Maryland independent. [volume] (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1874-current, 1934-11-30

passengers"
Tony tore his eyes from the sight.
"How many will she carryT' ne asked
quietly
Hendron hesltated; then he said,
For a trip Of the duration | contem-
plate, she would he able to take about
one hundred people"
Tony's voice was still quieter. "Then
you have nine hundred ldealists IN
your camp here"
The older man smiled. "Unless am
greatly mistaken, | have thousand
N"They all know about the ship?"
Something about it, Nearly half Of
them have been working on 1t, or on
apparatus connected with It,"
"You pay no wages?"
1--WE offered wages. In most cases
they've been refused. l have more
than three million dollars In gold avail
able here for expenses encountered in
dealing with people who still wish
money for their time or materials"
Il see. How long a trip do you con
templateT
Hendron took the young mans
breath. "Nlnety hours. That is, pro-
vided,"-and his voice began to
shake-"provlded we can find proper
materials with which to line our
blast tubes. Otherwise we wouldn't be
able to propel this thing for more
than few minutes. l." 6
Eve looked at her father. Dad,
you've got to go to bed And don't
worry so. Wen find the alloy all
right. We've done everything else"
Hendron nodded; and Tony, looking
at him, realized for the first time how
much the scientist had aged recently.
Tony escorted Eve to the women's
| dormitory. Eve babe him good night.
then went Inside. Tony walked with
SLOW strides to the top Of a neigh
boring hill Hendron's village looked
on the northesiP,7 side like uni
versity campus and Oh the southern
side like the heart Of manufacture lg
district. All around II stretched the
Michigan wilderness The ground had
been chosen partly because of the age
and firmness of its geological base,
and partly because Of Its isolation
He sat down on a large stone. The
hot night wind blew with increasing
VIOLENCE. and the double shadows, one
sharp and one faint, which were cast
by All things In the light of the Bron-
SON Bodies. were abruptly obliterated
by tie passage lof dark cloud.
Tonys mind ran unevenly and lr-
res9lutely. "All these people" he
thought these brilliant. temperamental
men and women, have subsidized and
made themselves like soldiers In Hen
droD's seryice-amnzing man-Only a
hundred people"
Fears ass',lled him: Suppose they
don't complete the Ark successfully,
and she never leaves the ground? Then
all these people would have given their
lives for nothing. Suppose it leaves the
earth and fails-falls back for hum
dreds of miles. gaining speed all the
way, SO that when 1t hit the atmos-
phere 1t would turn red-hot and burn
itself up just like meteor"
Tony thought of the tides that would
rise that night and on following
nights; and family. like the palplta-
ton Of steamers deck. the earth
shook beneath his feet as If in answer
to his meditation. And Tony real
lied that the heart of the earth was
strainlng toward its celestial COM
panlons.
On the night of the rwenty-ifth.
/ tides unprecedented In the worlds his
tory swept every seacoast. There were
earthquakes Of varying magnitude all
over the world. In the day that fol-
lowed, volcanoes opened up. and
islands sank beneath the sea; and on
the night of the twenty-sixth the greater
of the Bronson Bodies came within its
minimum distance from the earth on
this their first approach.
No complete record was ever made
of the devastation. Eliot James. who
made some tabulatlon of II In the sue
ceeding months, could never believe
all that he saw and heard, but II must
have been true.
The eastern enast uf the United
States sustained tidal wave seven
hundred and fifty feet In height. which
came in from the sea in relentless ter
races and inundated the land to the
very foot Of the Appalachlans. Its
westward rush destroyed every build
Ing, every hovel. every skyscraper.
every city, from Bangor In Maine to
Key West In Florida. The tide topped
into the Gulf Of Mexico, rolled DIP the
Mississippi valley.
It roared around South America,
turning the Amazon basin into vas'
inland sea which stretched from what
had been the east coast to the Andes
mountains OH the west coast The
speed Of this tide was beyond calcu-
lation.
Every river became channel for 1t.
Il spilled over Asia. II inundated the
great plain of China. It descended
from the Arctic regions and removed
much Of France. England and Ger
many, all of Holland and the great
Soviet empire, from the list of nations.
Arctic water hundreds of feet deep
flowed into the Caspian sea and hurled
the last of Its august inertia upon the
Caucasus.
Western Asia and Arabia, southern
india, Africa and much Of Australia
remained dry land.
More than half the population Of
the world died in the tides that ross
and subsidized during the proximity OF
the Bronson Bodies. But those who
by design or through accident found
Themselves Oh lgad tilat remnined dr.