PROFESSOR HENDERSON REVEALS THE TRUTH
The force with which the flying machine had plunged into the chasm in
the ice was sufficient to smash her keel-fin to bits. There was other
damage done, too--how great this damage was the boys and the professor
could not immediately discover.
They were all alive--that was one thing to be thankful for. And
Washington White's Shanghai, aroused from sleep by the disturbance,
began to crow vociferously.
The _Snowbird_ was wedged into a very small space upon the ledge
of ice. At first view it was quite certain that she could not be
launched again from this position by any ordinary means. And the
steering gear was practically a wreck, so that she positively must be
repaired before attempting another flight.
Jack's wounds were dressed by Andy first of all. Mark and the professor
made some attempt to look over the wreckage. The disaster was so great
that Mark gave up hope.
"We're done for now!" he cried. "The poor _Snowbird_ is a wreck. And how
are we ever going to get out of this hole?"
"Hush, my boy!" admonished the professor. "Don't lose your grip. This
is truly a serious predicament; but we have been in tight places
before."
"Nothing worse than this," grumbled Mark. "Nor half so bad. How are
we going to get out of this chasm? Why, just as Washington says, we've
been swallowed up like a duck gobbling a June bug."
"This is certainly a bad situation," Phineas Roebach remarked. "But,
as the professor says, it isn't the worst that might happen."
"What worse could happen?" demanded Mark.
"Hold on! Don't you step too near the edge of this shelf," warned the
oil man. "If you step off and fall clear to the bottom of this crevasse
you'll probably find _that_ a good deal worse than our present position.
B-r-r! Isn't it cold?"
Two hundred feet below the surface of the ice river was indeed a cold
spot. Washington produced all the warm clothing there was aboard the
flying machine and all hands were glad to bundle up. Then the professor
suggested that the black man prepare some hot drink and a ration of
their food, while all gathered in the cabin for a discussion as to
their future course. "Our perilous situation is apparent," said
Professor Henderson, quietly. "But there is always more than one way
out of a serious predicament--sometimes there are a dozen ways."
"I'd like to hear of a dozen ways of getting out of this hole," murmured
Mark Sampson.
"Mr. Roebach," said the professor, ignoring the youth, "what do you
say? What is your advice?"
"The sun will be up in an hour, or thereabout. It's pretty dim down
here. Let us wait and see what daylight shows us," was the oil man's
reply.
"The moon--the _other_ moon--is just appearing," Jack said. "We'll
have light enough in a few minutes."
"Two moons! what do you think of that?" cried Mark.
"Are you sure, Jack?" queried the professor, eagerly.
"I just saw it peeking over the eastern cliffs while Andy was patching
me up." He carried one arm in a sling, and his other hand was bandaged.
"Then I must take an observation," ejaculated the professor, and seizing
some instruments he had arranged on the table he went out to where the
powerful telescope was adjusted.
"He's forgotten all about gittin' out of this hole in the ice," said
Andy. "I, for one, think we'd ought to take axes and begin to cut steps
up the wall. How else will we escape from the place?"
"The poor old _Snowbird_ cannot be repaired in a hurry, that is sure,"
muttered Mark.
"And this is no place to remain for fun," agreed Jack. "Suppose the
walls of the crack should shut together--where would we be?"
"Just about here, for fair!" said Phineas Roebach, grimly, while
Washington uttered a most mournful wail.
"Gollyation! Is we gotter be squeeged ter deaf in disher awful
cavernarious hole? Dis is suah a time ob trouble an' tribbilation."
They heard an exclamation from the professor and Jack led the way to
the open deck of the crippled flying machine. By chance the _Snowbird_
in landing had remained upright, her decks on a level. They found the
professor bending over some further calculations on a great sheet of
paper. Here, two hundred feet below the surface of the ice, the heavenly
bodies all looked brighter and more distinct than they had while the
aeroplane was in flight above the ground.
The strange new planet had not yet gone out of sight. From the east
the old moon was soaring steadily. There could be no mistaking the two
orbs, now that both were visible in the sky at once. The new planet
or moon was much larger than the real moon.
"What do you suppose that great planet is?" queried Jack.
The professor looked up from his calculations. His face was very pale;
his eyes glowed with excitement. The boys had seldom seen the old
gentleman so moved.
"You are right, my boy. A planet it surely is," he said to Jack.
"But why have we never seen it before?" demanded Mark.
"For a very good reason," returned the professor, solemnly. "We were
never in a position before to behold that planet, save on two
occasions."
"Then we have seen it twice before?" asked the puzzled Jack.
"On two occasions we have been enabled to stand off, as it were, and
look at that planet as though we were inhabitants of another world--when
we went to the moon, and when we went to Mars."
"What do you mean, Professor?" cried Mark.
"It's the earth!" exclaimed Jack Darrow. "It's the earth! We have left
the earth--is that it, Professor?"
The old scientist nodded. Phineas Roebach snorted his disbelief, while
Washington White gave vent to his trouble of mind most
characteristically:
"Goodness gracious gollyation! De fat am suah in de fiah now! We'se
done los' de earf an' Buttsy an' me will nebber see our happy home no
mo'."
"Oh, Professor! how could we have left the earth?" demanded Mark. "See!
we are standing upon it now; at least, this glacier is an ice-river
of Alaska, and Alaska has not been wiped off the map!"
"But that is exactly what has happened to it," said the professor,
earnestly. "At least, a part of Alaska--we do not know how much of
that territory, or how much other territory with it--is no longer a
part of the sphere called the earth."
Phineas Roebach looked at the old scientist as though he thought the
latter had taken leave of his senses. But Jack Darrow leaped to the
right conclusion.
"You mean, sir, that the earthquake and the volcanic eruption have
torn away some great fragment of the world, and we are on it?"
"That is what I mean."
"We are floating in space, then--an entirely new world? And _that_ is
the old world shining there in the sky?"
"That is what has happened, Jack," declared Professor Henderson, with
solemnity. "I suspected it when we first felt the lightness of the
atmosphere. I was convinced when I found the ether envelope of this
new world--this island in the air, as it were--was so thin. My
calculations regarding the rising of the moon, and the outlines of
objects upon the great globe hanging yonder, prove to my mind
conclusively that the awful cataclysm we endured, when we all completely
lost consciousness, was the time when the eruption occurred, and we,
with this great fragment of the earth, were blown out into space."
"It can't be! it can't be!" shouted Phineas Roebach. "We've lost our
heads, perhaps; but we haven't lost our hold on the earth. It's
nonsense!"
"I sincerely wish I could feel that same confidence, Mr. Roebach,"
said Professor Henderson, drily. "These instruments of mine, however,
cannot lie. It is a simple calculation to figure that the moon, now
just risen, is thousands of miles out of her course, if we are still
on the earth. No, Mr. Roebach, I am stating the exact truth when I say
that we have been blown off the earth by that awful volcanic eruption,
and that we are now floating on a torn-away world, or a new planet,
in space, doubtless hanging between the earth and the sun. We are as
unsafe as though we were on a wandering star, or meteor--only this
island is not afire. But in time we shall fall into one or the other
greater bodies of our system--of that end there can be no possible
doubt."