On a Torn-Away World Part 10

CHAPTER X

THE BLACK DAY

The 'quake was over in a very few moments; the Indians and Washington White, however, cowered upon the ground for some time, crying out their fear of what they considered supernatural phenomena. Jack Darrow and Mark Sampson were not frightened in the same way as the darkey and the Aleuts; nevertheless they were much shaken.

Professor Henderson, however, displayed naught but the keenest interest in the scientific side of the happening. He clambered to his feet the moment he could stand, and observed:

"A most p.r.o.nounced seismic disturbance--I should say earthquake."

"I should say it was p.r.o.nounced!" grunted Phineas Roebach. Being a fat man, he had fallen heavily. He was now rubbing himself tenderly where he had been bruised upon the hard ground. "This shock beats the one we had the other day."

"Not a shock, my dear sir," said Professor Henderson, quickly. "An earthquake is not, strictly speaking, a shock at all. Within the past twenty years science has learned to measure and to study earthquakes.

If we have learned nothing else, we have learned that an earthquake is _not_ a shock."

"It tumbled us about a whole lot, then, Professor," said Jack Darrow.

"What would you call it, if not a shock?"

The phenomena being over for the time--as all could see--they returned to the cabin to complete their meal. Roebach had said something soothing to his Indians, but they, like Washington White, preferred remaining in the open. Wash sat down beside the cage of his pet rooster, and declared to the boys when they urged him to come in again:

"No, sah! I ain't hongry, nohow. An' w'edder de professor am right dat dese yer earthquakes ain't shockin', I kin tell yo' right now dat it shocked _me_! Nor I ain't gwine ter gib it no secon' chance ter tumble dat ruff down on ma haid--no, sah!"

Once more at the breakfast table, with the affrighted Indian squaw waiting upon them, the professor took up the topic of earthquakes again, in answer to Jack's observation.

"From the time of the ancients to the middle of the last century the phenomena of earthquakes were observed and described upon countless occasions," he said. "Yet even Humboldt's 'Cosmos', published as late as 1844, which summarized the then existing knowledge on the subject, did not suggest that earthquakes should be studied like other mechanical motions.

"The effects of the great Neapolitan earthquake of 1857 were so studied by Mr. Robert Mallet," continued the professor. "He disabused his mind of all superst.i.tion, threw away all the past mysteries, and attacked the problem from its mechanical side only. He believed that an earthquake was a series of shocks, or blows; but what he learned led other and later students to the discovery that an earthquake is not made up of blows at all."

"That's all very well to say," grumbled Mr. Roebach. "I'm pretty solid on my feet; but what was it but a shock that threw me down? Tell me that, sir!"

"Very easily explained," said the scientist, smiling. "Which will the quicker take you off your feet--a blow from, say, Jack's fist, or your stepping inadvertently upon a piece of glare ice? The ice, because it affords you so insecure a footing, is likely to throw you easier than a pretty solid blow; eh?"

"True enough," admitted the oil hunter, smiling at Jack. "Although Darrow looks to be a pretty husky youngster." "My point is this,"

pursued the professor. "An earthquake is a continuous series of intricate twistings and oscillations in all possible directions, up and down, east and west, north and south, of the greatest irregularity both in intensity and direction. This writhing of the earth--of the very foundations of the ground we walk on--caused our recent overthrow,"

concluded Mr. Henderson.

But the two boys were much more interested in the possibility of there being an active volcano in the neighborhood. The volcanic ash which covered the leaves and gra.s.s like road-dust a.s.sured them all that some huge "blow-hole" of the earth was near.

"I wasn't looking for no such things as volcanoes," said Andy Sudds, seriously, "when I shipped for this voyage. I reckoned volcanoes blowed mostly in the tropics."

"Alaska is a mighty field of active volcanoes," declared Professor Henderson. "But they have been mostly active on the Pacific coast, and among the islands which form a barrier between that ocean and Bering Sea. Islands have been thrown up, while others have sunk there because of volcanic disturbances, within the last few years."

"And I presume the earthquake and the volcanic eruption are closely connected?" suggested Mark.

"We may safely believe that," agreed the professor. "I am sorry my instruments are not at hand. I sincerely hope none was damaged when the _s...o...b..rd_ made such a bad landing."

"And I'd like to give the machine an overhauling at once to see just how badly she's damaged," Jack Darrow said, hastily. "What do you say, Mark?"

"I'm with you," returned his chum. "Can't we take Andy and Wash, Mr.

Henderson, and go right up to that hollow and see what needs to be done to the flying machine? Perhaps we can get off for Aleukan by to-morrow if we hustle."

"If you boys think you can repair the damage done the machine in so short a time," agreed the professor, doubtfully. "But you know we must at least arrive at Aleukan in time to meet the train from Coldfoot.

If the _s...o...b..rd_ cannot be launched again, we will have to see if our good friend here, Mr. Roebach, can fit us out with dogs and men."

"That I'll do to the best of my ability," said the oil man, rising.

"But I'd better get out now and set my men to work. I am boring in a new place this week, and it looks promising. We are down a hundred and twenty feet already." They put on their outer garments and left the cabin. Although this was summer weather, there was a sting of frost in the air even as it neared mid-forenoon. But the sun was strangely overcast, and that might account for the drop in temperature.

"Disher day fo'git ter grow," complained Washington, rolling his eyes until, as Jack suggested, they could see only the whites of them in the dark, and the gleam of his teeth. "'Nstead o' bein' as sunshiny as it doughter be arter dat storm, it's suah growin' night fast! 'Taint a full-grown day, nohow!"

"Sort of stunted; is it, Wash?" chuckled Jack.

Andy Sudds here spoke decisively:

"I been tryin' to make out what it was, like feathers, a-touchin' my face. But it ain't snow. _It's ashes_!"

"Volcanic dust!" cried Mark.

"That volcano must be active again. That's what brought about the earthquake," said Jack. "And the darkness. What we thought was a fog over the sun must be a cloud of ashes."

"This ain't no place for us," declared Andy. "I wish we were back at that man's house."

"Or could find the _s...o...b..rd_ pretty soon," added Mark.

"We're going right for it--I'm sure of that," said Jack, cheerfully.

And scarcely had he spoken when the four suddenly clung to each other, rocking on their feet! Washington White shrieked aloud, fell upon his knees, and it took but little to drag the boys and Andy Sudds with him.

"The whole world is done rockin' ergain!" wailed the darkey. "Dis is de end ob de finish!"

The vibrations of the ground grew in strength. The air about them seemed to shake. The darkness was so intense that Jack, holding a shaking hand before his face, could not distinguish its outline. And all the time the volcanic ash drifted down through the writhing tree-tops, while the boys and their companions were unable to stand erect.

CHAPTER XI

THE WONDERFUL LEAP

Unlike the former trembling of the earth, this experience gave no immediate promise of cessation. The world rocked on in awful throes--as though it really was, as the black man feared, the end of all material things. Jack and Mark rolled upon the ground in the grove of huge trees, clinging to each other's hands, but unable to rise, or to find their two comrades.

A rising thunder of sound accompanied this manifestation, too. And, after some stricken minutes, the boys realized that it was thunder.

With the earthquake and the storm of volcanic ashes, came an electric disturbance of the atmosphere, the like of which neither of the boys had ever dreamed. They had felt the "itch" of the electric current just before the 'quake. Now the hair on their heads rose stiffly like that on the back of an angry cat, and when Jack and Mark chanced to separate for a moment, and each put out their hands to seize the other, the darkness under the trees was vividly shot through for an instant with the sparks which flew from their fingers.

Washington White began to bawl terrifically at this display of "fireworks," as he called it.

His lamentations were well nigh drowned by the rolling thunder. This latter did not sound in ordinary explosions, or "claps," but traveled in rapidly repeated echoes across the skies. The thick cloud of ashes which obscured the sun and the whole sky was cut through occasionally by a sword of lightning; but mostly the electricity showed itself in a recurrent, throbbing glow upon the northern horizon, not unlike some manifestations of the Aurora Borealis.