A Journey in Other Worlds [32]
undertake this journey."
"An undertaker would have given me his kind offices for one even
longer, had I remained here," replied Ayrault. "I cannot live in
this humdrum world without you. The most sustained excitement
cannot even palliate what seems to me like unrequited love."
"O Dick!" she exclaimed, giving him a reproachful glance, "you
mustn't say that. You know you have often told me my reason for
staying and taking my degree was good. My lot will be very much
harder than yours, for you will forget me in the excitement of
discovery and adventure; but I--what can I do in the midst of all
the old associations?"
"Never mind, sweetheart," he said, kissing her hand, "I have
seemed on the verge of despair all the time."
Seeing that their separation must shortly begin, Ayrault tried to
assume a cheerful look; but as Sylvia turned her eyes away they
were suspiciously moist.
Just one minute before the starting-time Ayrault took Sylvia back
to her mother, and, after pressing her hand and having one last
long look into her--or, as he considered them, HIS--deep-sea
eyes, he returned to the Callisto, and was standing at the foot
of the telescopic aluminum ladder when his friends arrived. As
all baggage and impedimenta bad been sent aboard and properly
stowed the day before, the travellers had not to do but climb to
and enter by the second-story window. It distressed Bearwarden
that the north pole's exact declination on the 21st day of
December, when the axis was most inclined, could not be figured
out by the hour at which they were to start, so as to show what
change, if any, had already been brought about, but the
astronomers were working industriously, and promised that, if it
were finished by midnight, they would telegraph the result into
space by flash-light code.
Raising his hat to his fiancee and his prospective
parents-in-law, Ayrault followed them up. To draw in and fold
the ladder was but the work of a moment. As the clocks in the
neighbouring steeples began to strike eleven, Ayrault touched the
switch that would correspond to the throttle of an engine, and
the motors began to work at rapidly increasing speed. Slowly the
Callisto left her resting-place as a Galatea might her pedestal,
only, instead of coming down, she rose still higher.
A large American flag hanging from the window, which, as they
started, fluttered as in a southern zephyr, soon began to flap as
in a stiff breeze as the car's speed increased. With a final
wave, at which a battery of twenty-one field-pieces made the air
ring with a salute, and the multitude raised a mighty cheer, they
drew it in and closed the window, sealing it hermetically in
order to keep in the air that, had an opening remained, would
soon have become rarefied.
Sylvia had waved her handkerchief with the utmost enthusiasm, in
spite of the sadness at her heart. But she now had other use for
it in trying to hide her tears. The Callisto was still going
straight up, with a speed already as great as a cannon ball's,
and was almost out of sight. The multitude then began to
disperse, and Sylvia returned to her home.
Let us now follow the Callisto. The earth and Jupiter not being
exactly in opposition, as they would be if the sun, the earth,
and Jupiter were in line, with the earth between the two, but
rather as shown in the diagram, the Callisto's journey was
considerably more than 380,000,000 miles, the mean opposition
distance. As they wished to start by daylight--i. e., from the
side of the earth turned towards the sun--they could not steer
immediately for Jupiter, but were obliged to go a few hundred
miles in the direction of the sun, then change their course to
something like a tangent to the earth, and get their final right
direction in swinging near the moon, since they must be
comparatively near some material object to bring apergy into
play.
The maximum power being turned on, the projectile shot from the
earth with tremendous and rapidly increasing speed,
"An undertaker would have given me his kind offices for one even
longer, had I remained here," replied Ayrault. "I cannot live in
this humdrum world without you. The most sustained excitement
cannot even palliate what seems to me like unrequited love."
"O Dick!" she exclaimed, giving him a reproachful glance, "you
mustn't say that. You know you have often told me my reason for
staying and taking my degree was good. My lot will be very much
harder than yours, for you will forget me in the excitement of
discovery and adventure; but I--what can I do in the midst of all
the old associations?"
"Never mind, sweetheart," he said, kissing her hand, "I have
seemed on the verge of despair all the time."
Seeing that their separation must shortly begin, Ayrault tried to
assume a cheerful look; but as Sylvia turned her eyes away they
were suspiciously moist.
Just one minute before the starting-time Ayrault took Sylvia back
to her mother, and, after pressing her hand and having one last
long look into her--or, as he considered them, HIS--deep-sea
eyes, he returned to the Callisto, and was standing at the foot
of the telescopic aluminum ladder when his friends arrived. As
all baggage and impedimenta bad been sent aboard and properly
stowed the day before, the travellers had not to do but climb to
and enter by the second-story window. It distressed Bearwarden
that the north pole's exact declination on the 21st day of
December, when the axis was most inclined, could not be figured
out by the hour at which they were to start, so as to show what
change, if any, had already been brought about, but the
astronomers were working industriously, and promised that, if it
were finished by midnight, they would telegraph the result into
space by flash-light code.
Raising his hat to his fiancee and his prospective
parents-in-law, Ayrault followed them up. To draw in and fold
the ladder was but the work of a moment. As the clocks in the
neighbouring steeples began to strike eleven, Ayrault touched the
switch that would correspond to the throttle of an engine, and
the motors began to work at rapidly increasing speed. Slowly the
Callisto left her resting-place as a Galatea might her pedestal,
only, instead of coming down, she rose still higher.
A large American flag hanging from the window, which, as they
started, fluttered as in a southern zephyr, soon began to flap as
in a stiff breeze as the car's speed increased. With a final
wave, at which a battery of twenty-one field-pieces made the air
ring with a salute, and the multitude raised a mighty cheer, they
drew it in and closed the window, sealing it hermetically in
order to keep in the air that, had an opening remained, would
soon have become rarefied.
Sylvia had waved her handkerchief with the utmost enthusiasm, in
spite of the sadness at her heart. But she now had other use for
it in trying to hide her tears. The Callisto was still going
straight up, with a speed already as great as a cannon ball's,
and was almost out of sight. The multitude then began to
disperse, and Sylvia returned to her home.
Let us now follow the Callisto. The earth and Jupiter not being
exactly in opposition, as they would be if the sun, the earth,
and Jupiter were in line, with the earth between the two, but
rather as shown in the diagram, the Callisto's journey was
considerably more than 380,000,000 miles, the mean opposition
distance. As they wished to start by daylight--i. e., from the
side of the earth turned towards the sun--they could not steer
immediately for Jupiter, but were obliged to go a few hundred
miles in the direction of the sun, then change their course to
something like a tangent to the earth, and get their final right
direction in swinging near the moon, since they must be
comparatively near some material object to bring apergy into
play.
The maximum power being turned on, the projectile shot from the
earth with tremendous and rapidly increasing speed,