CHAPTER I. Harkness Explains His Disappearance

The maiden voyage of the X-111 was ill-fated from the first. Perhaps
the new inventions had not yet been perfected, or perhaps, in the haste
of wartime, adequate tests had not been made; at any rate, the vessel
developed mechanical troubles after her first half day at sea. To begin
with, the rudder and steering apparatus proved unmanageable; then,
after hours spent in making repairs, the engines showed a tendency
to balk under the tremendous speed we were ordered to maintain; and
finally, when we had about solved the engine problem, we had the
misfortune to collide with a half-submerged derelict, while running on
the surface, and one of our water-tight compartments sprang a leak.

Immediately following the accident, we had risen to the surface, for
the break was about on a level with our waterline, and the compartment
could not be completely flooded so long as we did not submerge. Yet
Captain Gavison warned us not to waste a moment, and the men worked
with desperate speed to repair the damage, for we knew that we were in
the zone of the German U-boat, and that any delay might prove perilous,
if not fatal. Unfortunately, the sea was unusually calm and the day was
blue and clear, so that even our low-lying hulk could be sighted many
miles across the waters.

I do not know precisely at what position we were then stationed,
except that it was somewhere in the Eastern Atlantic, and at a point
where, according to the warnings of our Secret Service, a concentration
of German submarines was to be expected. At any other time we would
have welcomed the opportunity to come to grips with the foe; but now,
in our disabled condition, we kept a lookout with grave misgivings,
and silently prayed that the damage might be repaired before the enemy
slunk into view. Yet it was slow work to man the pumps and at the same
time to weld a strip of metal across the jagged gap in our side; and
hours passed while we stood there working thigh-deep in water, our
heads bent low, for there was but two or three feet of breathing space
beneath the curved iron ceiling. Suppressed growls and curses came
from our lips each time a sudden surge of the waters interfered with
the welding. Meanwhile all was in confusion; the men worked with the
feverish inefficiency of terror, scarcely heeding the orders of the
officers; the chief contents of the compartment floated about almost
unnoted. I distinctly remember that several articles, including a life
preserver which one of the recruits had unfastened in his fright, were
washed overboard.

Still, we did make some progress, and after four or five hours, and
just as the blood-red sun was sinking low in the west, we found our
task nearing completion. A few more minutes, and the welding would
be accomplished; a few more minutes, and darkness would be upon us,
leaving us free from fear of attack for the next eight or ten hours.

It was just when we felt safest that the real danger presented itself.
A swift trail of white shot across the waters far to westward, and,
advancing at full speed, vanished in a long, frothy furrow just in
our wake. “A German U-boat! A U-boat two points off the port bow!”
frantically cried the watch; and we scrambled from the flooded
compartment as the Captain gave the order “Submerge!” Now we heard the
rapid churning of our engines as we went plunging into the blackness
beneath the sea; now we made ready to launch a torpedo of our own as
our periscope showed us the disappearing tip of an enemy submarine;
now we were hurled into an exciting chase as our prodigiously powerful
searchlights illumined whole leagues of the water, even revealing the
dark, cigar-shaped hulk of the foe. Had we not been impeded by the dead
weight of a compartment full of water, we would unquestionably have
overtaken the enemy, rammed it and ended its career; even as it was, we
seemed to be gaining upon it, and we had hopes of shooting up unseen
and bullet-like from the dark, and with tremendous impact smiting it in
two. Not even the unexpected appearance of a second submarine altered
our plans. Handicapped as we were, we would show our superiority to
both the enemy craft!

But it was at this point that mechanical troubles again betrayed us.
Overworked by our excessive burst of speed, our engines (which were of
the super-electric type recently invented by Cogswell) gave signs of
slowing up and stopping; and so dangerously overheated were they, that
our Captain had to halt our vessel abruptly, almost within striking
distance of the foe. Our position became extremely precarious, for at
any moment the German searchlights might spy us out, and a few undersea
bombs might send us to the bottom.

As our own equipment had purposely been made as light as possible, we
were provided with no explosive shells other than torpedoes: hence we
were compelled to rise to the surface in order to attack. This, we
realized, was a hazardous expedient, since both the enemy vessels were
already in a position to answer our bombardment, volley for volley.
But trusting to the gathering darkness and to our aggressive tactics
to win us the advantage, we unhesitatingly rose to the level, and,
with as little delay as possible, discharged a torpedo toward the dim,
low-lying form of the foe.

Whether that projectile reached its goal, none of us will ever be able
to say. From the sudden, furious eruption of spray in the direction
of the enemy craft, I am inclined to believe that this was among the
U-boats later reported missing; yet, the torpedo may merely have
struck some floating object and so have lost its prey. Whatever the
results, we were unable to observe with certainty, for at the same
moment a gleaming streak shot toward us across the dark waters, and
the next instant we went sprawling about the deck as a dull thudding
crash came to our ears and the vessel shook and wavered as though in
an earthquake’s grip. Half dazed from the shock, we gathered ourselves
together and rose uncertainly to our feet, staring at one another in
dull consternation. And at the same moment one of the seamen burst
wildly into the cabin, despair and terror in his maddened eyes. “The
central compartment!” he cried. “The central compartment. It’s flooded,
all flooded!” And as if to prove his words, we felt ourselves sinking,
sinking slowly, though we had not been ordered to submerge; the
darkness of the twilight skies quickly gave way to the darkness beneath
the ocean.

It was some minutes before we quite realized what was happening.
Accustomed as we were to undersea traveling, we did not at first
understand that this was an adventure quite out of the ordinary. Even
when the waters had lost their first pale translucency and had become
utterly black and opaque, we did not realize our terrible predicament.
Only after our vessel began listing violently, and we felt the deck
sloping at an angle of forty-five degrees, did we recognize the full
horror of our position. Although we could see not one inch beyond
the thick glass portholes, I had an indefinable sense that we were
sinking, sinking down, down, down through vague and unknown abysses;
and the stark and helpless terror on the assembled faces gave proof
that the others shared my feelings. Not a word did we utter. Indeed,
speaking would not have been easy, for a low, continuous roaring was
in our ears, a hoarse, muffled roaring reminding me of the murmuring
in a sea-shell. At the same time, a strange depression overwhelmed my
senses; it seemed as though the atmosphere had suddenly become thick
and heavy, too heavy for breathing; it seemed as though an unnatural
weight had been piled upon me, threatening to crush and stifle me.
Yet I did notice that the vessel quivered violently and lunged upward
every few seconds, in a furious effort to right itself and rise to the
surface. I did fancy that I heard the buzzing of the engines at times,
an intermittent buzzing that was most disquieting; and I found myself,
like the others, hanging to the brass railings to steady myself when
the ship heaved and shuddered, or to keep my footing when we slanted
downward.

Perhaps five minutes passed when the door leading forward was thrust
open, and Captain Gavison climbed precariously into the room. All
eyes were bent upon him in silent inquiry; but his grim, stoically
firm countenance was far from reassuring. It was apparent that he had
something to say, and that he did not care to say it; and several
anxious moments elapsed while he stood glowering upon us, evidently
undecided whether to give his message words.

Yet even at this crisis he could not forget discipline. His first words
brought us no information, and his first action was to station us about
the room in orderly fashion, assigning each to some specific duty.

“I will not keep the facts from you,” he declared, with slow,
deliberate accentuation, when finally we were all in position. “Three
of our compartments are flooded. The other compartments seem to be
holding out as yet, but the great mass of water in our hold is bearing
us rapidly downward, and the engines seem unable to neutralize the
effect. At the last reading, we were nine hundred and twenty-seven feet
below sea level.”

“Great God! What are we to do about it?” I gasped, in biting terror.

“Suggestions are in order,” stated the Captain, laconically.

But no suggestion was forthcoming.

“Of course, we are in no immediate danger ...” he resumed. But he
might have spared his words. Most of us had had sufficient experience
of undersea travel to know that the danger was real enough. Barring
the remote contingency that the engines would be brought back into
efficient working order, there were only two possibilities. On the one
hand, we might reach the bottom of the sea, and, stranded there, would
perish of starvation or slow suffocation. Or, in the second place, we
might continue drifting downward until the tremendous pressure of the
water, proving too strong even for the stout steel envelope of our
vessel, would bend and crush it like an egg-shell.

Although we could no longer guide our course, our gigantic searchlights
were at once brought into play, piercing the water with brilliant
yellow streamers. Yet they might have been searchlights in a tomb,
for they showed us nothing except the minute wavy dark shapes that
occasionally drifted in and out of our line of vision. There was
something ghastly, I thought, about that light, that intense unearthly
sallow light, which glided slowly in long curves and spirals about the
thick enveloping darkness. And the very penetrating power of the rays
served only to accentuate the horror. For the illumination ended in
nothingness; nothingness seemed to stretch above us, beneath us, and
to all sides of us; we were enfolded in it as in a black mantle; it
seemed to be stretching out long arms to fetter us, to gather us up, to
strangle us slyly.

Slowly, with agonizing slowness, the moments crept by; slowly we
continued sinking, down, down, down, ever down and down, with movement
gradual and constantly diminishing, yet never ceasing. Never before in
history, we told ourselves, had living men been plunged so far beneath
the ocean. Our instruments recorded first twelve hundred feet, then
fourteen, then sixteen, then eighteen hundred feet below sea level!

And as we sank downward, we became aware that we were not the only
living creatures in these depths. Our searchlights made us the center
of attraction for myriads of scaly things; whole schools and squadrons
of fishes were gathering moth-like in the vivid illumination thrown
out by our vessel. Some were long, snaky monsters, with thin heads set
with rows of spike-like teeth, and tiny eyes that gleamed evilly in
the uncanny light; some were lithe sea dragons, with wolfish mouths
and sabre-like bony appendages projecting from low foreheads; some
were many-colored, rainbow-hued or streaked with black and golden,
or red and azure, or yellow and white; some had chameleon eyes that
flashed first green and then blue, according to the play of the light
about them; many were flitting to and fro, circling and spiralling
and doubling back and forth at incredible speed; and not a few,
unacquainted with the ways of submarines, collided full-tilt with the
thick glass of our portholes.

But as our depth gradually increased, our finny visitors began to
give way to others stranger still. When we were twenty-two hundred
feet below the surface, the searchlights were no longer necessary
to reveal the denizens of the deep, for the inhabitants of those
unthinkable regions carried their own lamps! And how they amazed us
and startled us!--how, in our shuddering nerve-racking terror, they
appeared to us as ghosts or avenging fiends, or struck our overworked
imaginations as approaching foes or rescuers! Suddenly, out of the
deathly blackness, a spurt of green light appeared, swiftly widening
until it seemed an unearthly searchlight--and, from a narrow focus of
flame, two huge burning green eyes would shoot forth, darting cold
malice at us through the glass port, until the yellow electric light
would seem tinged with an emerald reflection. Or else a tiny flattened
disk, softly phosphorescent throughout and marked on one surface by two
bright beady eyes, would come floating in our direction like a pale
apparition; or, again, a long dark rod, brilliantly white like a living
flashlight, would dart curving and gleaming toward us out of the remote
gloomy depths. But more terrifying than any of these were the nameless
monsters with invisible bodies and lidless, fiery yellow eyes of the
size of baseballs,--eyes that stared in at us, and stared and stared,
as though all the concentrated horror of the universe were glaring upon
us, seeking to ferret us out and mark us for its victims.

And still we were sinking, unceasingly sinking, till the last faint
hope had died in the heart of the most sanguine, and in despair and
with half-mumbled phrases we admitted that there could be no rescue
for us. When we were twenty-five hundred feet below the surface, the
fury of expectation had given place to a blank and settled despondency;
when the distance was twenty-eight hundred feet, each was striving in
his own way to prepare himself for the fate which all felt to be but a
question of hours. In our panic-stricken horror, we had all long ago
forgotten the positions assigned us by the Captain; and the Captain
himself did not appear to notice where we were. Young Rawson, the
newest of the recruits, had gone down on his knees, and with tears in
his eyes was murmuring half audible prayers; Matthew Stangale, one
of the oldest and most hardened of the seamen, was pacing restlessly
back and forth, back and forth, in the narrow compartment, clenching
his fists furiously and muttering to himself; Daniel Howlett, veteran
of many campaigns, contented himself with a suppressed growling and
profanity, and his curses were echoed by his companions; Frank Ripley,
a college gridiron hero, enlisted for the war, buried himself in a
corner of the room, his face covered by his hands, the very picture of
dejection, though every once in a while, wistfully and half-furtively,
he would let his gaze travel to a little photograph he guarded close
to his bosom. And as for Captain Gavison, on whom we had fastened our
last fading hope of escape--he merely stood near the porthole with arms
clenched behind his back and thin lips tightly compressed, peering out
into the black waters as though he read there some secret hidden from
the obtuse gaze of his followers.

We were below the three thousand foot level when fresh cause for
anxiety appeared. “The holy saints have mercy on us!” suddenly
exclaimed James Stranahan, one of the common seamen, as he crossed
himself piously. And pointing in awe-stricken amazement through one of
the glass spy-holes which led from the deck, down through the bottom
of the ship, he called attention to a dim shimmering luminescence far
below. Excitedly we crowded about him, almost tumbling over one another
in our eagerness and terror, but for a moment we could see nothing.
Then, slowly, as we stood straining our eyes to fathom the blackness,
we became aware of a vague filmy, widespread sheet of light twinkling
faintly beneath us, and remote as the stars of an inverted Milky Way.

A sheet of light beneath us, at the bottom of the sea! In incredulous
astonishment, we turned to one another, scarcely able to believe our
senses, our horror written plainly in our gaping eyes! And in silence,
and with fear-blanched faces, half of the company made the sign of the
cross.

“Sure it’s a ghost, a deep-sea ghost!” ventured the superstitious
Stranahan.

“It’s where the sea serpents have their home!” put in Stangale, with
an abortive attempt to be jocular. “There’s ten million of them down
there, with devil’s eyes of fire!”

“Maybe it’s the Evil One himself!” suggested Stranahan, not content
with a single guess. “What if it’s the very throne-room of Hell, and
them are the flames of Old Nick!”

These words did not seem to reassure the rest of the crew. Several were
trembling visibly, and several continued to cross themselves in silence.

Meanwhile the Captain had ordered the searchlights turned downward, and
in long loops and curves the cutting light swept the darkness beneath.
But not a thing was visible, except for a few flapping fishy forms; and
our lanterns served only to conceal the mysterious luminescence.

Yet, when the searchlights were again directed upward, that
luminescence became more distinct and seemed to stretch to infinite
distances on all sides. But it was still incalculably remote, and still
filled us with alarm and foreboding. Whatever it was (and we could not
help feeling that it was evil), we knew that it was a thing beyond the
reach of all human experience; whatever it was, it was a monstrous
thing, possibly malevolent and terrible, and not inconceivably ghostly
and supernatural.

But as we continued to sink, I began to doubt whether any of us should
live to solve the mystery. The air in our overcrowded compartments was
becoming oppressively heavy and vitiated; we were like men locked in
sealed vaults, and there was no possibility of renewing our exhausted
oxygen supply. Already I was beginning to feel drowsy from the lack of
air; my head was aching dully and I had almost ceased to care where we
went or what befell us. Today, when I look back upon the racking events
of those terrible hours, I feel sure that I was not far from delirium;
and when I recall how some of my comrades reclined drunkenly on the
floor, with half-hysterical mumblings and wailings, I am certain that
there were but few of us, who retained our right senses.

There is, indeed, a blank space in my memory concerning what occurred
at about this time; I may have fallen off into a doze or sodden slumber
lasting for minutes or even for hours. I can only say that I have a
recollection of coming abruptly to myself, as from a state of coma;
and, with a sudden jolt of understanding, I realized where I was, and
observed with a shock that half a dozen of my comrades were gathered
together in a little group, pointing downward with excited exclamations.

Staggering to my feet, I joined them, and in a moment shared in their
agitation. The lights beneath us were now far brighter--they no longer
formed a vague shimmering screen, but were concentrated brilliantly
in a score of golden globes of the apparent size of the sun. “Could
it be that the ocean too has its suns?” I asked myself, as when one
asks dazed questions in a dream. And looking at those spectral lights
that wavered and gleamed through the pale translucent waters, I felt
that this was surely but a nightmare from which I should soon awaken.
Fantastic fish, with triangular glowing red heads and searchlight eyes
projected on slender tubes, darted before our windows in innumerable
schools; but these seemed almost familiar now by comparison with those
eerie golden lights below; and it was upon the golden illumination that
my gaze was riveted as we settled slowly down and down. Soon it became
apparent that the great central globes were not the only source of the
radiance, for smaller points of light gradually became visible, some
of them moving, actually moving as though borne by living hands!--and
even the spaces between the lights seemed to wear an increasing
golden luster! Yet with the golden was mingled a singular tinge of
green, a green that seemed scarcely of the waters; and the mysterious
depths were no longer black, but olive-hued, as though the light came
filtering to us through some solid dark-green medium.

But a more imminent peril was to distract our attention from the weird
lights. For some minutes I had been vaguely aware of something peculiar
in the aspect of our compartment; yet, in my stupefied condition, I had
not been able to determine just what was wrong. But full realization
came to me when Stranahan, pointing upward, wide-eyed with horror,
suddenly exclaimed, “Heaven preserve us, look at the ceiling!”

We all looked. The ceiling was bulging inches downward, as though the
terrific pressure of the waters were already bursting the tough steel
envelope of the X-111. And at the same time we observed that the deck
we stood on was bulging upward, and that the bulkheads were being
twisted and distorted like iron rails warped by an earthquake.

But now came the greatest surprise of all. “By all the saints and
little devils!” burst forth the irrepressible Stranahan, pointing
downward and forgetting the aspect of the bulkheads and deck. “There’s
a city under the sea!”

“A city under the sea!” we echoed, in stupefied amazement. And from one
corner of the room came a burst of hysterical laughter, which wavered
and broke and then died out, sounding uncannily like a fiend’s derision.

“But I tell you, there is a city under the sea!” insisted Stranahan,
noting the incredulous stares with which we regarded him. “The Lord
strike me dead if I didn’t see its streets and houses!”

Though none of us doubted but that the Lord would indeed do as
Stranahan suggested, we interpreted his remarks as mere delirious
ravings, and continued to stare at him in petrified silence.

“You see, there she is!” persisted the seaman, still pointing downward
regardless of our disbelief. And, crossing himself piously, he
continued, in awed tones, “May the Virgin have pity on us, if that
don’t look like a church!”

Stranahan’s last words had such a tone of conviction that, though our
doubts were still strong, we could not forebear to look. And, after
a single glance, our scepticism gave place to dumbfounded amazement.
For was this not a city staring up at us from the green-golden depths?
Or at least the ruins of what had been a city? In outlines wavy
because of the dense, shifting waters, and yet as definite of form as
reflections in a still pool, half a dozen great yellow-white temples
seemed to glimmer beneath the brilliant lights, with massive columns,
wide-reaching porticoes and colonnades, and gracefully curving arches
and domes.

Was this but a mirage? we asked ourselves. Or were these the remains
of some submerged, ancient town? Never had we heard of mirages beneath
the sea--but if this were a dead city, then why these vivid lights?
And, certainly, no living city could be imagined in these profound
watery abysses.

Even as we wondered, we seemed to note a gradual change in our
movement. We were no longer sinking; we were drifting with slow motion,
almost horizontally; and just beneath us appeared to be an impenetrable
but transparent dense, greenish wall, a wall that--had the idea not
been too preposterous--we might almost have imagined to be of glass.
Beneath this wall gleamed no lantern-bearing, fishy eyes, but the
dazzling golden orbs and the smaller scattered lights shone steadily
with piercing radiance; and beneath us, at a distance that may have
been five hundred feet and may have been a thousand, the vaults and
domes and columns of innumerable stone edifices shone palely and with
sallow luster. Surely, we thought, this was some unheard-of Athens,
doomed long ago by tidal wave or volcano.

Gradually, for some reason that we could not quite explain, our
horizontal motion seemed to be increasing; and, caught apparently by
some rapid deep-sea current, we drifted with appreciable velocity above
those dim realms of green and golden. Palace after magnificent palace,
many seemingly modelled by architects of old Greece, went gliding by
beneath us; countless statues, tall as the buildings, pointed up at us
with hands that were uncannily life-like; wide avenue after wide avenue
flashed by, and one or two colossal theatres of old Grecian design; but
no living thing was to be seen, or, at least, so it seemed, for though
we strained our eyes, we could discern only shadows moving in those
uncertain depths, only shadows and an occasional firefly light which
zigzagged fitfully among the buildings and which we took to be some
strange illuminated finny thing.

Then suddenly, for no apparent reason, fresh terror seized us.
Perhaps it was because we realized abruptly the full eerie horror of
floating thus above a city of the dead; perhaps it was that the whole
unspeakable ghastliness of the adventure had again flashed upon us. Be
that as it may, we began to shake and shiver once more as though in the
grip of a mastering emotion, or as though obsessed by forethought of
approaching disaster; and muttered prayers again were heard, and more
than one silent tear was shed.

But the time for tears and prayers was over. Our motion, gradually
increasing for some minutes, was suddenly accelerated as if by some
gigantic prod; we seemed caught in some mighty movement of the waters,
some maelstrom that whirled us about and buffeted us like a feather;
a hoarse, continuous thunder dinned in our ears, and we went shooting
forward with prodigious speed. Then came a violent jerk, and we found
ourselves tossed pellmell to all corners of the room; then another
jerk, and we were flung back again like dice shaken in a box; then
still another jerk, more vehement than the others, and our terrorized
minds lost track of events as our vessel lunged and heaved, then veered
and stood almost on end, then began to spin round and round, like a
swift gyrating top ... And in that whirling confusion our senses reeled
and grew blurred, and darkness came clouding back, darkness and sleep
and nothingness ...