Poised above the ship’s masts,
and so enormous that it appeared to shut out half the sky, was the
stupendous meteor like a gigantic globe of green fire, and seemingly
less than one hundred feet above me. Still nearer, and hanging but a few
yards above the bow and stern of the ship, were the two smaller spheres
of glowing red. Cowering against the rail, expecting to be shrivelled
into a charred cinder at any instant, I gazed transfixed and paralyzed
at the titanic masses of flaming light above the ship. “Then reason came back to me. My only chance to escape was to leap into
the sea, and I half clambered upon the rail prepared to take the plunge. A scream, like that of a madman, came from my lips. Below me was no sign
of the waves, but a limitless void, while, immeasurably distant beneath
the ship, I could dimly see the crinkled surface of the sea. The
_Chiriqui_ was floating in space! “It was impossible, absolutely preposterous, and I felt convinced that I
had gone mad, or that the small quantity of gas I had breathed had
affected my brain and had induced the nightmarish vision. Perhaps, I
thought, the meteors above the ship were also visionary, and I again
stared upward. Then, I knew that I was insane. The spheres of green and
red light were rushing upward as I could see by the brilliant stars
studding the sky, and the ship upon which I stood was following in their
wake! Weak, limp as a rag, I slumped to the deck and lay staring at the
great globes above me. But the insanely impossible events which had
crowded upon my overwrought senses were as nothing to the amazing
discovery I now made. “As my eyes became accustomed to the glare of the immense green sphere,
I saw that instead of being merely a ball of fire it had definite form. About its middle extended a broad band from which slender rods of light
extended. Round or ovoid spots seemed placed in definite order about it,
and from the extremities of its axes lines or cables, clearly outlined
by the glare, extended downward to the red spheres above the ship. By
now, I was so firmly convinced that I was irrational, that these new and
absolutely stunning discoveries did not excite or surprise me in the
least, and as if in a particularly vivid dream, I lay there gazing
upward, and dully, half consciously speculating on what it all meant. Gradually, too, it dawned upon me that the huge sphere with its
encircling band of duller light was rotating. The circular markings,
which I thought were marvelously like the ports of a ship, were
certainly moving from top to bottom of the sphere, and I could
distinctly hear a low, vibrant humming. “The next second I jerked upright with a start and my scalp tingled. Reason had suddenly returned to me. The thing was no meteor, no
celestial body, but some marvelous machine, some devilish invention of
man, some gigantic form of airship which--God only knew why--had by some
incredible means captured the _Chiriqui_, had lifted the twenty thousand
ton ship into the air and was bearing her off with myself, the only
survivor of all the ship’s company, witnessing the miraculous happening! It was the most insane thought that had yet entered my brain, but I knew
now for a certainty that I was perfectly sane, and, oddly enough, now
that I was convinced that the catastrophe which had overtaken the
_Chiriqui_ was the devilish work of human beings, I was no longer
frightened and my former nightmarish terror of things unknown, gave
place to the most intense anger and an inexpressible hatred of the
fiends who, without warning or reason, had annihilated hundreds of men
and women by means of this new and irresistible engine of destruction. But I was helpless. Alone upon the stolen and stricken ship I could do
nothing. By what tremendous force the spherical airship was moving
through space, by what unknown power it was lifting the ship and
carrying it,--slung like the gondola of a Zeppelin beneath the
sphere,--were matters beyond my comprehension. Calmly, now that I felt
assured that I was rational and was the victim of my fellow
men--fiendish as they might be,--I walked aft to where one red sphere
hung a few yards above the ship’s deck. *       *       *       *       *

“There seemed no visible connection between it and the vessel, but I
noticed that everything movable upon the deck, the iron cable, the wire
ropes, the coiled steel lines of the after derrick, all extended upward
from the deck, as rigid as bars of metal, while crackling blue sparks
like electrical discharges scintillated from the ship’s metal work below
the red sphere. Evidently, I decided, the red mass was actuated by some
form of electrical energy or magnetism, and I gave the area beneath it a
wide berth. Retracing my way to the bow of the ship, I found similar
conditions there. As I walked towards the waist of the ship again I
mounted the steps to the bridge, hoping from that height to get a better
view of the monstrous machine holding the _Chiriqui_ captive. I knew
that in the chart-house I would find powerful glasses with which to
study the machine. Upon the bridge the bodies of the quartermaster, the
first officer and an apprentice lay sprawled grotesquely, and across the
chart-house door lay the captain. Reaching down I lifted him by the
shoulders to move him to one side, and to my amazement I discovered that
he was not dead. His heart beat, his pulse, though slow and faint, was
plain, he was breathing and his face, still ruddy, was that of a
sleeping man rather than of a corpse. “A wild thought rushed through my brain, and hastily I rushed to the
other bodies. There was no doubt of it. All were alive and merely
unconscious. The gas had struck them down, but had not killed them, and
it came to me as a surprise, though I should long before have realized
it, that the fumes had been purposely discharged by the beings who had
captured the vessel. Possibly, I mentally decided, they had made a
mistake and had failed in their intention to destroy the persons upon
the ship, or again, was it not possible that they had intentionally
rendered the ship’s company unconscious, and had not intended to destroy
their lives? Forgetting my original purpose in visiting the bridge, I
worked feverishly to resuscitate the captain, but all to no purpose. Many gases, I knew, would render a man unconscious without actually
injuring him, and I was also aware, that when under the influence of
some of these, the victims could not be revived until the definite
period of the gases’ effect had passed. So, feeling certain that in due
time the captain and the others would come to of their own accord, I
entered the chartroom and, securing the skipper’s binoculars, I again
stepped upon the bridge. As I could not conveniently use the glasses
with my gas-mask in place, and as I felt sure there was no longer any
danger from the fumes, I started to remove the apparatus.