The Second Deluge

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The Second Deluge, by Garrett P. Serviss

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Title: The Second Deluge
Author: Garrett P. Serviss
Release Date: October, 2005 [EBook #9194] [This file was first posted on September 14, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE SECOND DELUGE
By
Garrett P. Serviss
1912

[Illustration: "THEY MEANT TO CARRY THE ARK WITH A RUSH" [Page 106] ]

FOREWORD
What is here set down is the fruit of long and careful research among disjointed records left by survivors of the terrible events described. The writer wishes frankly to say that, in some instances, he has followed the course which all historians are compelled to take by using his imagination to round out the picture. But he is able conscientiously to declare that in the substance of his narrative, as well as in every detail which is specifically described, he has followed faithfully the accounts of eyewitnesses, or of those who were in a position to know the truth of what they related.

CONTENTS
I. COSMO VERSáL
II. MOCKING AT FATE
III. THE FIRST DROPS OF THE DELUGE
IV. THE WORLD SWEPT WITH TERROR
V. THE THIRD SIGN
VI. SELECTING THE FLOWER OF MANKIND
VII. THE WATERS BEGIN TO RISE
VIII. STORMING THE ARK
IX. THE COMPANY OF THE REPRIEVED
X. THE LAST DAY OF NEW YORK
XI. "A BILLION FOR A SHARE"
XII. THE SUBMERGENCE OF THE OLD WORLD
XIII. STRANGE FREAKS OF THE NEBULA
XIV. THE ESCAPE OF THE PRESIDENT
XV. PROFESSOR PLUDDER'S DEVICE
XVI. MUTINY IN THE ARK
XVII. THE JULES VERNE
XVIII. NAVIGATING OVER DROWNED EUROPE
XIX. TO PARIS UNDER THE SEA
XX. THE ADVENTURES IN COLORADO
XXI. "THE FATHER OF HORROR"
XXII. THE TERRIBLE NUCLEUS ARRIVES
XXIII. ROBBING THE CROWN OF THE WORLD
XXIV. THE FRENCHMAN'S NEW SCHEME
XXV. NEW YORK IN HER OCEAN TOMB
XXVI. NEW AMERICA

ILLUSTRATIONS
"THEY MEANT TO CARRY THE ARK WITH A RUSH"
"THE GREAT BATTLESHIP ... CRASHED, PROW ON, INTO THE STEEL-RIBBED WALLS"
"IT IS A PROPHECY OF THE SECOND DELUGE"
"AND THEN THEY FLOATED NEAR THE MONUMENTAL TOMB OF GENERAL GRANT"

THE SECOND DELUGE
CHAPTER I
COSMO VERSáL
An undersized, lean, wizen-faced man, with an immense bald head, as round and smooth and shining as a giant soap-bubble, and a pair of beady black eyes, set close together, so that he resembled a gnome of amazing brain capacity and prodigious power of concentration, sat bent over a writing desk with a huge sheet of cardboard before him, on which he was swiftly drawing geometrical and trigonometrical figures. Compasses, T-squares, rulers, protractors, and ellipsographs obeyed the touch of his fingers as if inspired with life.
The room around him was a jungle of terrestrial and celestial globes, chemists' retorts, tubes, pipes, and all the indescribable apparatus that modern science has invented, and which, to the uninitiated, seems as incomprehensible as the ancient paraphernalia of alchemists and astrologers. The walls were lined with book shelves, and adorned along the upper portions with the most extraordinary photographs and drawings. Even the ceiling was covered with charts, some representing the sky, while many others were geological and topographical pictures of the face of the earth.
Beside the drawing-board lay a pad of paper, and occasionally the little man nervously turned to this, and, grasping a long pencil, made elaborate calculations, covering the paper with a sprinkling of mathematical symbols that looked like magnified animalcula. While he worked, under a high light from a single window placed well up near the ceiling, his forehead contracted into a hundred wrinkles, his cheeks became feverous, his piercing eyes glowed with inner fire, and drops of perspiration ran down in front of his ears. One would have thought that he was laboring to save his very soul and had but a few seconds of respite left.
Presently he threw down the pencil, and with astonishing agility let himself rapidly, but carefully, off the stool on which he had been sitting, keeping the palms of his hands on the seat beside his hips until he felt his feet touch the floor. Then he darted