USS Vulcan

“ Tug and submarine were now rushing at each other full tilt, only one ran under water, the other on the surface. Suppose the submarine should thrust up a periscope for an instant—a cough of the torpedo tube and the Vulcan would be blown to scrap iron.
The men on the poop ran forward, staring with frightened eyes over the gray-green soggy field through which the Vulcan ripped her way.
It seemed fantastic to think that somewhere under that lifeless weed human beings spun swiftly along, freighted with the most terrific engine of destruction. What strange warfare! ”

“ The sun rose like a white-hot ball in the brazen sky and the men held to the rails, mouths open, and stared ahead into the safe open water, expecting every moment for the Vulcan to spatter skyward in a volcano of fire and steel. ”

“ And for five years they wandered through the earth, until they reached the fearful realm where Vulcan forged his weapons in the fire.
The secret of all poisonous herbs they learned, the use of every charm that spoils men’s lives and drives them to despair; they learned to raise a magic stormy sea upon dry land, in which men might be drowned; and out of forest twigs and fluttering leaves they learned to form a host of fighting-men and armed them with the spiked thorn of the thistle leaves or with the blackthorn’s barb. ”

“ By day, the Pacific is a vast stretch of blue, flat like a floor, with a blur of distant islands on the horizon—chief among them Muloa, with its single volcanic cone tapering off into the sky. At night, this smithy of Vulcan becomes a glow of red, throbbing faintly against the darkness, a capricious and sullen beacon immeasurably removed from the path of men. Viewed from the veranda of the Marine Hotel, its vast flare on the horizon seems hardly more than an insignificant spark, like the glowing cigar-end of some guest strolling in the garden after dinner. ”

“ Each had but a single eye, placed in the middle of the forehead, but they were using their great strength in the smithy of Vulcan to forge thunderbolts for Jupiter, to make a trident for Neptune and a quiver of arrows for Apollo. Beside Vulcan stood two wonderful hand-maidens of gold, who, like living creatures, moved about and helped the lame smith as he worked.
Vulcan, the despised of the gods, had chained fire and conquered the metals of the earth that he might make gifts for the gods and for the heroes. ”

“ Then he sent the blacksmith Vulcan to bind him with iron chains and fetter him to the rocks so that he could not move hand or foot.
Vulcan did not like to do this, for he was a friend of Prometheus, and yet he did not dare to disobey. And so the great friend of men, who had given them fire and lifted them out of their wretchedness and shown them how to live, was chained to the mountain peak; and there he hung, with the storm-winds whistling always around him, and the pitiless hail beating in his face, and fierce eagles shrieking in his ears and tearing his body with their cruel claws. ”

“ The men worked in a clutter of buntings, assembling the flags in nervous haste. Black laid out the nine letters and the crew hurriedly hooked them together. Ten minutes later, they strung the signal between the two splintered masts with a queer drunken gala effect.
The Vulcan was no longer the German squadron's sole target. Down on the Teuton battle line thundered five English cruisers, filling the north with rolling smoke, their turrets spangled with cannon flashes, prows shearing white walls of foam. ”

“ CHAPTER XXI
“Now, look you here, Sir,” the old philosopher began, taking me by a tassel on my satin doublet, and working himself up until his eyes shone with pleasure, as he unfolded his mad visions to me. “Look you here, Sir! this bare and dingy dungeon that you rightly frown at is a cell more pregnant with ingenuity than ever was the forge of the lame smith of Lemnos. Vulcan! Vulcan never had such teeming fancies as I have harbored in my head for twenty years. Vulcan never coaxed into being such a lovely monster as I have hidden yonder. ”

“ When the strongest buildings rock
To the awful earthquake’s shock
The trembling millions all confess my might!”
The lightning flashed, the thunder crashed, and over all the storm was heard a voice calling: “Vul-can! Vul-can!” [99]
Vulcan stopped work while his imps crept stealthily toward the door to listen.
“Is Vulcan at his forge?” was shouted in the wind and rain outside, with the accompaniment of a terrific knock on the door.
“Who dares disturb me on my busy night?” cried Vulcan, in a towering passion.
“It is I, Dragonfel, the enchanter,” said the voice placatingly. ”

“ Mars made Venus many presents, and defiled King Vulcan's marriage bed, so the sun, who saw what they were about, told Vulcan. Vulcan was very angry when he heard such dreadful news, so he went to his smithy brooding mischief, got his great anvil into its place, and began to forge some chains which none could either unloose or break, so that they might stay there in that place. ”

“ Madden went flying to the right rail of the bridge to stare down at the imminent tragedy.
A dim shadowy bulk was hurtling through the blue water. Suddenly, just as the tug's prow swung athwart her course, the submarine lined up straight with the Panther. A great belching of bubbles wallowed up through the turbulent sea as a sign that the torpedo was launched.
A heart-stopping moment, in which the diving boat, the darting shadow of the torpedo, the blocking prow of the Vulcan was clear.
A titanic upheaval of water; volcanic fires leaping out of the heart of the deep ”

“ But now that gray, smoke-wreathed cruiser rushed on indomitably, flanked by her thundering consorts. The half-naked men on the Panther's decks looked curiously small in their huge rushing fortress. German shells battered her decks amid spangling green flames but could not stop her. As she overtook the Vulcan, the concussion of cannon fire and bursting shells grew so terrific it ceased to be noise. It resolved itself into blows, terrific air movements that smote Madden all over. ”

“ Vulcan fell and fell, spinning through space, till he lost his senses, and then—
The anvil had fallen upon the island of Lemnos, and the islanders, rushing out of their houses to see what the crash and clatter could be about, were amazed to see what looked like a confused bundle of legs and arms tumbling and whirling through the air. As it came nearer, it seemed to be a human figure. So the people made a sort of network of their arms, to catch it and prevent its being dashed to pieces. ”

“ At first glimpse of the battle line, the Vulcan had sheered about, and now rushed northward, stringing her black smoke flat behind her. Up from the south, the submarine followed on the surface, although she could not make as good time through the weed as did the Vulcan. However, the burden of destroying the English craft had been transferred to the cruisers that came rushing forward at at least twenty-five knots an hour. ”

“ Forrester had thought of Vulcan.
Mars wasn't a killer, in spite of his bully-boy tactics. He had too good a military mind to discipline a valuable man to death. But he was more than willing to go as near to that point as possible, if he thought it justified. And what he allowed as justification resided in a code all his own.
"Right" was what was good for Mars. "Wrong" was what disturbed him. That was the code, as simple, as black and white, as you could ask for. Vulcan was one of the results.
Vulcan had been Venus' lawful husband, as far as the laws of the Gods went. ”

“ Every man in the crew seized axe, saw, anything, and rushed forward in a fury of impatience, hacking, chopping, sawing, working through the wreckage and cutting the ropes with jackknives, in an effort to clear the tug of debris. After an intolerable while, the last ratlines snapped like pistol shots, the whizzing end of a rope struck a sailor and laid him out as if clubbed, then the foremast fell away and the Vulcan rushed forward again.
"Look ahead, Madden!" shouted Caradoc in the uproar. "We've got to run among thicker fields than these!" ”

“ The Workshop itself was in a vast excavation from whose slopes a silvery-veined ore was being removed. There were the blast furnace and reduction plant on the one side and the convicts' huts and more pretentious houses of the guards on the other. And the choking mists, and the lurid flame behind. The stifling heat, Luke learned, too, that every ninth day, with what they called the libration of Vulcan, there came an equal period of raw and biting cold to replace the heat. As bad or worse, that would be. ”

“ Vulcan.
“The Crippled Artist God.”
“He made the gods their golden shoes,
And shod their steeds with brass.” STORY.
THE GOD OF FIRE.
“Those who labor
The sweaty forge, who edge the crooked scythe,
Bend stubborn steel, and harden gleaming armor,
Acknowledge Vulcan’s aid.”
—Prior.
Vulcan, the son of Jupiter, was born lame. He was flung from Olympus by his mother, Juno, who hated him for his deformity, and he fell into the sea, where the mother of Achilles found him. He made for her son a shield, which was a wonderfully clever piece of handiwork. ”

“ It must have been rather painful being dragged up while the anvil dragged her down; but she found herself on firm sky at last, and sighed with relief when Vulcan, whipping out his knife, cut the cord at her feet, and let the anvil go thundering down upon the earth below.
You can fancy what a clatter it made. People started out of their sleep—not that that mattered. But it did matter that Jupiter started out of his. He sprang from his throne, and saw at once what had happened. The next moment, with a tremendous kick, he sent Vulcan flying after the anvil. ”

“ The wind snatched at the clothes and bandages of the intent men. Masses of seaweed swept like gray blurs down the sheer of the tug's wake. Just beneath them the propeller rushed with watery thunder.
"Yonder she rises!" cried one of the watchers, pointing at two wireless masts that rose like the fins of a racing shark above the green surface of the Sargasso.
"Yonder she rises!" repeated a voice amidship, and more faintly still came the repetition from the bridge, "Yonder she rises—hard a-port!"
A sudden shift of the rudder shook the Vulcan from peak to keelson. ”

“ Then suddenly there is a great commotion in the human ant-hill. It is Neptune's ambassador who has been slighted! The courtiers stand aghast, the High Press priests shriek prophetically, and spill vicious inks all over their papers. Vulcan with his big bellows fans the ever-glowing embers of distrust, just to oblige his noble friend Mars, who looks forward to glorious work and fresh laurels. A howling mob of human ants breaks out into rabid patriotism, and calls upon the State to lead its armies, and on the Church to bless its banners. ”

“ If the men had been heretofore anxious that the cool breeze continue, now their anxiety was redoubled. At any moment it might die away and leave the Vulcan stranded beyond communication. In painful uncertainty, they watched the tug drag her hull slowly into sight, then slowly eat her way down the long mazy lanes of the Sargasso. ”

“ Vulcan built the magnificent palaces of the gods on Mount Olympus, Juno’s golden throne, and the chariot of Apollo. The delicate girdle of Venus, the wife of Vulcan, was also made in his workshop. This was a magic girdle; for whoever wore it inspired love in all she met, and sometimes the goddesses would beg Venus to lend it to them.
The armor of Mars, god of war, and the shield of Minerva, goddess of wisdom, were the work of Vulcan. Sometimes he even manufactured armor for mortals, and Homer tells us of the marvelous shield he wrought for Achilles, the bravest of the Greeks. ”

“ He afterwards became the husband of Venus.
He was reckoned among the gods presiding over marriage, from the torches lighted by him to grace that solemnity. It was the custom in several nations, after gaining a victory, to pile the arms of the enemy in a heap on the field of battle, and make a sacrifice of them to Vulcan. As to his worship, Vulcan had an altar in common with Prometheus, who first invented fire, as did Vulcan the use of it, in making arms and utensils. His principal temple was in a consecrated grove at the foot of mount Ætna, in which was a fire continually burning. ”

“ Vulcan (Hephæstus) , son of Jupiter and Juno, was the god of fire, especially of terrestrial fire,—volcanic eruption, incendiary flame, the glow of the forge or the hearth. But as the fires of earth are derived from that of heaven, perhaps the name Hephæstus (burning, shining, flaming) referred originally to the marvelous brilliance of the lightning. Vulcan was the blacksmith of the gods, the finest artificer in metal among them. ”

“ It is like looking down into a miner's shaft. And what makes it the more fearful, is that the bottom of the ship is a mass of fire. Thirty-six furnaces are in full blast to heat the steam, and at night, as the red-hot coals that are raked out of the furnaces like melted lava, flash in the faces of the brawny and sweltering men, one might fancy himself looking into some Vulcan's cave, or subterranean region, glowing with an infernal heat. Thus one of these great ocean steamships 10 is literally a sea monster, that feeds on fire ”

“ The most powerful weapons that Vulcan made at his forges were the dread thunderbolts of Jove and the arrows of mischievous Cupid, the winged god of love.
Vulcan is represented as rather short and thickset, lame in one foot, with a cap on his curly head, and a hammer in his hand. His workmen are the Cyclops, powerful giants, who excel in all work in metals.
[Pg 113]
Gamba le Preydour (modern) .
Blossoms.
[Pg 114]
WORK.
Sweet wind, fair wind, where have you been? ”