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Updated: June 21, 2025
They drew near the shore. Already Stern was formulating his plans for landing the machine without injuring it, when out from the beach a long and swift canoe put rapidly, driven by twenty men. At sight of it the rowing in Stern's boats weakened, then stopped. Confused cries arose, altercations and strange shouts; then a hush of expectancy, of fear, seemed to possess the boat crews.
A spear pierced the vapors; it fell clashing at Stern's feet and slid rattling away over the black stones, worn smooth and greasy by uncounted feet. Past him as he ran a man staggered; the whole side of his head was bashed in, as though by a frightful blow from a mace. Up the wounded man flung both arms, and fell twitching. The fog covered him with its drifting folds.
And in Stern's heart, as he now came to more and better understanding, a vast despair took shape, a sickening fear surged up. Again he shouted, chokingly, creeping along the slippery ledge. Through the driving mists he peered with agonized eyes. Where was the yawl now? Where the girl? Down there in that insane welter of the mad torrent swept away long since to annihilation?
"Even with my one hand, if you help me, I can make it! Supper? No, no! To work!" But she insisted, womanlike; and he at last consented to a bite. When this was over, they began preparations for the manufacture of the terrible explosive, Stern's own secret and invention, which, had not the cataclysm intervened, would have made him ten times over a millionaire.
The enclosed space, bounded to east and west by the barrier which swung toward and touched the canyon, had all been cleared, save for a few palms and fern-trees left for shade. Beside drying-frames for fish and game and a well-smoothed plaza for public assemblies and the giving of the Law, it now contained Stern's permanent hangar.
After a pause, another subdued voice 'Her stern's coming down just exactly right, by George! 'Now she's in the marks; over she goes! Somebody else muttered 'Oh, it was done beautiful BEAUTIFUL! Now the engines were stopped altogether, and we drifted with the current. Not that I could see the boat drift, for I could not, the stars being all gone by this time.
Only the sky itself was visible there, as calm and as unbroken as in the zenith, yet extending far below where the horizon-line should have been down, in fact, to where the tree-line cut it off from Stern's vision. The effect was precisely that of coming to the edge of a vast plain, beyond which nothing lay, save space, and peering over.
Exhaust and interplay, the rhythm of each whirling cam and shaft, the chatter of the cylinders, the droning diapason of the blades, all blent into one intricate yet perfect harmony of mechanism; and as a leader knows each instrument in the great orchestra and follows each, even as his eye reads the score, so Stern's keen ear analyzed each sound and action and reaction and knew all were in perfect tune and resonance.
They even found this air unusually stimulating and revivifying, because of its greater amount of oxygen to the cubic unit; and thus they were able to endure greater exertions than formerly on the surface of the earth. The air never grew foul. A steady current set in the direction that Stern's pocket-compass indicated as north.
Stern's book at the famous public trial at Gondar, came into the tent, and, being a little excited, told Mr. On the 22nd of November Mr. Laurence Kerans arrived at Gondar. He came for the purpose of joining Captain Cameron in the capacity of private secretary. He brought with him some letters for Captain Cameron; amongst them one from Earl Russell ordering the consul back to his post at Massowah.
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