The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1896-08-07

India rubber at the lip of the manhole
was soft. There was no answer to the
eager questions and no sound or move
ment within. Elstead seemed 20 be ly-
ing motionless, crumpled up, In the bot
tom OF the globe. The ships doctor
crawled in and lifted him out TO the men
outside. For n moment or so they did
not know whether Elstead was alive or
dead. His face in the yellow light of the
ships lamps glistened with perspira-
tion. They carried him down 10 his
own cabin.
He was not dead, they found, but in a
state of absolute nervous collapse, and
besides cruelty bruised. For some days
lie had TO lie perfectly still. 1t was n
week before he could tell his expert
cnces.
Almost bis first words were that he
was going down again. The sphere
would have TO he altered, he said, in or
der to allow him TO throw off the cord
* need be, and that was all. He had
had the most marvellous experience.
"You thought i should find nothing but
ooze," he said. "You laughed at my ex-
plorations. And I've discovered q new
world!" lie told his story in discon-
nected fragments, and chiefly from the
wrong end, SO that IL Is impossible to
retell II in his words. But what follows
Is the narrative Of his experience.
1t began atrociously, he said. Before
the cord ran ont the thing kept rolling
over. lie felt like frog in a football.
He could see nothing but the crane and
the sky overhead, with an occasional
glimpse of the people on the ships rail-
He couldn't tell a bit which way the
thing would roll next. Suddenly no
would find his feet going up, and try
20 step, and over he went rolling, head
over heels and just anyhow on the pad
ding. Any other shape would have been
more comfortable, but no other shape
was to be relied upon under the huge
pressure OF the pGthermost abyss. Sud-
denly the swaying ceased; the globe
righted, and when he had picked him
self up he saw the water all about him
Rreeny-blue with an attenuated light
Altering down from above, and a shoal
OF little floating things went rushing up,
past him, as it seemed TO him, towards
the light. And even as he looked il grew
darker and darker until the water above
was as dark as the midnight sky albeit
OF a greener shade, and the water below
black. And little transparent things in
the water developed faint ghost OF
luminosity, and shot past him in faint
Qrcenish streaks. And the feeling of
falling! 1t was just like the start OF
lift. he said, only it kept on. One has
tc imagine what that means, that keep
ing on. IT was then, of all times. that
Elstead repented of his adventure. He
saw the chances against him in an alto
gether new light. He thought of the big
cuttleflsh people knew to exist IN the
middle waters, the kind of things they
find half digested In whales at times or
floating dead and rotten and half eaten
by fish. Suppose one caught hold and
wouldn't let gol And had the clock
work really been sufficiently tested?
But whether he wanted to go on or TO go
back mattered not the slightest now.
In fifty seconds everything was as black
as night outside, except where the beam
from his light struck through the
waters and picked out every now and
then some fish or scrap of sinking mat
ter. They flashed by too fast for him to
see what they were. Once, he thinks, he
passed a shark. And then the sphere
began to get hot by friction against the
water. They had underestimated this,
IL seems. The first thing he noticed was
that he was perspiring, and then he
heard Kissing growing louder under
his feet and saw lot of little bubbles,
very little bubbles they were, rushing
upward like fan. through the water
outside. Steam! He felt the window,
and it was hot. lie turned on the min
ute glow lamp that lit his own cavity,
looked at the padded watch by the studs,
saw he had been travelling now for two
minutes. Ii came into his head that the
window would crack through the con-
fict of temperatures, for he knew the
bottom water is very near freezing.
Then suddenly the floor of the sphere
seemed 10 press against his feet, the
rush of bubbles outside grew slower
and slower and the Kissing diminished.
The sphere rolled q little. The window
had not cracked, nothing had given, and
he knew that the dangers of sinking, at
any rate, were over. In another minute
or NO he would be on the floor of the
abyss. He thought, he said, of Stevens
md Weybridge and the rest of them
five miles overhead, higher to him than
the very highest clouds that ever floated
over land are to us, stenming slowly and
staring down and wondering what had
happened TO him.
lie pecred ont Of tho window. There
were no moie bubbles now. and the
kissing had stopped. Outside there was
heavy blackncss as black as black
velvet, except where the electric Fight
pierced the empty water and showed
the color of il yellow green. Then
three things like shapes of fire swan
into sight, following each other through
the water. Whether they were little
and near or big and far OF he could not
tell. Each was outlined In n blush
livht almost ns hrfght as the liphts