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Page 28
When the _Gehenna_ had passed down the Styx and out through the beautiful
Cimmerian Harbor into the broad waters of the ocean, and everything was
comparatively safe for a while at least, Sherlock Holmes came down from
the bridge, where he had taken his place as the commander of the
expedition at the moment of departure. His brow was furrowed with anxiety,
and through his massive forehead his brain could be seen to be throbbing
violently, and the corrugations of his gray matter were not pleasant to
witness as he tried vainly to squeeze an idea out of them.
"What is the matter?" asked Demosthenes, anxiously. "We are not in any
danger, are we?"
"No," replied Holmes. "But I am somewhat puzzled at the bubbles on the
surface of the ocean, and the ripples which we passed over an hour or two
ago, barely perceptible through the most powerful microscope, indicate to
my mind that for some reason at present unknown to me the House-boat has
changed her course. Take that bubble floating by. It is the last expiring
bit of aerial agitation of the House-boat's wake. Observe whence it comes.
Not from the Azores quarter, but as if instead of steering a straight
course thither the House-boat had taken a sharp turn to the northeast, and
was making for Havre; or, in other words, Paris instead of London seems to
have become their destination."
Demosthenes looked at Holmes with blank amazement, and, to keep from
stammering out the exclamation of wonder that rose to his lips, he opened
his _bonbonni�re_ and swallowed a pebble.
"You don't happen to have a cocaine tablet in your box, do you?" queried
Holmes.
"No," returned the Greek. "Cocaine makes me flighty and nervous, but these
pebbles sort of ballast me and hold me down. How on earth do you know that
that bubble comes from the wake of the House-boat?"
"By my chemical knowledge, merely," replied Holmes. "A merely worldly
vessel leaves a phosphorescent bubble in its wake. That one we have just
discovered is not so, but sulphurescent, if I may coin a word which it
seems to me the English language is very much in need of. It proves, then,
that the bubble is a portion of the wake of a Stygian craft, and the only
Stygian craft that has cleared the Cimmerian Harbor for years is the
House-boat--Q.E.D."
"We can go back until we find the ripple again, and follow that, I
presume," sneered Le Coq, who did not take much stock in the theories of
his great rival, largely because he was a detective by intuition rather
than by study of the science.
"You can if you want to, but it is better not to," rejoined Holmes,
simply, as though not observing the sneer, "because the ripple represents
the outer lines of the angle of disturbance in the water; and as any one
of the sides to an angle is greater than the perpendicular from the
hypothenuse to the apex, you'd merely be going the long way. This is
especially important when you consider the formation of the bow of the
House-boat, which is rounded like the stern of most vessels, and comes
near to making a pair of ripples at an angle of ninety degrees."
"Then," observed Sir Walter, with a sigh of disappointment, "we must
change our course and sail for Paris?"
"I am afraid so," said Holmes; "but of course it's by no means certain as
yet. I think if Columbus would go up into the mizzentop and look about
him, he might discover something either in confirmation or refutation of
the theory."
"He couldn't discover anything," put in Pinzon. "He never did."
"Well, I like that!" retorted Columbus. "I'd like to know who discovered
America."
"So should I," observed Leif Ericson, with a wink at Vespucci.
"Tut!" retorted Columbus. "I did it, and the world knows it, whether you
claim it or not."
"Yes, just as Noah discovered Ararat," replied Pinzon. "You sat upon the
deck until we ran plumb into an island, after floating about for three
months, and then you couldn't tell it from a continent, even when you had
it right before your eyes. Noah might just as well have told his family
that he discovered a roof garden as for you to go back to Spain telling
'em all that San Salvador was the United States."
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