The Argo Goes West

8, Giant boar hunting in Calydon, part 5

The Ulysses has long operated as a passenger ship on the transpacific route connecting Hong Kong, Yokohama and San Francisco. In its heyday, Qing laborers who crossed the sea to work on the gold rush and railroad construction, and their brides, filled the cabins and chattered in Cantonese. However, after the enactment of the Chinese Exclusion Law in 1882 and the so-called Yellow Peril movement, such customers disappeared. Nowadays, the main customers are foreign students, wealthy people who go on leisure trips, and traders, and there were times when the capacity was not enough.

"That's odd."

Henry Homer, captain of the Ulysses, muttered on deck.

According to his previous experience, he should have arrived at the port of San Francisco long ago, but he could not see the land. He can't go wrong. The direction of the rising sun, that is, the east. No matter how far he go, it's an ocean, and he can't reach the land.

Homer wasn't the only one to notice the anomaly. Some of the crew and some of the passengers who have made many round trips to the Pacific have also noticed. They asked Homer for an explanation, and Homer wanted the answer, too.

As he was at a loss, one of the sailors introduced him to a book. "Atlantis: The Antediluvian World" by an amateur scientist named Ignatius Donnelly. In that book. It says that there used to be a continent called Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean, but it sank into the sea due to a natural disaster. Homer didn't believe it, but if the North American continent had sunk to the bottom of the ocean as well, it would explain the anomaly.

But that wasn't the only strange thing. At night, just to be sure, Homer checked the positions of the stars.The result shocked Homer. He hurried back to the captain's cabin and said to his black cat:"Can you believe it, Hal? The star that is supposed to be there have disappeared, and instead, star that I've never seen have increased. Could it be that I've gone crazy?"

After the gigantic boar left, Bonnie couldn't see anything because of the dust. But she heard voices.

"Anybody here?"

Bonnie replied. "Yes."

There were other replies, but no Slim voice. Bonnie waited impatiently for the dust to clear. When her vision returned, it was just like a battlefield. Many corpses were lying around. These are the companions who were in good spirits until a while ago. It was still good to know that it was a corpse, and some had their heads crushed or torn off, and some were so destroyed that they could not retain their original shape and were minced.

Someone calls out to Bonnie, who is desperately looking for Slim.

"Young lady, I'm glad you're okay."

It was a man with round glasses. His thin eyes narrowed even further behind the lens. She also saw a gambler.There was also a black boy, holding an elephant gun to his chest, weeping and looking for an Englishman.

"Slim!!"

Bonnie found Slim under a pile of corpses. Bonnie rushed over to Slim and shook his body. Then Slim groaned.

"Slim!"

Slim seemed to be injured, but he was alive.

"Oh, Slim, Slim!

Bonnie squeezed Slim's hand and he regained consciousness.

"I was worried, Slim."

"Sorry......"

"Where does it hurt?"

"I don't know. I can't move my legs. Maybe they're broken."

"Aside from that?"