Part 3 (1/2)
The young man was silent, but the next moment continued:
”Now my dear professor, tell me frankly, do you think there's any danger in crossing?”
”Oh, that's absurd! It's as though you were to ask me whether one ought to shut one's self in one's room when there is a thunder-storm.
Of course the lightning strikes the earth now and again. But there's plenty of margin all round. . . . Besides, aren't you a good swimmer?
Well, at the least sign of danger, dive into the sea without delay: don't stop to think; just dive!”
”And what is your opinion, professor? How do you explain all these phenomena?”
”How? Oh, very simply! I will remind you, to begin with, that in 1912 the Somme experienced a few shocks which amounted to actual earthquakes. Point number one. Secondly, these shocks coincided with local disturbances in the Channel, which pa.s.sed almost unnoticed; but they attracted my attention and were the starting point of all my recent investigations. Among others, one of these disturbances in which I am inclined to see the premonitory signs of the present water-spouts, occurred off Saint-Valery. And that was why you caught me one day, I remember, going down in a diving-suit just at that spot.
Now, from all this, it follows. . . .”
”What follows?”
Old Sandstone interrupted himself, seized the young man's hand and suddenly changed the course of the conversation:
”Now tell me, Dubosc,” he said, ”have you read my pamphlet on _The Cliffs of the Channel_? You haven't, have you? Well, if you had, you would know that one of the chapters, ent.i.tled, '_What will occur in the Channel in the year 2000_,' is now being fulfilled. D'you understand? I predicted the whole thing! Not these minor incidents of wrecks and water-spouts, of course, but what they seem to announce.
Yes, Dubosc; whether it be in the year 2000, or the year 3000, or next week, I have foretold in all its details the unheard-of, astounding, yet very natural thing which will happen sooner or later.”
He had now grown animated. Drops of sweat beaded his cheeks and forehead; and, taking from an inner pocket of his frock-coat a long narrow wallet, with a lock to it and so much worn and so often repaired that its appearance harmonized perfectly with his green over-coat and his rusty hat:
”You want to know the truth?” he exclaimed. ”It's here. All my observations and all my hypotheses are contained in this wallet.”
And he was inserting the key in the lock when loud voices were raised on the platform. The tables in the refreshment-room were at once deserted. Without paying further heed to Old Sandstone, Simon followed the crowd which was rus.h.i.+ng into the waiting-room.
Two telegrams had come from France. One, after reporting the wreck of a coasting-vessel, the _Bonne Vierge_, which plied weekly between Calais, Le Havre and Cherbourg, announced that the Channel Tunnel had fallen in, fortunately without the loss of a single life. The other, which the crowd read as it was being written, stated that ”the keeper of the Ailly lighthouse, near Dieppe, had at break of day seen five columns of water and sand shooting up almost simultaneously, two miles from the coast, and stirring up the sea between Veules and Pourville.”
These telegrams elicited cries of dismay. The destruction of the Channel Tunnel, ten years of effort wasted, millions of pounds swallowed up: this was evidently a calamity! But how much more dreadful was the sinister wording of the second telegram! Veules!
Pourville! Dieppe! That was the coast which they would have to make for! The steamboat, in two hours' time, would be entering the very region affected by the cataclysm! On sailing, Seaford and Hastings; on nearing port, Veules, Pourville and Dieppe!
There was a rush for the booking-office. The station-master's and inspectors' offices were besieged. Two hundred people rushed on board the vessel to recover their trunks and bags; and a crowd of distraught travellers, staggering under the weight of their luggage, took the up-train by a.s.sault, as though the sea-walls and the quays and rampart of the cliffs were unable to protect them from the hideous catastrophe.
Simon shuddered. He could not but be impressed by the fears displayed by these people. And then what was the meaning of this mysterious sequence of phenomena, which seemed incapable of any natural explanation? What invisible tempest was making the waves boil up from the depths of a motionless sea? Why did these sudden cyclones all occur within so small a radius, affecting only a limited region?
All around him the tumult increased, amid repeated painful scenes. One of these he found particularly distressing; for the people concerned were French and he was better able to understand what they were saying. There was a family, consisting of the father and mother, both still young, and their six children, the smallest of whom, only a few months old, was sleeping in its mother's arms. And the mother was imploring her husband in a sort of despair:
”Don't let us go, please don't let us go! We're not obliged to!”
”But we are, my dear: you saw my partner's letter. And really there's no occasion for all this distress!”
”Please, darling! . . . I have a presentiment. . . . You know I'm always right. . . .”
”Would you rather I crossed alone?”
”Oh no! Not that!”
Simon heard no more. But he was never to forget that cry of a loving wife, nor the grief-stricken expression of the mother who, at that moment, was embracing her six children with a glance.
He made his escape. The clock pointed to half-past eleven; and Miss Bakefield ought to be on her way. But, when he reached the quay, he saw a motor-car turning the corner of a street; and at the window of the car was Isabel's golden head. In a moment all his gloomy thoughts were banished. He had not expected the girl for another twenty minutes; and, though he was not afraid of suffering, he had made up his mind that those last twenty minutes would be a period of distress and anxiety. Would she keep her promise? Might she not meet with some unforeseen obstacle? . . . And here was Isabel arriving!