Chapter 8: Good-Bye

At last the preparations were completed, and it was arranged that the Callisto should begin its journey at eleven o’clock A. M., December 21st--the northern hemisphere’s shortest day.

Though six months’ operations could hardly be expected to have produced much change in the inclination of the earth’s axis, the autumn held on wonderfully, and December was pronounced very mild. Fully a million people were in and about Van Cortlandt Park hours before the time announced for the start, and those near looked inquiringly at the trim little air-ship, that, having done well on the trial trip, rested on her longitudinal and transverse keels, with a battery of chemicals alongside, to make sure of a full power supply.

The President and his Cabinet--including, of course, the shining lights of the State and Navy Departments--came from Washington. These, together with Mr. and Mrs. Preston, and a number of people with passes, occupied seats arranged at the sides of the platform; while sightseers and scientists assembled from every part of the world.

“There’s a ship for you!” said Secretary Stillman to the Secretary of the Navy. “She’ll not have to be dry-docked for barnacles, neither will the least breeze make the passengers sick.”

“That’s all you landlubbers think of,” replied Deepwaters. “I remember one of the kings over in Europe said to me, as he introduced me to the queen: ‘Your Secretary of State is a great man, but why does he always part his hair in the middle?’

“‘So that it shall not turn his head, ‘ I replied.

“‘But with so gallant and handsome an officer as you to lean upon, ‘ he answered, ‘I should think he could look down on all the world.’ Whereupon I asked him what he’d take to drink.”

“Your apology is accepted,” replied Secretary Stillman.

Cortlandt also came from Washington, where, as chief of the Government’s Expert Examiners Board, he had temporary quarters. Bearwarden sailed over the spectators’ heads in one of the Terrestrial Axis Straightening Company’s flying machines, while Ayrault, to avoid the crowd, had come to the Callisto early, and was showing the interior arrangements to Sylvia, who had accompanied him. She was somewhat piqued because at the last moment he had not absolutely insisted on carrying her off, or offered, if necessary, to displace his presidential and Doctor-of-Laws friends in order to make room.

“You will have an ideal trip,” she said, looking over some astronomical star-charts and photographic maps of Jupiter and Saturn that lay on the table, with a pair of compasses, “and I hope you won’t lose your way.”

“I shall need no compass to find my way back,” replied Ayrault, “if I ever succeed in leaving this planet; neither will star-charts be necessary, for you will be a magnet stronger than any compass, and, compared with my star, all others are dim.”

“You should write a book,” said Sylvia, “and put some of those things in it.” She was wearing a bunch of forget-me-nots and violets that she had cut from a small flower-garden of potted plants Ayrault had sent her, which she had placed in her father’s conservatory.

At this moment the small chime clock set in the Callisto’s wood-work rang out quarter to eleven. As the sounds died away, Sylvia became very pale, and began to regret in her womanly way that she had allowed her hero to attempt this experiment.

“Oh,” she said, clinging to his arm, “it was very wrong of me to let you begin this. I was so dazzled by the splendour of your scheme when I heard it, and so anxious that you should have the glory of being the first to surpass Columbus, that I did not realize the full meaning. I thought, also, you seemed rather ready to leave me,” she added gently, “and so said little; you do not know how it almost breaks my heart now that I am about to lose you. It was quixotic to let you 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.