Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1896-08-08

MS hand out, and as he did so little white
| streak swept noiSelessly up the sky. trav-
| eled slower. stopped, became a motionless
| dot. as though new star had fallen up
| into the sky. Then it went sliding back
| again and lost itself amidst the reflections
! of the stars, and the white haze of the
| seas phosphorescence.
| At the sight he stopped, arm extended
| and mouth open. He shut his mouth, open
! ed it again and waved his arms with an
| impatient gesture. Then he turned, shout
| ed ''El-stead ahoy." to the first watch. and
| went at a run to Lindey and the search
| light. Il saw him. he said. "Starboard
| there! His lights on and he's just shot
| out of the water. Bring the light round.
| We ought to see MIN drifting when he lifts
| on the SWELL
But they never picked up the explorer
until dawn Then they almost ran him
! boats crew hooked the chain to the
| sph ere. When they had shipped the sphere
they unscrewed the manhole and peered
into the darkness of the interior (for the
| electric light chamber was intended to H.
Illuminate the water about the sphere, and
was shut off entirely from its general cav
| 1ty). The air was very hot within the
| cavity. and the India rubber at the lip Of
the maHhole was soft. There was no an
sWer to the eager questions and no sound
OF movement within. E.lstead seemed to
| be lying motionless. crumpled up. in the
crawled in ard lifted him out to the men
outside. For a moment or so they did not
| Know whether Elstead was alive or dead
His face in the yellow light of the ships
lamps elistened with perspiration. They
carried him down to his own cabin.
He was not dead. they found, but in a
state OF absolute nervous collapse. and be-
SIDES cruelty bruised. For some days he
h hau 10 lie perfectly still. 1t was a week
before he could tell his experiences.
Almost his first words were that he was
gong down again. The sphere would have
10 De altered he said in order to allow him
off tkps,n
was ell. He had had the most marvellous
experience. You thought l should find
nothing but ooze." he said. You laughed
at my expi .n, And I've discovered
nected fragments. and chiefly from the
wrong end. SO that 1t Is impossible to re-
tell 1t In his words. But what follows ia
the narrative of his experience.
1t began atrociously, he said. Refora tho
cora ran out the thing kept rolling over.
he feit like frog in a football. He conId
See seer nothing MINI, but the crane and the sky over
neaa with an occasional glimpse of the
people on the ships rail- He couldn't toll a
pit which way the thing would roll next
suddenly he would find his feet going nm.
ana try to step. and over he went rolling.
head over heels and Just ANYHOW m the
padding. Any other shape would have hean
more comfortable. but no other shane was
70 pc relied upon under the huge pressure
Oh the nethermost abyss. Suddenly the
swayfng ceased; the globe rfehted and
when he had picked himself up he saw the
water all about him greeny-blue with an
attenuated light fltering down from above
and shoal Of little floating things went
rushing up past him. as it seemed to hin,
toward the light. And even as he looked If
grew darker and darker until the water
above was as dark as the midnight skv
albeit OF a greener shade. and the water be-
low black. And little transparent things in
the water developed faint ghost of inmi
Mostly. and shot past him in faint greenish
streaks. And the feeling of falling! It was
Just like the start of lift, he said, only II
kept on. One has to imagine what thai
means. that keeping on. 1t was then NJ a II
times. that Elstead repented of his adyen-
ture. He saw the chances against him in
an altogether new light. He thought of the
big cuttlefish people knew to exist in the
middle waters. the kind of things they find
half disested in whales at times or floating
dead and rotten and half eaten by fish
Suppose one caught hold and wouldn't let
go! And had the clockwork 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 matter. 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. it seems. The
first thing he noticed was that he was per-
SpliluS, dLu lueH lie uedFQ q Missing grow.
ing louder under his feet and saw a lot of
little bubbles, very little bubbles they were
rushing upward like fan, through the wa
ter outside. Steam! He felt the window,
and 1t was hot He turned on the minute
glow lamp that lit his own cavity, looked
at the padded watch by the studs, saw he
had been travelling now for two minutes.
1t came into his head that the window
would crack through the conflict of tenn
peratures. for he knew the bottom water is
very near freezing. Then suddenly the
floor Of the sphere seemed TO press against
his feet, the rush Of bubbles outside grew
slower and slower and the Kissing dimin-
ished. The sphere rolled little. The win
dow had not cracked, nothing had given,
and he knew that the dangers of sinking,
at any rate. were over. In another minute
or so he would be on the floor of the abyss.
He thought, he said, of Stevens and Wey-
bridge and the rest of them five miles over
head, higher to him than the very highest
clouds that ever floated over land are to us.
steaming slowly and staring down and won
dering what had happened to him.
He pcered out Of the window. There were
no more bubbles now, and the kissing had
stopped. Outside there was a heavy black
| ness as black as black velvet. except where
the electric light pierced the empty water
and showed the color of 1t 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
" as outlined in a blush light almost as
pIisut As inc ltSntS OF q uSnlnS smack, q
| light which seemed to be smoking family,
| and all along the sides of them were specks
| of this like the lighted portfolios Of ship.
Their phosphorescence seemed to go out as
they came into the radiance Of hts lamp,
and he saw then that they were little fish
| Of some strange sort with huge heads, vast
| eyes and dwindling bodies and tails. Their
| eyes were turned toward him, and he judged
| they were following him down. He sup
| posed they were attracted by his glare,
Presently others Of the same sort Joined
| them. AS he went on down he noticed that
the water became Of a pallid color. and that
little specks twinkled In his ray like notes
in a sunbeam. This was probably due to
the clouds Of ooze and mud that the impact
of ais leaden sinkers had disturbed.
By the time he was drawn down to the
| lead weights he was in a dense for OF
white that his electric light failed alto
gether to pierce for more than q few yards
! and many minutes elapsed before the hang
ing sheets of sediment subsidized to any ex-
tent. Then, lit by his light and the tran
| sient phosphorescence Of distant shoal Of
fishes. he was able to see under the huge
blackness Of the superintendent water an
1 nH,11~ nA