CHAPTER XXI
The Wall and the Wind-makers
That evening we were lodged in the city of Arvon, a moderately large town which differed strikingly from anything we had yet seen. Its scattered houses were huddled amid vegetation so thick that from a distance it resembled a forest; and even at close range one could not lose sight of its sylvan aspect, since all the buildings were vine-covered and painted a green and brown that harmonized ideally with the woodland colors.
But I must not devote too much space to the strange appearance of this town--still stranger sights were to greet me on the following day. For then I was to reach a turning-point in my journey, and to penetrate some of the salient mysteries of Atlantis.
Even though I did not know what interesting discoveries were before me, I had a hint of something unusual very early in the morning. We had hardly left Arvon when I observed that the golden-lighted dome seemed lower and nearer than usual, and curved gradually down to westward until it appeared to merge with the ground.
“There’s where the glass wall begins,” said one of the tutors, pointing; and I looked eagerly, hopeful that we would soon reach the wall itself.
A little further on, the road curved abruptly southward, and for several miles we merely paralleled the wall. Then, to my joy, a familiar gurgling met my ears--we were back again near the Salty River. Straight across the stream we passed on an arching bridge dominated by a crystalline pale-blue colonnade; and, on the further side, we again turned westward, and followed the river directly toward the green glass wall.
As we advanced, I noticed that the waters were becoming white and foamy, with great briny patches as if a passing steamer had churned up the waves. Gradually these frothy expanses grew wilder and more conspicuous, until the entire river was a seething, effervescent mass; and troubled waves sprang to life, with turbulence that increased as we moved upstream, until the bubbling white was mingled with the green and gray of leaping surges, and the waters were agitated as if by a storm-wind. Yet only the faintest breeze was blowing, and I could not understand the source of the strange commotion.
At the some time, a disquieting sound came to my ears--the continuous and droning sound of thunder, dull and muffled but gradually growing louder in spite of the clamoring and roaring of the waves. So deep-toned and voluminous was it that it reminded me of a din I never expected to hear again--the booming of the ocean along resisting shores.
All of our party moved without a word now, moved rapidly and with faces straining westward, as if eager for some rare and long-awaited event. In their very speechlessness there was a contagious tension; and, responsive to their mood, I too was expectant, though I could not imagine what there was to be anticipated.
But I did not have long to wait. “Look! There it is!” exclaimed one of the party, suddenly. And he paused, and pointed straight ahead; and all his companions paused and pointed straight ahead, joining in his awed cries of “Look! There it is!”
Of course, I strained my eyes quite as earnestly as any of them. But at first I saw nothing to impress me. All that was visible was a broad sheet of white looming just above the river for almost its full width, as though there were a falls a mile or two upstream. And, in my ignorance, I accepted this as the explanation.
But I was speedily to discover my error. Suddenly the path bent away from the river at an acute angle; and as we followed our new course the distant thundering grew louder--while a cold wind began to sweep over us and the supposed waterfall took on unexpected dimensions. By degrees it lengthened until it seemed a long jet of water shot horizontally out of some colossal hose. Intensely white, with the whiteness of foam and edges blurred with spray, it went hurtling with the impetuosity and swiftness of an arrow from the nozzle of a gigantic pipe, plunging outward hundreds of yards in a graceful parabola and giving rise to the Salty River.
Almost as remarkable as this torrent of water was the tube from which it was discharged. This great pipe, which may have been of a steel alloy, was well over a mile long, and was a hundred yards across at the opening; but it narrowed gradually as it crept westward along the ground and disappeared where the green horizon met the earth.
Needless to say, I did not have to inquire as to the meaning. Only one explanation was conceivable: the metallic tube was the valve through which the X-111 had found entrance to Atlantis, the valve that admitted the ocean water and kept the Salty River supplied. The aperture at the ocean end was doubtless not very wide (I was later told that it was but twenty-five feet across); but such was the pressure at these depths that the waters burst through with the force and swiftness and tremendous volume I had observed, and had to be diverted through a long and gradually widening tube before their torrents could be controlled and safely emptied into the river channel.
* * * * *
As we approached the glass wall, the hoarse and resonant roaring was continuously in our ears, thudding and crashing with echoes that reverberated like the combined monody of a hundred Niagaras. But, forgetful of the tumult, I kept my eyes fastened straight ahead, where the great green dome sloped down to meet the ground in a curve modelled on that of the actual heavens. Except for the dark weird coloration, I might have fancied that I was staring toward an actual horizon on earth; and so close was the resemblance that the illusion persisted until I was almost within a stone’s throw of the barrier. Only then could I persuade myself that I actually beheld a solid mass; and, even so, the curvature was so graceful and so elusive that I could not feel that a mere wall stretched before me; but, rather, I had the sense that it was some ultimate boundary, the dividing line between reality and infinite nothingness.
This impression was confirmed by the fact that the wall at close range looked opaque. Olive-green and of impenetrable thickness, it seemed impervious to the rays of light; though, remembering my experiences on the X-111, I knew that it was really transparent.
All the members of our party approached the wall almost breathlessly, then held out their hands and touched it in silence--a procedure which may have had some ceremonial importance, or may have been akin to the
## actions of persons who, seeing the ocean for the first time, gravely
dip their hands in the salt water. At any rate, I lost no time in following their example, and found that the surface of the wall was just as I had expected--smooth and polished, and of a substance that would have been apparent to a blind man.
After the twenty students had duly inspected the wall, one of the tutors lifted his voice so as to be heard by the entire party.
“My friends,” said he, “we have now reached the border-land between Atlantis and the outside world. A rim of glass fifty feet thick divides us from the ocean; and that glass, as you know, is composed of dozens of layers, one above the other, several of them strengthened with interwoven strands of fine wire, and all composed of a special pressure-resisting glass devised at the orders of Agripides. You understand, of course, that the wall does not end where you see it, but penetrates five hundred feet underground, lest the ocean overwhelm us from beneath; you also understand that the glass is ribbed with steel, which holds it together in a sort of latticed framework, with girders, beams and stanchions at measured intervals like the metallic skeleton of a great building.
“The erection of the wall represents the supreme accomplishment of Atlantean engineering, and required the labor of thirty thousand men for thirty-four years. But Agripides, with his usual foresight, planned it so, that the work, once done, would never require renewal, for glass is one of the most durable of substances, and is virtually immune to dissolution by the ocean waters. We have our immersible vessels, of course, which regularly range the seas around the glass dome in search of any possible fault or fissure; but no serious damage has ever yet been discovered, and it is safe to say that the present edifice will serve us and our descendants for a hundred thousand generations.”
The speaker paused, as if for effect; then, noting that his audience remained silent, he concluded, “Is there anyone that would like to ask a question?”
“Yes, I would,” I surprised myself by saying.
All eyes were bent curiously upon me, and I was forced to continue, “Glass is, as you say, an exceedingly durable substance, but it is also extremely fragile. Is there no possibility that the wall will ever be cracked?”
“Cracked?” echoed the tutor, with a surprised smile. “Do you think that, if there had been such a possibility, Atlantis would not have been inundated long ago? Granted, if any very heavy object were to collide with the wall, it might be broken and we would be flooded out like ants. But how could there be any such heavy object here in the deep sea? Certainly, the fishes couldn’t break through.”
“No, of course not,” I conceded, feeling that I had made myself ridiculous--and with that the discussion ended. But my words were often to be recalled to me in the tempestuous days that followed; and more than one of my hearers was to speak of them as strangely prophetic.
For the next hour we followed a little path that clung close to the glass wall. And, as we proceeded, my impression of its opaqueness was dissipated, for from time to time a little flickering light was momentarily visible beyond the green thicknesses; and I had disturbing remembrances of the lantern-bearing fishes that had haunted us on our way to Atlantis.
We had covered not more than a mile or two when we met with a new surprise. A brisk breeze began to blow over us; and the farther we walked the sharper the breeze grew, until it assumed the fury of a gale, and for the first time since reaching Atlantis I felt cold, almost as if I were back on earth. Why we continued in the face of this strange blast I could not understand, nor whence it proceeded nor how it had been produced. But while I was wondering and fighting my way through the wind, a singular whirring sound came to my ears, a buzzing as of gigantic flies; and gradually that sound grew louder, until from resembling the murmuring of insects it came to remind me of the flapping of colossal wings. That this noise was somehow connected with the quickening wind was apparent from the first; and the relationship became evident when the path swerved abruptly away from the wall and I glanced back, to behold a series of queer-looking machines supported on stone pedestals high up against the glass. It would be impossible to say just what the machines were like, for they were in such rapid motion that the parts were not visible; but there were six or eight of them, and they were round, and probably each a hundred yards across; and so swiftly were they rotating that they formed each a gray blur through which the green of the wall was vaguely discernible.
“Those are the electro-intra-atomic wind generators,” explained one of the tutors. “By means of these great fans and others like them stationed at various points around the wall, the atmosphere of Atlantis is kept in constant circulation. Without them the air would be stagnant and the climate sultry and unhealthy. These generators are in action at all times, with great air-wheels that make from ten to fifteen revolutions a second; and it is estimated that the daily energy consumed by each of them would be sufficient to boil a thousand tons of ice water.”
We did not linger long in the vicinity of the great fans, for the strong wind was most annoying and the temperature too low for comfort. But we set out at a brisk pace across a moss-covered plain away from the wall; and we did not pause again until we had reached the city of Lerenon, which was our destination for the day.
This town, which was located some miles from the wall and yet was constantly fanned by cool breezes from the wind generators, had one striking feature all its own: it was dominated by two colossal bronze figures, one of a man, the other of a woman, which reached far above the city domes and towers halfway to the green-glass sky. Both these statues were carved with an irresistible majesty, the man’s face that of an Apollo, the woman’s that of a Diana; and their right hands were extended high over the city roofs and joined in a firm clasp, so lifelike that I might almost have expected them to move and speak. At first I thought that they represented mythological characters, but an inscription at their base informed me of my error, for the man was meant to typify Wisdom, and the woman Beauty; and in their union above the spires and columns of Atlantis I thought I could read the meaning and purpose of the entire land.
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