Judge — December 1888 — page 8: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

6 CHRISTMAS JUDGE down the coast and start for home, when one of those rascally whirl- ing gales came down between two islands and took me all aback. 1 lost a topmast and some standing rigging and was barely able to reef the mainsail and get everything taut when it grew dark and night was upon us. Of course I could not tell how far we had driven out of our course, and all I knew about the coast was what I found on the charts; so when I found it growing dark I got out an anchor and let her lie to, head tothe wind. I felt the easy motion of the ship and knew by that that she was riding safely. Along about midnight | went on deck and took a look a pass. The man at the wheel saw me and “+ Captain, ain't we supposed to be riding at anchor, Sf head to the wind ?° 7 ; ‘what a fool question to ask ! “* Well, then,’ says he,‘ why is it that there is quite a breeze abaft instead of coming in over the bow ?" “Thad not noticed it until now, but I held up my hand, and sure enough there was quite a breeze astern, and as I listened I could hear the most tremendous roar on our beam like that of a thousand breakers. 1 got a lantern and went down into the chainsand looked atthe waves. They were white with foam, but they were not striking us, but we vith them. \ sprang back on deck, threw down my lantern and hurried into the cabin. One look at the chart was sufficient. We were on the outer rim of the great Maelstrom and moving so rapidly stern on that it made a stiff breeze.” He paused and picked up the tin pail, but finding it empty sadly stroked his whiskers and waited. Another collection, another hurried visit to the grocery, and he resumed : “The roaring on our beam grew louder and louder, and a tre- mendous motion was imparted to the brig. I called all hands on deck and told them where I believed the ship to be. A groan of horror was heard over the sound of the breakers. I always had a theory about that Maelstrom which I had never told to others. It satisfied me, and now that fate had thrown me into it I was deter- mined to test it. 1 c orders to the horror-stricken men to set fast all the geared air-tight hatches but one; then I said,‘ Men, we are in that terrible whirlpool of which we have all read but none of us have ever seen. I have a theory that if we pass down the vortex at the time of its greatest power shall be carried ina submarine and subterranean channel to an outlet and again cast forth. Now I pro- pose to put on all the air-tight hatches, go down below and let the Sorrento go with the current. What do you say ?* “A shout of derision went up, and one man said: “* We will stay on deck and die like men; not like rats below the hatches.’ “* Very well,’ said 1; ‘1am go- ing below and am going to make air-tight. Ifyou repent you can unfasten the hatch and come down the companion way.’ “Atthis time the roar of the vortex was something ap- palling, and yet our rapid mo- tion around the circle of waters was only trem- ulous. I lift- ed the hatch but took one last look. It was growing light in the east “They seemed astonished.” and I could be- “Then he commenced his yarn.” gin to see. We were at the bottom of acup about a mile in diameter. The brig had reached the bottom, and had lifted her stern high in air and her bow was over a white mass of foam emet ing from a seemingly bottomless pit. The men gave a scream of despair, the brig lurched heavily as if falling, and 1 closed the hatch and waited. Here he reached after the pail, but Charley Higgins had started for the grocery again. Not a word was said ¢ ancient mariner had quenched irst. Then he resumed: My theory of the Maelstrom was this. There are several places on the carth where rivers disappear. There is in underground river in the Mammoth ‘e of Kentucky. There is a whirl- pool below Niagara Falls, where objects disappear never to be seen again. Then there is the great Maelstrom on the coast of Norway. I had always be- lieved that these disappearing streams formed great subterranean channels which unite and come again to the sur- face somewhere about the North Pole and start the current of the great Gulf Stream which encircles the world. Well, I felt the brig enter this underground channel. Once or twice the deck or ‘ keel lightly touched the sides or bottom of the long, rock-ribbed tube through which we were passing. I was the only living member of my crew. I could hear only an occasional gurgle as of water in a pipe and knew that for a time this conduit was draining the North Atlantic, and my brig and myself inside of it tearing along with lightning speed. I struck a match and, light- ing a lamp in the cabin, looked about me. Not a drop of water came in through my air-tight hatches. I felt no oppressive sense of close- ness, for I was the only breathing thing in the interior of the whole ship. I sprang to my compass on the table. My theory was right. We were going a little west of north toward the Polar regions. I looked at my chronometer. It was six o'clock in the morning of November 15th. My boys, if you look on your atlas, how far should you say it is from the Lofo- den islands to Grinnell Land, Charley Higgins guess- ed 4000 miles. “You are was through that underground tube in four days.” “What!” said Abe Morris, “you went through alive ?” “Aint I here?” heasked laconically. “When I saw daylight in the afternoon of the fourth day, I sprang to a skylight in the deck and looked out. The derground un- “ [was there thirty years.” comicbooks.com