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Updated: June 24, 2025
Most of the things which go to make the sailor's lot at least tolerable nowadays, were at that time unknown. A smoky lamp swung on gimbals half-lighted the forecastle an apartment which, in a craft of scant 400 tons, did not afford commodious quarters for a crew of perhaps a score, with their sea chests and bags.
"This compass I've rigged on gimbals here, beats anything Pauillac himself ever had. What's the matter with my home-made gyrostat and anemometer? And hasn't this aneroid barometer got cards and spades over the old-style models?" Enthusiastic as a boy, Stern shook his head and smiled delightedly at Beatrice as he expounded the merits of the biplane and its fittings.
The cabin was a fine, roomy one, and of good height, as cabins went in those days; it contained two standing bunks, one above the other, fitted with brass rods and damask curtains, a sofa against the side of the ship, a wash-stand in a recess between the bunks and the bulkhead adjoining the saloon, a framed mirror above it, a folding mahogany table against the transverse bulkhead, brass pins upon which to hang clothing, a curtain to draw across the doorway, a handsome lamp with a ground-glass globe hung in gimbals in the centre of the transverse bulkhead, two large travelling trunks and three or four smaller cases, broken open and the contents strewn upon the carpeted deck, and prone among them, bound hand and foot and lashed together, were the figures of a man and woman, both evidently elderly, although their precise ages could hardly be guessed by the imperfect light that streamed in from the saloon through the open door.
The seats, and the pilot's instrument panel in front of them, swung on gimbals, and the finger of the indicator swept slowly over a ninety-degree arc as the rocket rose and leveled. By then, the high cirrus clouds Verkan Vall had watched from the field were far below; they were well into the stratosphere.
The rocket landed smoothly, however; there was a slight jar as it was grappled by the crane and hoisted upright, the seats turning in their gimbals. Pilot and passenger unstrapped themselves and hurried through the refrigerated outlet and away from the glowing-hot rocket. An air-taxi, emblazoned with the device of the Paratime Police, was waiting.
The great circular door revolved swiftly, backing slowly on its fine threads, gripped by the massive gimbals which, as at last the ponderous plug of metal freed itself from its threads, swung the circular door aside, like the door of a vault. Fresh clean air swept in, and we breathed, it gratefully.
The lamp wriggled in its gimbals, the barometer swung in circles, the table altered its slant every moment; a pair of limp sea-boots with collapsed tops went sliding past the couch. He put out his hand instantly, and captured one. Jukes' face appeared in a crack of the door: only his face, very red, with staring eyes.
Away and away behind them slid the lip of this gigantic gash across the world; and now already with the swift rush of the plane the solid earth had begun to fade and to grow dim. Stern only cast a glance at the sun and at his compass, hung there in gimbals before him, and with firm hand steadied the machine for the long problematical flight to westward.
One or two sea-captains, whose ketches were at anchor there, came out to welcome the new arrival. In the little "Cabbin," where the lamp swung in gimbals, the sailors "were very busie, going to drink a Bowl of Punch, ... after our long Fatigue and Fasting." The thirsty sea-captains, bronzed by the sun, came stumping down the ladder to bear a hand.
"You see, the gyroscope is really a flywheel mounted on gimbals and can turn on any of its angles so that it can assume any angle in space. When it's at rest like this you can turn it easily. But when set revolving it tends to persist always in the plane in which it was started rotating." I took hold of it, and it did turn readily in any direction. I could feel the heavy little flywheel inside.
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