through it by means of
an ascensional shell, several of which she will carry.  She will
then rise to the surface of the water in this opening, and the
necessary operations will be carried on."

"Mr. Clewe," said Margaret Raleigh, "the thing is so terrible I
cannot bear to think of it.  The Dipsey may have to sail hundreds
and hundreds of miles under the ice, shut in as if an awful lid
were put over her.  No matter what happened down there, she could
not come up and get out; it would be the same thing as having a
vast sky of ice stretched out above one.  I should think the very
idea of it would make people shudder and die."

"Oh, it is not so bad as all that," answered Clewe.  "There is
nothing so dear to the marine explorer as plenty of water, and
plenty of room to sail in, and under the ice the Dipsey will find
all that."

"But there are so many dangers," said she, "that you cannot
provide against in advance."

"That is very true," said he, "but I have thought so much about
them, and I have studied and consulted so much about them, that I
think I have provided against all the dangers we have reason to
expect.  To me the whole business seems like very plain,
straightforward sailing."

"It may seem so here," said Margaret Raleigh, "but it will be
quite another thing out under the arctic ice."

Preparations for the expedition were pushed forward as rapidly as
possible, and Clewe would have been delighted to make this voyage
into the unseen regions of the nether ice, but he knew that it
was his duty not to lose time or to risk his life when he was on
the brink of a discovery far more wonderful, far more important
to the world, than the finding of the pole.  Therefore he
determined that he would go with the expedition no farther than
the point where the ice would prevent the farther progress of the
vessel in which they would sail from New York.

It was not to be supposed that Roland Clewe intended to intrust
such an expedition to the absolute command of such a man as old
Samuel Block.  There would be on board the Dipsey an electrician
who had long been preparing himself for this expedition; there
were to be other scientific men; there would be a submarine
engineer, and such minor officers and assistants as would be
necessary; but Clewe wanted some one who would represent him, who
could be trusted to act in his place in case of success or of
failure, who could be thoroughly depended upon should a serious
emergency arise.  Such a man was Samuel Block, and, somewhat
strange to say, old Sammy was perfectly willing to go to the
pole.  He was always ready for anything within bounds of his
duty, and those bounds included everything which Mr. Clewe wished
done.

Sammy was an old-fashioned man, and therefore, in talking over
arrangements with Roland Clewe, he insisted upon having a sailor
in the party.

"In old times," said he, "when I was a young man, nobody ever
thought of settin' out on any kind of sea-voyagin' without havin'
a sailor along.  The fact is, they used to be pretty much all
sailors."

"But in this expedition," said Clewe, "a sailor would be out of
place.  One of your old-fashioned mariners would not know what to
do under the water.  Submarine voyaging is an entirely different
profession from that of the old-time navigator."

"I know all that," said Sammy.  "I know how everything is a
machine nowadays; but I shall never forget what a glorious thing
it was to sail on the sea with the wind blowin' and the water
curlin' beneath your keel.  I lived on the coast, and used to go
out whenever I had a chance, but things is mightily changed
nowadays.  Just think of that yacht-race in England the other
day--a race between two electric yachts, with a couple of vessels
ploughin' along to windward carryin' between 'em a board fence
thirty feet high to keep the wind off the yachts and give 'em
both smooth water and equal chance.  I can't get used to that
sort of thing, and I tell you, sir, that if I am goin' on a
voyage to the pole, I want to have a sailor along.  If everything
goes all right, we must come to the top of the water some time,
and then we ought to have at least one man who understands
surface navigation."

"All right," said Clewe; "get your sailor."

"I've got my eye on him; he's a Cape Cod man, and he's not so
very old either.  When he was a boy people went about in ships
with sails, and even after he grew up Cap'n Jim was a great
feller to manage a catboat; for things has moved slower on the
Cape than in many parts of the country."

So Captain Jim Hubbell was engaged as sailor to the expedition;
and when he came on to Sardis and looked over the Dipsey he
expressed a general opinion of her construction and capabilities
which indicated a disposition on his part to send her, and all
others fashioned after her plan, to depths a great deal lower
than ever had been contemplated by their inventors.  Still, as he
wanted very much to go to the pole if it was possible that he
could get there, and as the wages offered him were exceedingly
liberal, Captain Jim enlisted, in the party.  His duties were to
begin when the Dipsey floated on the surface of the sea like a
commonsense craft.

A day or two before the expedition was ready to start, Roland
Clewe was very much surprised one morning by a visit from Sammy's
wife, Mrs. Sarah Block, who lost no time in informing him that
she had made up her mind to accompany her husband on the perilous
voyage he was about to make.

"You!" said Clewe.  "You could not go on such an expedition as
that!"

"If Sammy goes, I go," said Mrs. Block.  "If it is dangerous for
me, it is dangerous for him.  I have been tryin' to get sense
enough in his head to make him stay at home, but I can't do it;
so I have made up my mind that I go with him or he don't go.  We
have travelled together on top of the land, and we have travelled
together on top of the water, and if there's to be travellin'
under the water, why then we travel together all the same.  If
Sammy goes polin', I go polin'.  I think he's a fool to do it;
but if he's goin' to be a fool, I am goin' to be a fool.  And as
for my bein' in the way, you needn't think of that, Mr. Clewe.  I
can cook for the livin', I can take care of the sick, and I can
sew up the dead in shrouds."

"All right, Mrs. Block," said Clewe.  "If you insist on it, and
Sammy is willing, you may go; but I will beg of you not to say
anything about the third class of good offices which you propose
to perform for the party, for it might cast a gloom over some of
the weaker-minded."

"Cast a gloom!" said Mrs. Block.  "If all I hear is true, there
will be a general gloom over everything that will be like havin'
a black pocket-handkercher tied over your head, and I don't know
that anything I could say would make that gloom more gloomier."

When Margaret Raleigh parted with Clewe on the deck of the Go
Lightly, the large electric vessel which was to tow the Dipsey up
to the limits of navigable Northern waters, she knew he must make a
long journey, nearly twice as far as the voyage to England, before
she could hear from him; but when he arrived at Cape Tariff, a
point far up on the northwestern coast of Greenland, she would hear
from him; for from this point there was telegraphic communication
with the rest of the world. There was a little station there,
established by some commercial companies, and their agent was a
telegraph-operator.

The passage from New York to Cape Tariff was an uneventful one,
and when Clewe disembarked at the lonely Greenland station he was
greeted by a long message from Mrs. Raleigh, the principal import
of which was that on no account must he allow himself to be
persuaded to go on the submarine voyage of the Dipsey.  On his
part, Clewe had no desire to make any change in his plans.
During all the long voyage northward his heart had been at
Sardis.

The Dipsey was a comparatively small vessel, but it afforded
comfortable accommodations for a dozen or more people, and there
was room for all the stores which would be needed for a year.
She was furnished, besides, with books and every useful and
convenient contrivance which had been thought desirable for her
peculiar expedition.

When everything was ready, Roland Clewe took leave of the
officers, the crew, and the passenger on board the Dipsey, and
the last-mentioned, as she shook hands with him, shed tears.

"It seems to me like a sort of a congregational suicide, Mr.
Clewe," said she.  "And it can't even be said that all the
members are doin' it of their own accord, for I am not.  If Sammy
did not go, I would not, but if he does, I do, and there's the
end of that; and I suppose it won't be very much longer before
there's the end of all of us.  I hope you will tell Mrs. Raleigh
that I sent my best love to her with my last words; for even if I
was to see her again, it would seem to me like beginning all over
again, and this would be the end of this part of my life all the
same.  What I hope and pray for is that none of the party may die
of any kind of a disease before the rest all go to their end
together; for remains on board an under-water vessel is somethin'
which mighty few nerves would be able to stand."

When all farewells had been said, Mr. Clewe went on board the Go
Lightly, on the deck of which were her officers and men and the
few inhabitants of the station, and then the plate-glass
hatchways of the Dipsey were tightly closed, and she began to
sink, until she entirely disappeared below the surface of the
water, leaving above her a little floating glass globe, connected
with her by an electric wire.

As the Dipsey went under the sea, this little globe followed her
on the surface, and the Go Lightly immediately began to move
after her.  This arrangement had been made, as Clewe wished to
follow the Dipsey for a time, in order to see if everything was
working properly with her.  She kept on a straight course,
flashing a light into the little globe every now and then; and
finally, after meeting some floating ice, she shattered the globe
with an explosion, which was the signal agreed upon to show that
all was well, and that the Dipsey had started off alone on the
submarine voyage to the pole.

Roland Clewe gazed out over the wide stretch of dark-green waves
and glistening crests, where nothing could be seen which
indicated life except a distant, wearily-flapping sea bird, and
then, turning his back upon the pole, he made preparations for
his return voyage to New York, at which port he might expect to
receive direct news from Sammy Block and his companions.




CHAPTER V

UNDER WATER


When the Dipsey, the little submarine vessel which had started to
make its way to the north pole under the ice of the arctic
regions, had sunk out of sight under the waters, it carried a
very quiet and earnestly observant party.  Every one seemed
anxious to know what would happen next, and all those whose
duties would allow them to do so gathered under the great
skylight in the upper deck, and gazed upward at the little glass
bulb on the surface of the water, which they were towing by means
of an electric wire; and every time a light was flashed into this
bulb it seemed to them as if they were for an instant reunited to
that vast open world outside of the ocean.  When at last the
glass globe was exploded, as a signal that the Dipsey had cut
loose from all ties which connected her with the outer world,
they saw through the water above them the flash and the sparks,
and then all was darkness.