Facing the Flag: Chapter 12

Chapter 12

ENGINEER SERKO'S ADVICE.

Thomas Roch has started work and spends hours and hours in a wooden
shed on the left bank of the lagoon that has been set apart as his
laboratory and workshop. No one enters it except himself. Does he
insist upon preparing the explosive in secret and does he intend to
keep the formula thereof to himself? I should not wonder.

The manner of employing Roch's fulgurator is, I believe, very simple
indeed. The projectile in which it is used requires neither gun nor
mortar to launch it, nor pneumatic tube like the Zalinski shell. It is
autopropulsive, it projects itself, and no ship within a certain zone
when the engine explodes could escape utter destruction. With such a
weapon as this at his command Ker Karraje would be invincible.

_From August 11 to August 17_.--During the past week Thomas Roch has
been working without intermission. Every morning the inventor goes to
his laboratory and does not issue therefrom till night. I have made no
attempt to stop him or speak to him, knowing that it would be useless
to do so.

Although he is still indifferent to everything that does not touch
upon his work he appears to be perfectly self-possessed. Why should he
not have recovered his reason? Has he not obtained what he has so long
sought for? Is he not at last able to carry out the plans he formed
years and years ago?

_August 18_.--At one o'clock this morning I was roused by several
detonations.

"Has Back Cup been attacked?" was my first thought. "Has the schooner
excited suspicion, and been chased to the entrance to the passes? Is
the island being bombarded with a view to its destruction? Has justice
at last overtaken these evil-doers ere Thomas Roch has been able
to complete the manufacture of his explosive, and before the
autopropulsive engine could be fetched from the continent?"

The detonations, which are very violent, continue, succeeding each
other at regular intervals, and it occurs to me that if the schooner
has been destroyed, all communication with the bases of supply being
impossible, Back Cup cannot be provisioned.

It is true the tug would be able to land the Count d'Artigas somewhere
on the American coast where, money being no object, he could easily
buy or order another vessel. But no matter. If Back Cup is only
destroyed before Ker Karraje has Roch's fulgurator at his disposal I
shall render thanks to heaven.

A few hours later, at the usual time, I quit my cell. All is quiet at
the Beehive. The men are going about their business as usual. The tug
is moored near the jetty. Thomas Roch is going to his laboratory, and
Ker Karraje and Engineer Serko are tranquilly pacing backwards and
forwards by the lake and chatting. The island therefore could not have
been attacked during the night. Yet I was awakened by the report of
cannon, this I will swear.

At this moment Ker Karraje goes off towards his abode and Engineer
Serko, smilingly ironical, as usual, advances to meet me.

"Well, Mr. Simon Hart," he says, "are you getting accustomed to
your tranquil existence? Do you appreciate at their just merit the
advantages of this enchanted grotto? Have you given up all hope of
recovering your liberty some day or other?"

What is the use of waxing wroth with this jester? I reply calmly:

"No, sir. I have not given up hope, and I still expect that I shall be
released."

"What! Mr. Hart, separate ourselves from a man whom we all esteem--and
I from a colleague who perhaps, in the course of Thomas Roch's fits of
delirium, has learned some of his secrets? You are not serious!"

So this is why they are keeping me a prisoner in Back Cup! They
suppose that I am in part familiar with Koch's invention, and they
hope to force me to tell what I know if Thomas Koch refuses to give up
his secret. This is the reason why I was kidnapped with him, and why
I have not been accommodated with an involuntary plunge in the lagoon
with a stone fastened to my neck. I see it all now, and it is just as
well to know it.

"Very serious," I affirm, in response to the last remark of my
interlocutor.

"Well," he continues, "if I had the honor to be Simon Hart, the
engineer, I should reason as follows: 'Given, on the one hand, the
personality of Ker Karraje, the reasons which incited him to select
such a mysterious retreat as this cavern, the necessity of the said
cavern being kept from any attempt to discover it, not only in the
interest of the Count d'Artigas, but in that of his companions--'"

"Of his accomplices, if you please."

"'Of his accomplices,' then--'and on the other hand, given the
fact that I know the real name of the Count d'Artigas and in what
mysterious safe he keeps his riches--'"

"Riches stolen, and stained with blood, Mr. Serko."

"'Riches stolen and stained with blood,' if you like--'I ought
to understand that this question of liberty cannot be settled in
accordance with my desires.'"

It is useless to argue the point under these conditions, and I switch
the conversation on to another line.

"May I ask," I continue, "how you came to find out that Gaydon, the
warder, was Simon Hart, the engineer?"

"I see no reason for keeping you in ignorance on the subject, my dear
colleague. It was largely by hazard. We had certain relations with the
manufactory in New Jersey with which you were connected, and which you
quitted suddenly one day under somewhat singular circumstances. Well,
during a visit I made to Healthful House some months before the Count
d'Artigas went there, I saw and recognized you."

"You?"

"My very self, and from that moment I promised myself the pleasure of
having you for a fellow-passenger on board the _Ebba_."

I do not recall ever having seen this Serko at Healthful House, but
what he says is very likely true.

"I hope your whim of having me for a companion will cost you dear,
some day or other," I say to myself.

Then, abruptly, I go on:

"If I am not mistaken, you have succeeded in inducing Thomas Roch to
disclose the secret of his fulgurator?"

"Yes, Mr. Hart. We paid millions for it. But millions, you know, are
nothing to us. We have only the trouble of taking them! Therefore we
filled all his pockets--covered him with millions!"

"Of what use are these millions to him if he is not allowed to enjoy
them outside?"

"That, Mr. Hart, is a matter that does not trouble him a little bit!
This man of genius thinks nothing of the future: he lives but in the
present. While engines are being constructed from his plans over
yonder in America, he is preparing his explosive with chemical
substances with which he has been abundantly supplied. He! he! What an
invention it is, this autopropulsive engine, which flies through
the air of its own power and accelerates its speed till the goal is
reached, thanks to the properties of a certain powder of progressive
combustion! Here we have an invention that will bring about a radical
change in the art of war."

"Defensive war, Mr. Serko."

"And offensive war, Mr. Hart."

"Naturally," I answer.

Then pumping him still more closely, I go on:

"So, what no one else has been able to obtain from Thomas Roch--"

"We obtained without much difficulty."

"By paying him."

"By paying him an incredible price--and, moreover, by causing to
vibrate what in him is a very sensitive chord."

"What chord?"

"That of vengeance!"

"Vengeance?--against whom?"

"Against all those who have made themselves his enemies by
discouraging him, by spurning him, expelling him, by constraining
him to go a-begging from country to country with an invention of
incontestable superiority! Now all notion of patriotism is extinct in
his soul. He has now but one thought, one ferocious desire: to avenge
himself upon those who have denied him--and even upon all mankind!
Really, Mr. Hart, your governments of Europe and America committed a
stupendous blunder in refusing to pay Roch the price his fulgurator is
worth!"

And Engineer Serko describes enthusiastically the various advantages
of the new explosive which, he says, is incontestably superior to any
yet invented.

"And what a destructive effect it has," he adds. "It is analogous to
that of the Zalinski shell, but is a hundred times more powerful, and
requires no machine for firing it, as it flies through the air on its
own wings, so to speak."

I listen in the hope that Engineer Serko will give away a part of the
secret, but in vain. He is careful not to say more than he wants to.

"Has Thomas Roch," I ask, "made you acquainted with the composition of
his explosive?"

"Yes, Mr. Hart--if it is all the same to you--and we shall shortly
have considerable quantities of it stored in a safe place."

"But will there not be a great and ever-impending danger in
accumulating large quantities of it? If an accident were to happen it
would be all up with the island of----!"

Once more the name of Back Cup was on the point of escaping me.
They might consider me too well-informed if they were aware that in
addition to being acquainted with the Count d'Artigas' real name I
also know where his stronghold is situated.

Luckily Engineer Serko has not remarked my reticence, and he replies:

"There will be no cause for alarm. Thomas Roch's explosive will not
burn unless subjected to a special deflagrator. Neither fire nor shock
will explode it."

"And has Thomas Roch also sold you the secret of his deflagrator?"

"Not yet, Mr. Hart, but it will not be long before the bargain is
concluded. Therefore, I repeat, no danger is to be apprehended, and
you need not keep awake of nights on that account. A thousand devils,
sir! We have no desire to be blown up with our cavern and treasures! A
few more years of good business and we shall divide the profits, which
will be large enough to enable each one of us to live as he thinks
proper and enjoy life to the top of his bent--after the dissolution
of the firm of Ker Karraje and Co. I may add that though there is
no danger of an explosion, we have everything to fear from a
denunciation--which you are in the position to make, Mr. Hart.
Therefore, if you take my advice, you will, like a sensible man,
resign yourself to the inevitable until the disbanding of the company.
We shall then see what in the interest of our security is best to be
done with you!"

It will be admitted that these words are not exactly calculated to
reassure me. However, a lot of things may happen ere then. I have
learned one good thing from this conversation, and that is that if
Thomas Roch has sold his explosive to Ker Karraje and Co., he has
at any rate, kept the secret of his deflagrator, without which the
explosive is of no more value than the dust of the highway.

But before terminating the interview I think I ought to make a very
natural observation to Mr. Serko.

"Sir," I say, "you are now acquainted with the composition of Thomas
Roch's explosive. Does it really possess the destructive power that
the inventor attributes to it? Has it ever been tried? May you not
have purchased a composition as inert as a pinch of snuff?"

"You are doubtless better informed upon this point than you pretend,
Mr. Hart. Nevertheless, I thank you for the interest you manifest in
our affairs, and am able to reassure you. The other night we made
a series of decisive experiments. With only a few grains of this
substance great blocks of rock were reduced to impalpable dust!"

This explanation evidently applies to the detonation I heard.

"Thus, my dear colleague," continues Engineer Serko, "I can assure you
that our expectations have been answered. The effects of the explosive
surpass anything that could have been imagined. A few thousand tons of
it would burst our spheroid and scatter the fragments into space. You
can be absolutely certain that it is capable of destroying no matter
what vessel at a distance considerably greater than that attained by
present projectiles and within a zone of at least a mile. The weak
point in the invention is that rather too much time has to be expended
in regulating the firing."

Engineer Serko stops short, as though reluctant to give any further
information, but finally adds:

"Therefore, I end as I began, Mr. Hart. Resign yourself to the
inevitable. Accept your new existence without reserve. Give yourself
up to the tranquil delights of this subterranean life. If one is in
good health, one preserves it; if one has lost one's health, one
recovers it here. That is what is happening to your fellow countryman.
Yes, the best thing you can do is to resign yourself to your lot."

Thereupon this giver of good advice leaves me, after saluting me
with a friendly gesture, like a man whose good intentions merit
appreciation. But what irony there is in his words, in his glance, in
his attitude. Shall I ever be able to get even with him?

I now know that at any rate it is not easy to regulate the aim of
Roch's auto-propulsive engine. It is probable that it always bursts at
the same distance, and that beyond the zone in which the effects of
the fulgurator are so terrible, and once it has been passed, a ship is
safe from its effects. If I could only inform the world of this vital
fact!

_August 20_.--For two days no incident worth recording has occurred. I
have explored Back Cup to its extreme limits. At night when the long
perspective of arched columns are illuminated by the electric lamps, I
am almost religiously impressed when I gaze upon the natural wonders
of this cavern, which has become my prison. I have never given up hope
of finding somewhere in the walls a fissure of some kind of which the
pirates are ignorant and through which I could make my escape. It is
true that once outside I should have to wait till a passing ship hove
in sight. My evasion would speedily be known at the Beehive, and I
should soon be recaptured, unless--a happy thought strikes me--unless
I could get at the _Ebba's_ boat that was drawn up high and dry on the
little sandy beach in the creek. In this I might be able to make my
way to St. George or Hamilton.

This evening--it was about nine o'clock--I stretched myself on a bed
of sand at the foot of one of the columns, about one hundred yards to
the east of the lagoon. Shortly afterwards I heard footsteps, then
voices. Hiding myself as best I could behind the rocky base of the
pillar, I listened with all my ears.

I recognized the voices as those of Ker Karraje and Engineer Serko.
The two men stopped close to where I was lying, and continued their
conversation in English--which is the language generally used in Back
Cup. I was therefore able to understand all that they said.

They were talking about Thomas Roch, or rather his fulgurator.

"In a week's time," said Ker Karraje, "I shall put to sea in the
_Ebba_, and fetch the sections of the engines that are being cast in
that Virginian foundry."

"And when they are here," observed Engineer Serko, "I will piece them
together and fix up the frames for firing them. But beforehand, there
is a job to be done which it seems to me is indispensable."

"What is that?"

"To cut a tunnel through the wall of the cavern."

"Through the wall of the cavern?"

"Oh! nothing but a narrow passage through which only one man at a time
could squeeze, a hole easy enough to block, and the outside end of
which would be hidden among the rocks."

"Of what use could it be to us, Serko?"

"I have often thought about the utility of having some other way of
getting out besides the submarine tunnel. We never know what the
future may have in store for us."

"But the walls are so thick and hard," objected Ker Karraje.

"Oh, with a few grains of Roch's explosive I undertake to reduce the
rock to such fine powder that we shall be able to blow it away with
our breath," Serko replied.

It can easily be imagined with what interest and eagerness I listened
to this. Here was a ray of hope. It. was proposed to open up
communication with the outside by a tunnel in the wall, and this held
out the possibility of escape.

As this thought flashed through my mind, Ker Karraje said:

"Very well, Serko, and if it becomes necessary some day to defend Back
Cup and prevent any ship from approaching it----. It is true," he went
on, without finishing the reflection, "our retreat would have to have
been discovered by accident--or by denunciation."

"We have nothing to fear either from accident or denunciation,"
affirmed Serko.

"By one of our band, no, of course not, but by Simon Hart, perhaps."

"Hart!" exclaimed Serko. "He would have to escape first and no one can
escape from Back Cup. I am, by the bye, interested in this Hart. He is
a colleague, after all, and I have always suspected that he knows more
about Roch's invention than he pretends. I will get round him so that
we shall soon be discussing physics, mechanics, and matters ballistic
like a couple of friends."

"No matter," replied the generous and sensible Count d'Artigas, "when
we are in full possession of the secret we had better get rid of the
fellow."

"We have plenty of time to do that, Ker Karraje."

"If God permits you to, you wretches," I muttered to myself, while my
heart thumped against my ribs.

And yet, without the intervention of Providence, what hope is there
for me?

The conversation then took another direction.

"Now that we know the composition of the explosive, Serko," said Ker
Karraje, "we must, at all cost, get that of the deflagrator from
Thomas Roch."

"Yes," replied Engineer Serko, "that is what I am trying to do.
Unfortunately, however, Roch positively refuses to discuss it. Still
he has already made a few drops of it with which those experiments
were made, and he will furnish as with some more to blow a hole
through the wall."

"But what about our expeditions at sea?" queried Ker Karraje.

"Patience! We shall end by getting Roch's thunderbolts entirely in our
own hand, and then----"

"Are you sure, Serko?"

"Quite sure,--by paying the price, Ker Karraje."

The conversation dropped at this point, and they strolled off without
having seen me--very luckily for me, I guess. If Engineer Serko spoke
up somewhat in defence of a colleague, Ker Karraje is apparently
animated with much less benevolent sentiments in regard to me. On the
least suspicion they would throw me into the lake, and if I ever got
through the tunnel, it would only be as a corpse carried out by the
ebbing tide.

_August 21_.--Engineer Serko has been prospecting with a view to
piercing the proposed passage through the wall, in such a way that its
existence will never be dreamed of outside. After a minute examination
he decided to tunnel through the northern end of the cavern about
sixty feet from the first cells of the Beehive.

I am anxious for the passage to be made, for who knows but what it may
be the way to freedom for me? Ah! if I only knew how to swim, perhaps
I should have attempted to escape through the submarine tunnel, as
since it was disclosed by the lashing back of the waters by the whale
in its death-struggle, I know exactly where the orifice is situated.
It seems to me that at the time of the great tides, this orifice must
be partly uncovered. At the full and new moon, when the sea attains
its maximum depression below the normal level, it is possible that--I
must satisfy myself about this.

I do not know how the fact will help me in any way, even if the
entrance to the tunnel is partly uncovered, but I cannot afford to
miss any detail that may possibly aid in my escape from Back Cup.

_August 29_.--This morning I am witnessing the departure of the tug.
The Count d'Artigas is, no doubt, going off in the _Ebba_ to fetch
the sections of Thomas Roch's engines. Before embarking, the Count
converses long and earnestly with Engineer Serko, who, apparently, is
not going to accompany him on this trip, and is evidently giving him
some recommendations, of which I may be the object. Then, having
stepped on to the platform, he goes below, the lid shuts with a bang,
and the tug sinks out of sight, leaving a trail of bubbles behind it.

The hours go by, night is coming on, yet the tug does not return. I
conclude that it has gone to tow the schooner, and perhaps to destroy
any merchant vessels that may come in their way.

It cannot, however, be absent very long, as the trip to America and
back will not take more than a week.

Besides, if I can judge from the calm atmosphere in the interior of
the cavern, the _Ebba_ must be favored with beautiful weather. This
is, in fact, the fine season in this part of the world. Ah! if only I
could break out of my prison!

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