Over the border

by Morgan Robertson

He pointed at Felton, and sprang toward him.

"Why should I jump?" asked Felton, wonderingly, and prepared for defense. The others came at him, each shouting his loudest: "Jump, jump for your life! Overboard with you! Quick, you fool!"

Then one sprang to the rail, poised a moment and threw himself out into space. Another followed, and another.

"Jump, will you?" yelled the captain, gesticulating earnestly. "I'm in command. I must be last to go. Over with you. Over with you all."

They were crowding to the rail, where one after another, the rest of the crew took the leap. And Felton, amazed, alarmed without knowing why, and against all the dictates of cold reason and common sense, allowed the captain to push him to the rail.

"Over you go, now," commanded the latter, encouragingly. "Don't be afraid. I'm coming, but I must be last, you know."

This seemed to be irresistible logic to the bewildered young officer. With no further thought about the matter, he reached the rail, and without looking down, drew a deep breath and leaped—a victim of suggestion.

Three hundred feet is a long jump. He turned over twice in that terrible descent, and once, looking upward, he saw the sprawling form of the captain, and above it the quiescent airship. But when he looked again he did not distinguish the man, and a lessening spot in the western sky was all that could be seen of the airship.

With consciousness nearly gone he struck the water feet first and was almost split in two by the impact; but the cold shock brought back his lapsing senses, and he found himself feebly swimming, in which direction he could not tell, for it was pitch dark in the depths to which he had sunk. With aching lungs he swam and turned, looking for light that would indicate the surface, but saw nothing to guide him, and in utter despair was about to give up when light appeared. It was not a dim glow, like diffused sunlight, but a spark, a point of yellow, that grew larger and became a disk. It was approaching and now another appeared beside it, fainter, and crescent shaped. On the other side appeared a third and, dazed with physical agony that reached from lungs to brain, he recognized the dead lights of a submarine's conning tower. He looked for the hull beneath, and saw it, a dark blur that was growing in size.

It came swiftly at him, and just as he was reaching out, to ward himself from the pointed nose, there was a coughing thud, and something brushed by him in a blast of bubbles and went on. Then, with many sharp knocks on head, ribs, and knuckles, he was sucked with the inrush of water squarely into the open tube that had just discharged its torpedo. He heard a clang behind him, the shutting of the forward tube door, then a whistling sound; then he felt the pressure of air on his face and with a groan of thanksgiving he expelled the long breath he had taken above, and drew it into his lungs. But the pressure had nearly burst his ear drums before the tube was emptied of water, and the inner door was opened. With a gasping call for help, he crawled and hitched along the tube and men reached in to him. They pulled him out into the lighted handling room, where, too weak to stand, he fell to the floor, breathing in deep, convulsive gasps.