The Great Stone of Sardis

by Frank R. Stockton

The attenuated cable, which continually stretched itself out behind the little vessel, was of the most recent and improved pattern for deep-sea cables. The conducting wires in the centre of it were scarcely thicker than hairs, while the wires forming the surrounding envelope, although they were so small as to make the whole cable not more than an eighth of an inch in diameter, were far stronger than the thick submarine cables which were used in the early days of ocean telegraphy. These outer wires were made of the Swedish toughened steel fibre, and in 1939, with one of them a little over a sixteenth of an inch in diameter, a freight-ship of eleven thousand tons had been towed through the Great New Jersey Canal, which had then just been opened, and which connected Philadelphia with the ocean.

But notwithstanding his faith in the strength of the cable, Mr. Gibbs felt more and more, the farther he progressed from the habitable world, the importance of preserving it from accident. He had gone so far that it would be a grievous thing to be obliged to turn back.

The Dipsey sailed at a much lower depth than when she had first started upon her submarine way. After they had become accustomed to the feeling of being surrounded by water, her inmates seemed to feel a greater sense of security when they were well down below all possible disturbing influence. When they looked forward in the line of the search-light, or through any of the windows in various parts of the vessel, they never saw anything but water—no fish, nothing floating. They were too far below the ice above them to see it, and too far from what might be on either side of them to catch a glimpse of it. The bottom was deep below them, and it was as though they were moving through an aqueous atmosphere.

They were comfortable, and beginning to be accustomed to their surrounding circumstances. The air came in regularly and steadily through the electric gills, and when deteriorated air had collected in the expiration-chamber in the upper part of the vessel, it was forced out by a great piston, which sent it by a hundred little valves into the surrounding water. Thus the pure air came in and the refuse air went out just as if the little Dipsey had been healthfully breathing as it pushed its way through the depths.

Mrs. Block was gaining flesh. The narrow accommodations, the everlasting electric light, the sameness of food, and a total absence of incident had become quite natural to her, and she had ceased to depend upon the companionship of the dust-brush and the almanac to carry her mind back to what she considered the real things of life.

Sarah had something better now to take her mind back to Sardis and the people and things on dry land. The engagement and probably early marriage of Mr. Clewe and Mrs. Raleigh had made a great impression upon her, and there were days when she never thought of the pole, so busy was she in making plans based upon the future connection of the life of herself and Sammy and that of Mr. and Mrs. Clewe.

Sammy and his wife had very good quarters within the boundaries of the works, but Sarah had never been quite satisfied with them, and when the new household of Clewe should be set up, and all the new domestic arrangements should be made, she hoped for better things. Mr. Clewe's little cottage would then be vacant, for of course he and his wife would not live in such a place as that, and she thought that she and Sammy should have it. Hour by hour and day by day she planned the furnishing, the fitting, and the management of this cottage.

She was determined to have a servant, a woman thoroughly capable of doing general house-work; and then there were times when she believed that if Sammy should succeed in finding the pole his salary would be increased, and they might be able to afford two servants. Over and over again did she consider the question whether, in this latter case, these women should both be general house-work servants, or one of them a cook and the other a chamber-maid and laundress. There was much to be considered on each side. In the latter case more efficient work could be obtained; but in the former, in case one of them should suddenly leave, or go away for a day out, the other could do all the work. It was very pleasant to Mrs. Block to sit in a comfortable arm-chair and gaze thus into the future. Sometimes she looked up into the water above, and sometimes out into the water ahead, but she could see nothing. But in the alluring expanse of her fancied future she could see anything which she chose to put there.

Sammy, however, did not increase in flesh; in fact, he grew thinner. Nothing important in regard to the Pole, Rovinski, had occurred, but of course something would occur; otherwise why did the Pole come on board the Dipsey? Endless conjectures as to what Rovinski would do when he did anything, and when he would begin to do it, kept the good Samuel awake during many hours when he should have been soundly sleeping. He had said nothing yet to Mr. Gibbs in regard to the matter. Every day he made a report to Roland Clewe about Rovinski, but Clewe's instructions were that so long as the Pole behaved himself properly there was no reason to trouble the minds of the party on board with fears of rascality on his part. They had enough to occupy their minds without any disturbing influence of that sort.

Clewe's own opinion on the subject was that Rovinski could do nothing but act as a spy, and afterwards make dishonest use of the knowledge he should acquire; but the man had put himself into Clewe's power, and he could not possibly get away from him until he should return to Cape Tariff, and even there it would be difficult. The proper and only thing to do was to keep him in custody as long as possible. When he should be brought back to a region of law and justice, it might be that the Pole could be prevented, for a time, at least, from using the results of his knavish observations.