And yet, in spite of the indescribable charm of that divine day, there was on board the solitary ship that gave the needed touch of human interest to that ocean Elysium a general air of expectancy, a sense of impending change which as yet could not be called uneasiness, and still was indefinably at variance with the more manifest influences that made for rest of mind and body. The animals on board, pigs and cats and fowls, were evidently ill at ease. Their finer perceptions, unbiassed by reasoning appreciation of Nature’s beauties, were palpably disturbed, and they roamed restlessly about, often composing themselves as if to sleep, only to resume their agitated prowling almost immediately. Lower sank the sun, stranger and more varied grew the colour-schemes in sky and sea. Up from the Eastern horizon crept gradually a pale glow as of a premature dawn, the breaking of an interpolated day shed by some visitant sun from another system. The moon was not yet due for six hours, so that none could attribute this unearthly radiance to her rising. Busy each with the eager questionings of his own perturbed mind, none spoke a word as the sun disappeared, but watched in suspense that was almost pain the brightening of this spectral glare. Suddenly, as if reflected from some unimaginable furnace, the zenith was all aflame. That fiery glow above turned the sea into the semblance of a lake of blood, and horror distorted every face. The still persisting silence now lay like the paralysis of a trance upon all, and an almost frantic desire for sound racked them to the core.
At last, when it seemed as if the tension of their nerves had almost reached the snapping point, there was an overwhelming sulphurous stench, followed by a muttering as of thunder beneath the sea. A tremendous concussion below the keel made the stout hull vibrate through every beam, and the tall masts quivered like willow twigs in a squall. The air was full of glancing lights, as if legions of fire-flies disported themselves. Slowly the vessel began to heave and roll, but with an uncertain staggering motion, unlike even the broken sea of a cyclone centre. Gradually that dreadful light faded from the lurid sky, and was replaced by a smoky darkness, alien to the overshadowing gloom of any ordinary tempest. Strange noises arose from the deep, not to be compared with any of the manifold voices of the ocean so well known to those who do business in great waters. And the myriad brightnesses which make oceans’ depths so incomparably lovely throughout the tropical nights were all gone. All was dark beneath as above. Not only so, but those anxious mariners could feel, though they could not see, that while the atmospheric ocean was calm almost to stagnation, the hidden deeps under them were being rent and disintegrated by such an unthinkable storm as the air had never witnessed. The fountains of the great deep were broken up, but the floods issuing therefrom were of cosmic flame, able to resolve even that immensity of superincumbent ocean into its original gases and change the unchangeable.
Tossing helplessly upon that tortured sea, face to face with those elemental forces that only to think of makes the flesh shrink on the bones like a withered leaf, the men suffered the passage of the hours. What was happening or was about to happen they could only dimly imagine. They could but endure in helplessness and hope for the day. Yet their thoughts would wander to those they loved, wondering dimly whether the catastrophe apparently impending was to be universal and the whole race of man about to be blotted out,—whether the world were dying. What they suffered could not be told, but the animals died. Perhaps the scorching heat-waves which continually arose, making mouths and nostrils crack like burnt leather, and cauterising taste and smell as if with the fumes of molten sulphur, had slain the beasts. The discovery of this ghastly detail of the night’s terrors did not add much to their fears. It could not; for the mind of man can only contain a limited amount of terror, as the body can only feel a limited amount of pain, which is something to be deeply thankful for.
Shortly after midnight there was a deafening uproar, a hissing as of the Apocalyptic Star being quenched, and immediately the gloom became filled with steam, an almost scalding fog, through which as through a veil came a red sheen. At the same time a mighty swell swept toward them from east to west, striking the ship full in the stem. Gallantly she rose to the advancing wall of water until she seemed upreared upon her stern, but in spite of her wonderful buoyancy a massive sea broke on board, clearing the decks like a besom of destruction. Down the receding slope of this gigantic billow she fled, as if plunging headlong to the sea-bed, and before she had time to recover herself was met by another almost as huge. Clinging for life to such fragments as still held on the clean-swept decks, the crew felt that at last all was over. But the good ship survived the third wave, being then granted a brief respite before another series appeared. This allowed all hands a breathing space, and an opportunity to notice that there was a healthier smell in the air, and that the terror-striking noises were fast dying away. When the next set of rollers came thundering along they were far less dangerous than before, nor, although they made a clean breach over the much-enduring ship, were they nearly as trying to the almost worn-out crew. And now, breaking through the appalling drapery that had hidden the bright face of the sky, suddenly shone the broad smile of the silver moon. Like the comforting face of a dear friend, that pleasant sight brought renewed hope and vigour to all. Again the cheery voices of the officers were heard, and all wrought manfully to repair the damage done by the terrible sea. One by one the glittering stars peeped out as the gloomy canopy melted away, revealing again the beautiful blue of the sky. A gentle breeze sprang up, but for awhile it was only possible to lay the ship’s head approximately on her course, because the compasses were useless. The needles had temporarily lost their polarity in the seismic disturbance that had taken place beneath them. But that was a small matter. As long as the celestial guides were available, the navigators could afford to wait until, with the rest of Nature’s forces, magnetism regained its normal conditions. So, during the energetic labours of the men, the morning quickly came, hailed by them as a sight they had never again expected to see. And what a dawn it was. Surely never had the abundant day been so delightful, the heaven so stainless, the air so pure. All the more because of the extraordinary contrast between sky and sea; for old ocean was utterly unlike any sea they had ever before sailed upon. As far as the eye could reach the surface was covered with floating pumice, so that the vessel grated through it as if ploughing over a pebbly beach. Wherever the water could be seen it was actually muddy, befouled like any ditch. Dead fish, floating and distorted, added to the ugliness of what overnight was so beautiful. Most pathetic of all, perhaps, upon that dead sea was the sight of an occasional spot of white, a tiny patch of ruffled feathers floating, that had been one of the fearless winged wanderers who add so much to the beauty of the sea, its joyous life quenched by the poisonous fumes of the submarine earthquake.
X
THE SILENT WARFARE OF THE SUBMARINE WORLD
All imaginative minds are inevitably impressed by the solemn grandeur of the sea. Some shudder at its awful loneliness, its apparent illimitability, its air of brooding, ageless mystery in calm. Others are most affected by its unchainable energy, the terror of its gigantic billows, its immeasurable destructiveness in storms. Yet others, a less numerous class, ponder over its profundities of rayless gloom and uniform cold, where incalculable pressures bear upon all bodies, so that cylinders of massive steel are flattened into discs, and water percolates through masses of metal as though they were of muslin. But there is yet another aspect of the oceanic wonders that engages the meditations of comparatively few, and this is perhaps the most marvellous of them all.
Placid and reposeful, tempest-tossed or current-whirled, the unchangeable yet unresting surface of the ocean reveals to the voyager no inkling of what is going on below its mobile mask, and even when furrowed deepest by the mighty but invisible ploughshare of the storm, how slight is the effect felt twenty feet deep. Yet in those soundless abysses of shade beneath the waves a war is being incessantly waged which knows no truce, ruthless, unending, and universal. On earth the struggle for existence is a terrible one, exciting all our sympathies when we witness its pitilessness, being ourselves by some happy accident outside the area. Nature, “red in tooth and claw,” weeding out the unfit by the operation of her inexorable laws, raises many a doubting question in gentle souls as to why all this suffering should be necessary. They see but a portion of the reversed pattern woven by the eternal looms. But the fauna of the land are by an enormous majority herbivorous, mild in their habits, and terrified at the sight of blood. Even the carnivora, fierce and ravenous as are their instincts, do not devour one another except in a few insignificant and abnormal cases, such as wolves driven mad by starvation. Much less do they eat their own offspring, although there are many instances of this hideous appetite among the herbivores, which are familiar to most of us.
In striking contrast to these conditions, the tribes of ocean are all devourers of each other, and, with the exception of the mammalia and the sharks, make no distinction in favour of their own fruit. One single instance among the inhabitants of the sea furnishes us with a variation. The halicore, dugong, or manatee (Sirenia), now nearly extinct, are, without doubt, eaters of herbage only. This they gather along the shores whose waters are their habitat, or cull from the shallow sea bottoms. For all the rest, they are mutually dependent upon each other’s flesh for life, unscrupulous, unsatisfied, and vigorous beyond belief. “Væ Victis” is their motto, and the absence of all other food their sole and sufficient excuse. Viewed dispassionately, this law of interdependence direct is a beneficent one in spite of its apparent cruelty. Vast as is the sea, the fecundity of most of its denizens is well known to be so great that without effective checks always in operation it must rapidly become putrid and pestilential from the immense accumulation of decaying animal matter. As things are, the life of a herring, for instance, from first to last is a series of miraculous escapes. As ova, their enemies are so numerous, even their own parents greedily devouring the quickening spawn, that it is hard to understand how any are overlooked and allowed to become fish. Yet as fry, after providing food for countless hordes of hungry foes, they are still sufficiently numerous to impress the imagination as being in number like the sands of the sea. And so, always being devoured by millions, they progress towards maturity, at which perhaps one billionth of those deposited as ova arrive. This infinitesimal remnant is a mighty host requiring such supplies of living organisms for its daily food as would make an astronomer dizzy to enumerate. And every one is fat and vigorous; must be, since none but the fittest can have survived. Their glittering myriads move in mysteriously ordered march along regular routes, still furnishing food for an escort of insatiable monsters such as whales, sharks, etc.; while legions of sea-fowl above descend and clamorously take their tiny toll. In due season they arrive within the range of man. He spreads his nets and loads his vessels, but all his spoils, however great they may appear to him, are but the crumbs of the feast, the skimmings of the pot.
This marvellous system of supply and demand is, of course, seen in its highest development near land, or at any rate where the bed of the sea is comparatively near the surface, as on the Banks of Newfoundland, the Agulhas Banks, and many others. But in the deepest waters of the ocean, far from any shore, there are immense numbers of swift predatory fish, such as the bonito, the dolphin (coryphæna), and the albacore. Mammalia also, like the porpoise, grampus, and rorqual, require enormous supplies of fish for their sustenance, and never fail to find them. As we ascend the scale of size the struggle becomes majestic—a war of Titans, such as no arena on earth has seen since the Deluge. The imagination recoils dismayed before the thought of such a spectacle as is afforded by the gigantic cachalot descending to the murky depths where in awful state the hideous Kraken broods. No other name befits this inexpressible monster as well as the old Norse epithet bestowed in bygone days upon the greatest of the mollusca by terrified fisher-folk of Scandinavia. Vast, formless, and insatiable, he crouches in those fathomless silences like the living embodiment of sin, an ever-craving abysmal mouth surrounded by a Medusa-like web of unresting arms. His enormous flaccid bulk needs a continual holocaust to supply its flood of digestive juices, and that need is abundantly supplied. Then comes the doughty leviathan from above, and in noiseless majesty of power, disdaining subterfuge, rushes straight to the attack, every inch of his great frame mutely testifying to the enormous pressure of the superincumbent sea. Sometimes, stifling for air, the whale rises to the surface dragging upward his writhing prey, though almost as bulky as himself. In his train follow the lesser monsters eager for their share, and none of the fragments are lost.