The Evacuation of England: The Twist in the Gulf Stream

by L. P. Gratacap

“I think,” he broke in, “that the West Indies will manage to take care of themselves. At least, present indications go to prove, that instead of disappearing, they are on their way to bigger things. Commander Beecham, who has just come from the Isle of Pines, told me yesterday, that the island was rising, that in a short time it might become part of Cuba. The question might then be asked, as we own the Isle of Pines, whether we had not annexed Cuba.”

“I have heard of the Isle of Pines,” said Mrs. Garrett, “but hardly understand what it is. Perhaps a little enlightenment on the subject would not be unwelcome to the rest of you.”

“Do, Brig,” pleaded Sally, “in the role of instructor you may be as successful in geography as in other subjects,” and Leacraft flushed and sat back hard, to resist the harsh blow of this subtle reminder of his worst suspicions.

Mr. Barry looked around, as if to secure the suffrages of the company, and found every eye fixed upon him in expectation. It was his turn to impress Sally. He last looked at her, and as he did, he laughingly began: “I shall have no compunctions in being a trifle the schoolmaster. The Isle of Pines, Mrs. Garrett, lies in a deep bight or bay near the south coast of the western part of Cuba. There are some six hundred and thirty thousand acres in it, and it is but ninety-nine square miles less in extent than our little State of Rhode Island. This island bears a sort of filial relation to Cuba. It is part of the general chain of the insular mainlands of the Antilles. It is not a coral key or a mangrove swamp. It forms a plateau from fifty to one hundred feet above sea level, broken by ridges of hills or cliffs that start out over its surface like the bones on the back of a thin cow.” Sally’s deferential attention to Mr. Barry’s learning was here interrupted by a very audible titter.

“I beg to remonstrate against any levity in my class, and I think, Miss Garrett, you owe me an apology for attempting to disturb my recital.” This mock rebuke completed Sally’s disorder. Her eyes, wet with tears of merriment, looked at Brig Barry, who had assumed himself the amusing expression of offended dignity, and she murmured, “Excuse me, sir,” with such a delicious mockery of piteous appeal that her father laughed aloud, but Leacraft maintained his stern reserve, with eyes uplifted from the face of his rival.

“Small as this island is, it offers room for two mountain ridges at its northern end, which reach the respectable elevation of fifteen hundred feet, and are composed of limestones. There are other ridges in the island, lower and less steep. The whole island is surrounded by swamps, except towards the south, where it is rocky. Commander Beecham says that in the last month strange uplifts have been noticed, almost unaccompanied by any serious seismic—this last word, Miss Garrett, may affect you unpleasantly; it means earthquake,—disturbance and shoals and reefs are now bristling out of the sea, like the teeth on a comb. And another singular circumstance can be mentioned. The island abounds in warm springs, curative—for your benefit, Miss Garrett, I may say that the word means healing—for rheumatism and throat affections, and these springs are sinking; the water seems to recede within the recesses of the earth, while in other cases the subterranean channels have either crushed together, or have become filled up; the springs are simply not there; they have vanished; the Commander has made observations on the coast lines, and it seemed to him that they were all rising. The Cuban coast is rising, too. He came through Havana, and the shipways in the harbor have become so shallow that there was a gloomy prospect that the city would be cut off from the sea. I only heard all this strange news an hour ago, and I fear the excitement caused by meeting Miss Garrett is to be held responsible for my forgetting to mention it before.”

The allusion was noticed by only Leacraft; the next voice was that of Mr. Garrett, whose face had darkened with apprehension. “Extraordinary! It may be that our despatch is correct. It may be that there is a sort of see-saw here, that as the West Indies rise, the Central American coast sinks. But why not a whisper of such occurrences in the papers?”

“The see-saw fancy,” said Leacraft, now thoroughly aroused, and forgetting his immediate disappointment in the face of a formidable physical phenomenon, “was Mr. Binn’s. He gave me the feeling that he thought that, like an inflated surface, where the higher elevation of one part meant the lowering of another part, so the access of height in the West Indies meant the loss of height in the isthmus. And the provocation to any change would be earthquakes.”

“As to the papers not publishing anything,” explained Barry, “there are no newspaper correspondents in the Isle of Pines, and I recall now that Beecham told me that the authorities at Havana were so frightened over the reports of the harbor masters, that that they had prohibited their circulation. The thing may prove grave enough.”

“Let us hope,” said Ned Garrett, “that such rumors do not get abroad before to-morrow. They are only half-proven assertions, based upon some accidental and momentary circumstance. In a few days the Isle of Pines may be the same as it was, with the salt springs thrown in, and the harbor of Havana back again to its old position without so much as a jolt. The sea serpent is now advancing towards our shores at the summer resorts, why not a few nightmares from the tropics? A truce to ghosts. Let us drink to the President and the Canal.” The glasses were raised, their lips, before they touched the sparkling lymphs, offering, as if in silent prayer, to the consecration of the beaded wine, unuttered hopes for the country’s great head, and its great enterprise, had but felt the amber current flowing from the engraved chalices, musical with the tinkling of bits of ice, when,—a sharp cry of voices, a babel of tumultuous and precipitated outcries smote upon their ears, entering the open windows like an execrable assault. It was the shouting, thrilling with an unusual impetus of omen, of the newsboys, as if they had forgotten their mercantile relations to the news, which, whether of joy or grief, they commonly announce in the shrill yells of indifference and gloating expectation. Now their multitudinous voices mingled in a monstrous hoarseness, as if constrained by a personal and immediate sorrow and horror. Even ejaculations from men in the streets buying the papers from the hawkers, entered the room, and brought pallor to the cheeks of the mute company. Ned Garrett pushed back his chair and sprang to the door, followed by Brig Barry, and the rest stayed, immobile, like a stricken throng, waiting the next minute for an impending immolation.