Across the Zodiac Page 14

  CHAPTER XIV - BY SEA.

  An hour after sunrise next morning. Esmo, his son, and our hostaccompanied us to the vessel in which we were to make the principalpart of our journey. We were received by an officer of the royalCourt, who was to accompany us during the rest of our journey, andfrom whom, Esrno assured me, I might obtain the fullest informationregarding the various objects of interest, to visit which we hadadopted an unusual and circuitous course. We embarked on a gulfrunning generally from east to west, about midway between the northerntropic and the arctic circle. As this was the summer of the northernhemisphere, we should thus enjoy a longer day, and should not sufferfrom the change of climate. After taking leave of our friends, we wentdown below to take possession of the fore part of the vessel, whichwas assigned as our exclusive quarters. Immediately in front of themachine-room, which occupied the centre of the vessel, were twocabins, about sixteen feet square, reaching from side to side. Beyondthese, opening out of a passage running along one side, were twosmaller cabins about eight feet long. All these apartments werefurnished and ornamented with the luxury and elegance of chambers inthe best houses on shore. In the foremost of the larger cabins were acouple of desks, and three or four writing or easy chairs. In theouter cabin nearest to the engine-room, and entered immediately by theladder descending from the deck, was fixed a low central table. In allwe found abundance of those soft exquisitely covered and embroideredcushions which in Mars, as in Oriental countries, are the mostessential and most luxurious furniture. The officer had quarters inthe stern of the vessel, which was an exact copy of the fore part. Butthe first of these rooms was considered as public or neutral ground.Leaving Eveena below, I went on deck to examine, before she started,the construction of the vessel. Her entire length was about onehundred and eighty feet, her depth, from the flat deck to the widekeel, about one half of her breadth; the height of the cabins not muchmore than eight feet; her draught, when most completely lightened, notmore than four feet. Her electric machinery drew in and drove out withgreat force currents of water which propelled her with a speed greaterthan that afforded by the most powerful paddles. It also pumped in orout, at whatever depth, the quantity of water required as ballast, notmerely to steady the vessel, but to keep her in position on thesurface or to sink her to the level at which the pilot might choose tosail. At either end was fixed a steering screw, much resembling thetail-fin of a fish, capable of striking sideways, upwards, ordownwards, and directing our course accordingly.

  Ergimo, our escort, had not yet reached middle age, but was a man ofexceptional intellect and unusual knowledge. He had made many voyages,and had occupied for some time an important official post on one ofthose Arctic continents which are inhabited only by the huntersemployed in collecting the furs and skins furnished exclusively bythese lands. The shores of the gulf were lofty, rocky, anduninteresting. It was difficult to see any object on shore from thedeck of the vessel, and I assented, therefore, without demur, afterthe first hour of the voyage, to his proposal that the lights,answering to our hatches, should be closed, and that the vessel shouldpursue her course below the surface. This was the more desirable that,though winds and storms are, as I have said, rare, these long andnarrow seas with their lofty shores are exposed to rough currents,atmospheric and marine, which render a voyage on the surface no moreagreeable than a passage in average weather across the Bay of Biscay.After descending I was occupied for some time in studying, withErgimo's assistance, the arrangement of the machinery, and the simpleprocess by which electric force is generated in quantities adequate toany effort at a marvellously small expenditure of material. In thisform the Martialists assert that they obtain without waste all thepotential energy stored in ... [About half a score lines, or two pagesof an ordinary octavo volume like this, are here illegible.] She(Eveena?) was somewhat pale, but rose quickly, and greeted me with asmile of unaffected cheerfulness, and was evidently surprised as wellas pleased that I was content to remain alone with her, ourconversation turning chiefly on the lessons of last night. Our timepassed quickly till, about the middle of the day, we were startled bya shock which, as I thought, must be due to our having run aground orstruck against a rock. But when I passed into the engine-room, Ergimoexplained that the pilot was nowise in fault. We had encountered oneof those inconveniences, hardly to be called perils, which arepeculiar to the waters of Mars. Though animals hostile or dangerous toman have been almost extirpated upon the land, creatures of a typelong since supposed to be extinct on Earth still haunt the depths ofthe Martial seas; and one of these--a real sea-serpent of above ahundred feet in length and perhaps eight feet in circumference--hadattacked our vessel, entangling the steering screw in his folds andtrying to crush it, checking, at the same time, by his tremendousforce the motion of the vessel.

  "We shall soon get rid of him, though," said Ergimo, as I followed himto the stern, to watch with great interest the method of dealing withthe monster, whose strange form was visible through a thick crystalpane in the stern-plate. The asphyxiator could not have been usedwithout great risk to ourselves. But several tubes, filled with a softmaterial resembling cork, originally the pith of a Martial cane ofgreat size, were inserted in the floor, sides, and deck of the vessel,and through the centre of each of these passed a strong metallic wireof great conducting power. Two or three of those in the stern wereplaced in contact with some of the electric machinery by which therudder was usually turned, and through them were sent rapid andenergetic currents, whose passage rendered the covering of the wires,notwithstanding their great conductivity, too hot to be touched. Weheard immediately a smothered sound of extraordinary character, whichwas, in truth, no other than a scream deadened partly by the water,partly by the thick metal sheet interposed between us and the element.The steering screw was set in rapid motion, and at first revolvingwith some difficulty, afterwards moving faster and more regularly,presently released us. Its rotation was stopped, and we resumed ourcourse. The serpent had relaxed his folds, stunned by the shock, buthad not disentangled himself from the screw, till its blades, nolonger checked by the tremendous force of his original grasp, strikinghim a series of terrific blows, had broken the vertebrae and paralysedif not killed the monstrous enemy.

  At each side of the larger chambers and of the engine-room were fixedsmall thick circular windows, through which we could see from time totime the more remarkable objects in the water. We passed along onecurious submarine bank, built somewhat like our coral rocks, not byinsects, however, but by shellfish, which, fixing themselves as soonas hatched on the shells below or around them, extended slowly upwardand sideways. As each of these creatures perished, the shell, abouthalf the size of an oyster, was filled with the same sort of materialas that of which its hexagonic walls were originally formed, drawn inby the surrounding and still living neighbours; and thus, in thecourse of centuries, were constructed solid reefs of enormous extent.One of these had run right across the gulf, forming a complete bridge,ceasing, however, within some five feet of the surface; but on this aregular roadway had been constructed by human art and mechanicallabour, while underneath, at the usual depth of thirty feet, severaltunnels had been pierced, each large enough to admit the passage of asingle vessel of the largest size. At every fourth hour our vesselrose to the surface to renew her atmosphere, which was thus kept purerthan that of an ordinary Atlantic packet between decks, while thetemperature was maintained at an agreeable point by the warmthdiffused from the electric machinery.

  On the sixth day of our voyage, we reached a point where the Gulf ofSerocasfe divides, a sharp jutting cape or peninsula parting itswaters. We took the northern branch, about fifteen miles in width, andhere, rising to the surface and steering a zigzag course from coast tocoast, I was enabled to see something of the character of this mostextraordinary strait. Its walls at first were no less than 2000 feetin height, so that at all times we were in sight, so to speak, ofland. A road had been cut along the sea-level, and here and theretunnels ascending through the rock rendered this accessible
from theplateau above. The strata, as upon Earth, were of various character,none of them very thick, seldom reproducing exactly the geology of ourown planet, but seldom very widely deviating in character from therocks with which we are acquainted. The lowest were evidently of thesame hard, fused, compressed character as those which our terminologycalls plutonic. Above these were masses which, bike the carboniferousstrata of Earth, recalled the previous existence of a richer but lesshighly organised form of vegetation than at present exists anywhereupon the surface. Intermixed with these were beds of the peculiarsubmarine shell-rock whose formation I have just described. Abovethese again come strata of diluvial gravel, and about 400 feet belowthe surface rocks that bore evident traces of a glacial period. As weapproached the lower end of the gulf the shores sloped constantlydownward, and where they were no more than 600 feet in height I wasable to distinguish an upper stratum of some forty yards in depth,preserving through its whole extent traces of human life and even ofcivilisation. This implied, if fairly representative of the rest ofthe planet's crust, an existence of man upon its surface ten, twenty,or even a hundred-fold longer than he is supposed to have enjoyed uponEarth. About noon on the seventh day we entered the canal whichconnects this arm of the gulf with the sea of the northern temperatezone. It varies in height from 400 to 600 feet, in width from 100 to300 yards, its channel never exceeds 20 feet in depth, Ergimoexplained that the length had been thought to render a tunnelunsuitable, as the ordinary method of ventilation could hardly havebeen made to work, and to ventilate such a tunnel through shafts sunkto so great a depth would have been almost as costly as the methodactually adopted. A much smaller breadth might have been thought tosuffice, and was at first intended; but it was found that the currentin a narrow channel, the outer sea being many inches higher than thewater of the gulf, would have been too rapid and violent for safety.The work had occupied fifteen Martial years, and had been opened onlyfor some eight centuries. The water was not more than twenty feet indepth; but the channel was so perfectly scoured by the current that noobstacle had ever arisen and no expense had been incurred to keep it aclear. We entered the Northern sea where a bay ran up some half dozenmiles towards the end of the gulf, shortening the canal by thisdistance. The bay itself was shallow, the only channel being scarcelywider than the canal, and created or preserved by the current settingin to the latter; a current which offered a very perceptibleresistance to our course, and satisfied me that had the canal been nowider than the convenience of navigation would have required in theabsence of such a stream, its force would have rendered the workaltogether useless. We crossed the sea, holding on in the samedirection, and a little before sunset moored our vessel at the wharfof a small harbour, along the sides of which was built the largesttown of this subarctic landbelt, a village of some fifty houses namedAskinta.