CHAPTER I

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PHARAOH'S BROKER

BEING THE VERY REMARKABLE EXPERIENCES

IN ANOTHER WORLD OF

ISIDOR WERNER

(WRITTEN BY HIMSELF)

EDITED, ARRANGED, AND WITH AN INTRODUCTION

BY ELLSWORTH DOUGLASS

[Device]

LONDON

C. ARTHUR PEARSON LIMITED

HENRIETTA STREET W.C.

1899

Transcriber's Note:

Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note.

Obsolete spellings have been retained. The oe ligature is

represented by [oe].

CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION: ELUSIVE TRUTH 7

BOOK I. SECRETS OF SPACE

CHAPTER

I. DR. HERMANN ANDERWELT 19

II. THE GRAVITY PROJECTILE 27

III. STRUCTURE OF THE PROJECTILE 37

IV. WHAT IS ON MARS? 48

V. FINAL PREPARATIONS 57

VI. FAREWELL TO EARTH 67

VII. THE TERRORS OF LIGHT 81

VIII. THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW 91

IX. TRICKS OF REFRACTION 99

X. THE TWILIGHT OF SPACE 108

XI. TELLING THE TIME BY GEOGRAPHY 117

XII. SPACE FEVER 126

XIII. THE MYSTERY OF A MINUS WEIGHT 141

BOOK II. OTHER WORLD LIFE

I. WHY MARS GIVES A RED LIGHT 157

II. THE TERROR BIRDS 170

III. TWO OF US AGAINST THE ARMIES OF MARS 182

IV. THE STRANGE BRAVERY OF MISS BLANK 192

V. ZAPHNATH, RULER OF THE KEMI 204

VI. THE IRON MEN FROM THE BLUE STAR 220

VII. PARALLEL PLANETARY LIFE 240

VIII. A PLAGIARIST OF DREAMS 249

IX. GETTING INTO THE CORNER 260

X. HUMANITY ON PTAH 275

XI. REVOLUTIONIST AND EAVESDROPPER 283

XII. THE DOCTOR DISAPPEARS 292

XIII. THE REVELATION OF HOTEP 304

INTRODUCTION

Elusive Truth

It was the Chicago _Tribune_ of June 13th, 189-, which contained this

paragraph under the head-line: "Big Broker Missing!"

"The friends of Isidor Werner, a young man prominent in Board of

Trade circles, are much concerned about him, as he has not been seen

for several days. He made his last appearance in the wheat pit as a

heavy buyer Tuesday forenoon. That afternoon he left his office at

Room 87 Board of Trade, and has not been seen since, nor can his

whereabouts be learned. He is six feet two inches high, of athletic

build, with black hair and moustache, a regular nose, and an

unpronounced Jewish appearance. His age is hardly more than

twenty-seven, but he has often made himself felt as a market force on

the Board of Trade, where he was well thought of."

But it was the _Evening Post_ of the same date which prided itself on

unearthing the real sensation. A scare-head across the top of a first

page column read:

"A PLUNGER'S LAST PLUNGE!"

"The daring young broker who held the whole wheat market in his hands

a few months ago, amassing an independent fortune in three days, but

losing most of it gamely on subsequent changes in the market, has

made his last plunge. This time he has gone into the cold, kind bosom

of Lake Michigan. Isidor Werner evened up his trades in the wheat

market last Tuesday forenoon, and then applied for his balance-sheet

at a higher clearing house! No trace of him or clue to his

whereabouts was found, until the _Evening Post_, on the principle of

setting one mystery to solve another, sent its representative to

examine a strange steel rocket, discovered half-buried in the sands

of Lake Michigan, near Berrien Springs, two days ago. Our reporter

investigated this bullet-shaped contrivance and found an opening into

it, and within he discovered a scrap of paper on which were written

the words: 'Farewell to Earth for ever!' Werner's friends, when

interviewed by the _Evening Post_, all positively identified the

handwriting of this scrap as his chirography. It is supposed that he

took an excursion steamer to St. Joseph, Michigan, last Tuesday or

Wednesday afternoon, and walking down the shore toward Berrien

Springs, finally threw himself into the Lake. Neither Israel Werner,

with whom the dead man lived on Indiana Avenue, nor Patrick Flynn,

the chief clerk at his office, can give any reason for the suicide,

or explain the exact connection of the infernal machine (if such it

be) with the sad circumstance. But they both positively identify the

handwriting on the scrap of paper. We have wired our representative

to bring the mysterious machine to Chicago; and those who think they

may be able to throw any light upon the case, are invited to call at

the office of the _Evening Post_ and examine it."

The _Inter Ocean_ developed a theory that the suicide was only a

pretended one for the purpose of fraudulently collecting life insurance

policies. It was cited that Isidor Werner had insured his life for more

than $100,000, and this in spite of the fact that he had no family,

parents, brothers or sisters to provide for; but had taken the policies

in favour of his uncle, Israel Werner, and in case of his prior death,

in favour of a cousin, Ruth Werner. This theory gained but little

currency among those who knew the man best, and although the insurance

companies prepared to resist payment of the policies to the bitter end,

yet, as time went on, no one attempted to prove his death, nor to claim

the handsome sum which would result from it. Moreover, Israel Werner and

his daughter Ruth, the beneficiaries under the policies, persisted in

believing that their relative was yet alive, though they could give no

good reasons for so believing, nor explain his disappearance.

In its issue of June 15th the _Tribune_ scouted the idea of suicide

altogether. It had a better and more plausible theory of the case.

Isidor Werner had a large sum of money in the Corn Exchange Bank,

drawing interest by the year. In case of either a premeditated or a

pretended suicide he would most certainly have withdrawn, and made some

disposition of, this money. In fact, he had, on the day of his

disappearance, drawn out five thousand dollars of it in gold. For this

coin the _Tribune_ believed he had been murdered, and that they had a

clue to the murderer. The vanished man had several times been seen in

the company of a suspicious German, of intelligent but erratic

appearance. This queer character lived in a hotbed of socialism on the

West Side, and the young broker was supposed to be in his power. In

fact, it was known for certain that the erratic German had secured a

large sum of money from him, and that Werner had visited his rooms in

the slums of the West Side more than once. Moreover, the two had made a

secret railway journey together two days before the disappearance, and

on the very day that Werner was last seen, the German had fled his

lodgings without giving any explanation of his departure to his few

acquaintances. When the _Tribune_ reporter called at these lodgings, the

landlord still had in his possession a gold eagle, with which the German

had paid his rent, and in the grate of the deserted room were the

charred remains of burnt papers. One of these was a rather firm, crisp

cinder, and had been a blue-print of a drawing. As nearly as could be

judged, from its shrivelled state, it appeared to be the plan of some

infernal machine. The name of the fugitive was Anderwelt, and he called

himself a doctor. Further investigations were being carried on by the

_Tribune_, which promised to prove beyond a doubt that he was the

murderer of Isidor Werner.

But the _Evening Post_ still held the palm for sensations, and I copy

verbatim from its columns of June 15th:

"It is rare that a newspaper, dealing strictly in facts, has to

record anything so closely bordering on the supernatural and

mysterious as that which we must now relate. The following facts,

however, are vouched for by the entire editorial department of the

_Evening Post_, and many of them by several hundred witnesses. We

begin by apologising to the hundreds who have called at this office

and have been unable to see the Werner infernal machine. We gave it

that name in a thoughtless jest, but its subsequent actions have more

than justified the title. Our reporter brought it from Berrien

Springs, as directed, and deposited it in the court of the _Evening

Post_ building. As is quite generally known, this court is a central

well in the building, affording ventilation and light to the interior

offices, from every one of which can be seen what goes on in it. The

well is spanned by a glass roof above the eighth storey. In this

court, at eleven o'clock this morning, the entire editorial and a

large part of the business staff of this paper, repaired, to examine

the mysterious rocket-like thing. A little lid was opened, showing

the recess where the tell-tale scrap of paper, written by Werner, had

been found. Inside there seemed to be a pair of peculiar battery

cells, whose exact nature was hidden by the outer shell. Outside

there were several thumb-screws, which were turned both ways without

any apparent effect. While making this examination the machine had

been set up on its lower end, and when it was again laid down it

_refused to lie on its side_, but persisted in _standing erect of its

own accord_. This was the more wonderful because the lower end was

not flat, so that it would afford a good base, but was pointed. More

than a hundred people saw it stand up on this sharp tip, saw it lift

up light weights which were placed upon it to hold it on its side,

and saw it quickly right itself when it was placed vertically but

wrong end down.

"Thinking this queer property had been contributed to it in some way

by loosening the thumb-screws, they were next all set down as tightly

as possible, to see if this tendency to erectness would be lost.

Then, to the astonishment of every one in the court, and of several

hundred people who were by this time watching from the interior

windows, this infernal machine, without any explosion, burning of

gases, or any apparent force acting upon it, slowly _rose from the

ground_, and then, travelling more swiftly, _shot through the roof of

glass_ and vanished from sight! Nor has the most diligent search

enabled us to recover it. Does it possess the secret of Isidor

Werner's death?"

But the Chicago _Herald_ had been working thoroughly and saying little

until its issue of June 16th, when it claimed the credit of solving the

whole mystery. Its long article lies before me as I write: There had

been no suicide; there had been no murder; there had been no infernal

machine. Doctor Anderwelt was a learned man, and the warm personal

friend of Isidor Werner. Both men had shared the same fate; they might

yet be alive, but they were certainly _at the bottom of Lake Michigan

together_! They were imprisoned there in a sunken submarine boat, which

was the invention of Doctor Anderwelt, and was built with funds

furnished by the young broker. The foundryman who had constructed the

big torpedo-shaped contrivance had been interviewed. He knew both men,

and they were on the most friendly terms. In a moment of confidence

Doctor Anderwelt had told him the machine was for submarine exploration;

had explained the four-winged rudder, which would make it dive into the

water, rise to the surface, or direct it to right or to left. Moreover,

there were closed living compartments, around which were chambers

containing a supply of air. He himself had pumped them full of

compressed air, and it was so arranged that foul air could be let out

when used and new air admitted. When all had been finished the

foundryman had shipped the new invention, _via_ the Michigan Southern

Railway, to the shore of the Lake near Whiting, Indiana. Next the

_Herald_ had sought and found the conductor whose train had hauled it to

Whiting. He remembered switching off the flat-car there, and he was

surprised on his return trip next morning to see the heavy thing already

unloaded and gone.

Undoubtedly, the two men had made an experiment with the diving boat

under the surface of the water; and its failure to operate as hoped had

resulted in its sinking to the bottom, with the two men imprisoned in

it. On no other hypothesis could its disappearance, and that of the two

men, be so plausibly accounted for. But as they had stores of air, and

probably of food, there was a possibility that they were still alive

inside the thing in the bottom of the Lake! Only three days had elapsed

since it had been launched, and the _Herald_ was willing to head a

subscription to drag the Lake and send divers to search for and rescue

the two unfortunate men!

All this serves to illustrate the untiring energy of newspaper

investigation, as well as the remarkable fertility of journalistic

imagination; for none of these clever theories hit at the real truth, or

explained the correct bearing of the astonishing facts which the

newspapers had so industriously unearthed.

And if the mystery of the disappearance of Isidor Werner was uncommonly

deep and wonderful, the explanation and final solution of it is not less

marvellous. After a delay of more than six years, it has just now come

into my hands whole and perfect. It is in no less satisfactory form than

a complete manuscript written by the very hand of Isidor Werner! I came

strangely into possession of it, and it relates a story of interest and

wonder, compared with which the mystery of his disappearance pales into

insignificance. But the reader may judge for himself, for here follows

the story exactly as he wrote it. Upon his manuscript I have bestowed

hardly more than a proof-reader's technical revision.

ELLSWORTH DOUGLASS.

BOSTON, U.S.A.,

_December 13th, 1898._

BOOK I

Secrets of Space

CHAPTER I

Dr. Hermann Anderwelt

I had been busy all day trying to swarm the bees and secure my honey.

The previous day had been February 29th, a date which doesn't often

happen, and which I had especial reason to remember, for it had been the

most successful of my business career. I had made a long guess at the

shaky condition of the great house of Slater, Bawker & Co., who had been

heavy buyers of wheat. I had talked the market down, sold it down,

hammered it down; and, true enough, what nobody else seemed to expect

really happened. The big firm failed, the price of wheat went to smash

in a panic of my mixing, and, as a result, I saw a profit of more than

two hundred thousand dollars in the deal. But, in order to secure this

snug sum, I still had to buy back the wheat I had sold at higher prices,

and this I didn't find so easy. The crowd in the wheat pit had seen my

hand, and were letting me play it alone against them all.

After the session I hurried to my office to get my overcoat and hat,

having an engagement to lunch at the Club.

"If you please, Mr. Werner, there is a queer old gentleman in your

private office who wishes to see you," said Flynn, my chief clerk.

"Ask him to call again to-morrow; I am in a great hurry to-day," I said,

slipping on one sleeve of my overcoat as I started out.

"But he has been waiting in there since eleven o'clock, and said he very

much wished to see you when you had plenty of time. He would not allow

me to send on the floor for you during the session."

"Since eleven o'clock! Did he have his lunch and a novel sent up? Well,

I can hardly run away from a man who has waited three and a half hours

to see me;" and I entered my private office with my overcoat on.

Seated in my deep, leathern arm-chair was an elderly man, with rather

long and bushy iron-grey hair, and an uneven grey beard. His head

inclined forward, he breathed heavily, and was apparently fast asleep.

"You will pardon my awaking you, but I never do business asleep!" I

ventured rather loudly.

Slowly the steel-blue eyes opened, and, without any start or

discomposure, the old man answered,--

"And I--my most successful enterprises are developed in my dreams."

His features and his accent agreed in pronouncing him German. He arose

calmly, buttoned the lowest button of his worn frock-coat, and, instead

of extending his hand to me, he poked it inside his coat, letting it

hang heavily on the single button. It was a lazy but characteristic

attitude. It tended to make his coat pouch and his shoulders droop. I

remembered having seen it somewhere before.

"Mr. Werner, I have a matter of the deepest and vastest importance to

unfold to you," he began, rather mysteriously, "for which I desire five

hours of your unemployed time----"

"Five hours!" I interrupted. "You do not know me! That much is hard to

find without running into the middle of the night, or into the middle of

the day--which is worse for a busy man. I have just five minutes to

spare this afternoon, which will be quite time enough to tell me who you

are and why you have sought me."

"You do not know me because you do not expect to see me on this

hemisphere," he continued. "Nor did I expect to find you a potent force

in the commercial world, only three years after a literary and

linguistic preparation for a scholarly career. Why, the _maedchens_ of

Heidelberg have hardly had time to forget your tall, athletic figure, or

ceased wondering if you were really a Hebrew----"

"You seem to be altogether familiar with my history," I put in with a

little heat. "Kindly enlighten me equally well as to your own."

"I gave you the pleasure of an additional year of residence at the

University of Heidelberg not long ago," he answered.

"I do not know how that can be, for to my uncle I owe my entire

education there."

"Perhaps an unappreciated trifle of it you owe to your instructors and

lecturers. Do you forget that I refused to pass your examinations in

physics, and kept you there a year longer?"

"You are not Doctor Anderwelt, then?"

"Hermann Anderwelt, Ph.D., at your service, sir," he replied somewhat

proudly.

"But when and why did you leave your chair at Heidelberg?"

"It is to answer this that I ask the five hours," he said slowly.

"Oh, come now, doctor, you used to tell me more in a two-hour lecture

than I could remember in a week," I answered, taking off my overcoat,

and touching an electric button at my desk. My office boy entered.

"Teddy, have I had lunch to-day?" This was my favourite question on a

busy day, and Teddy always answered it seriously.

"No, sir, you have an engagement to lunch at the Standard Club," he

replied.

"Telephone to Gus at the Club that I can't come up to-day. Also send

over to the Grand Pacific for a good lunch for two. Have some beer in

it--real Munchner, and in _steins_," I directed, and then I reclined on

a long leather lounge, and motioned to the doctor to have a chair. He

declined, however, and walked slowly back and forth before me as he

talked, keeping his right hand inside his coat, and with the left he

occasionally ploughed up his heavy hair, as if to ventilate his brain.

"A year ago I gave up theoretical physics for applied physics; I

resigned my chair at Heidelberg, and came to this progressive city. I

brought with me a working model of the greatest invention of this

inventive age. Yet it was then neither perfect in design nor complete in

detail. But now I have hit on the plan that makes it practicable and

certain of success. I need only a little money to build it, and the

world will open its eyes!"

"But you must pardon me if instead of opening mine I shut them," I

interrupted, seeing the point quickly, and losing no time in dodging. "I

have no money to invest in patent rights; but still, you must stay to

lunch with me."

Just here the doctor seemed to find it necessary to diverge from the

orderly course of his lecture as he had prepared it, and interject a few

impromptu observations.

"Events are difficult to forecast, but the capabilities of a youth are

harder to divine. One educates his son in all the fine arts, and he

turns out a founder of pig iron. One's nephew is apprenticed to a

watchmaker, and in a few years, behold, he is a great barrister. Your

uncle educated you thoroughly in the old Hebrew and Chaldee of the

rabbis, and, lo! you are now the _ursa major_ of the wheat market.

"Just now you are in the centre of the kaleidoscope of success. Slater,

Bawker & Co. were there a month ago, but now they are only bits of

broken glass in the bottom of the heap! And you? you are really a

twisted bit of coloured glass like the rest, but you chance to be thrown

to the middle. The mirrors of public opinion multiply your importance

half a dozen times, and behold you are reflected into the whole picture.

But the kaleidoscope turns, and the pieces of glass are shifted. Other

broken chips now at the bottom of the heap will soon be filling the

centre!

"Permit me to change my figure of speech. You are sweeping back the

waves of the sea while the tide is falling, and the wide-mouthed public

looks on, and whispers about that your broom makes all the waves obey,

and drives them back at will. Just when you begin to believe it yourself

the tide may turn, and neither brooms nor all the powers on earth can

then sweep it back.

"Isidor Werner, you believe yourself rich; but your wealth is like

molasses in a sieve. If you do not dip in your finger and taste the

sweet occasionally, you will have nothing to show for your pains in the

end. I shall ask you for but a taste of the sweet now, so that I may

preserve a little of it against that day which may come, when the sieve

will be bright and clean and empty again!"

There was a knock at the door.

"Come in!" I shouted. "Nothing but this lunch can save me from your

eloquence. You have already ruined me in three similes!"

The waiter arranged a bountiful and tempting luncheon on a writing

table. I commenced on it at once, but the doctor, though repeatedly

urged, persistently refused. He took a long draught at a _stein_ of

Munich beer, and continued:--

"My invention proposes to navigate the air and the ether beyond, as well

as the interplanetary spaces," he said impressively.

"Flying machine, eh?" I sneered, between bites of planked whitefish.

"Indeed no!" he growled, as if he detested this name. "My invention is

not a machine but a projectile. It is not self-propelling, because if it

depended upon its own propelling apparatus, it could not in thousands of

years navigate the interplanetary spaces. It is a _gravity projectile_,

and will travel at a rate of speed almost incalculable. It does not fly,

but its manner of travelling is more nearly like falling."

I gave the doctor a quick searching look to see if I could discover any

signs of incipient insanity. I met a firm, steady gaze; an earnest,

convincing look. Somehow, I felt there was something real and true and

wonderful about to come from the great scholar before me, and that I

must hear it and hear it all; that I must lend a serious and thoughtful

attention. My eyes were rivetted upon the doctor's for fully a minute in

silence.

"Go on," I said at last; "I am all attention."

CHAPTER II

The Gravity Projectile

Hermann Anderwelt had probably suffered many disappointments and waited

long for a hearing. Now he seemed to feel that his opportunity had come,

for he continued with growing enthusiasm:--

"Hitherto all attempts at space travelling have been too timid or

puerile. We have experimented at aerial navigation, as if the brief span

of air were a step in the mighty distance which separates us from our

sister planets. As well might steamboats have been invented to cross

narrow streams, and never have ventured on the mighty ocean! We have

tried to imitate the bird, the kite, and the balloon, and our

experiments have failed, and always must, so long as we do not look

farther and think deeper. Every Icarus who attempts to overcome the

force of gravity, which conquers planets, and propel himself through the

air by any sort of apparatus, will always finish the trip with a wiser

but badly bruised head."

"Still, it has been freely predicted," I ventured, "that this century

will not close without the invention of a successful air-travelling

machine."

"And I alone have hit upon the right plan, because I have not attempted

to _struggle against_ gravity, but have made use of it only for

propelling my projectile!" exclaimed the doctor triumphantly.

"But wait!" I interposed. "Gravity acts only in one direction, and that

is exactly opposite to the one you propose to travel."

"That brings me to the very important discovery I made in physics two

years ago, upon which the whole success of the projectile rests. You

will remember that, according to the text-books, very little is known

about gravity except the laws of its action. What it is, and how it can

be controlled or modified, have never been known. Electricity was as

much a mystery fifty years ago, but we know all its attributes. We can

make it, store it, control it, and use it for almost every necessity of

life. The era of electricity is in full bloom, but the era of

gravitational force is just budding."

"Can it be that we have as much to learn from gravity as electricity has

taught us in the last half-century?" I exclaimed, as my eyes began to

open.

"I believe it will teach us far more wonderful things, because it will

take us to unknown worlds, while electricity has been confined to Earth.

Its realm is the wide universe. It will show us what life there is on

the planets. It will make us at home with the stars.

"What!" he continued in a sort of ecstasy. "Do you think all great

discoveries are over, all wonderful inventions made? As well might a

trembling child, elated with the success of its first feeble steps

alone, suppose it had exhausted all the possibilities of life. We are

but spelling over the big letters on the title page of the primary book

of knowledge. There be other pages and grander chapters further on.

There be greater volumes, and sweeter, more expressive tongues which man

may learn some day.

"Has a reasoning Divinity created the heavens and peopled the myriad

stars with thinking, capable beings, who must be perpetually isolated?

Or may they not know each other some time? But shall we attempt to sail

the vast heavens with a paper kite, or try to fly God's distances with

the wings of fluttering birds? Nay; we must use God's engine for such a

task. Has He tied the planets to the sun, and knitted the suns and their

systems into one great universe obedient to a single law, with no

possibility that we may use that law for intercommunication? With what

wings do the planets fly around the sun, and the suns move through the

heavens? With the wings of gravity! The same force for minute satellite

or mighty sun. It is God's omnipotence applied to matter. Let us fly

with that!"

"But will you permit me to suggest that we are soaring before the

projectile is built?" I put in.

"Quite right. Let us come back to Earth, and return to facts. My studies

in physics led me to believe that all natural forces--gravity,

centrifugal force, and even capillary attraction--are, like electricity

and magnetism, both positive and negative in their action. If they do

not normally alternate between a positive and negative current, as

electricity does, they can be made to do so. Gravity and capillary

attraction, as we know them, always act positively; that is, they always

_attract_. On the other hand, centrifugal force always acts negatively;

that is, it always _repels_. But each of these forces, I believe, can

temporarily be made to act opposite to its usual manner. I know this to

be the case with gravity, for I have caused its positive and negative

currents to alternate; that is, I have made it repel and then attract,

and so on, at will, by changing the polarity of the body which it acts

upon."

"Now that I remember it," I added, "our original ideas of magnetism were

that it simply attracted. We knew the lodestone drew the steel, but only

on better acquaintance did we learn of its alternating currents,

attractive and repellant."

"I have positively demonstrated with my working model that I can reverse

the force of gravity acting upon the model, and make it sail away into

space. I will show you this whenever you like. It is so arranged that

the polarizing action ceases in three minutes, after which the positive

current controls, and the model falls to the Earth again."

"But have you ever attempted a trip yet?" I inquired.

"Oh, no. The model was not built to carry me, but it has demonstrated

all the important facts, and I now need ten thousand dollars to build

one large enough to carry several persons, and to equip it with

everything necessary to make a trip to one of the planets. With a man

inside to control the currents, it will be far more easily managed than

the experimental model has been."

"Suppose you had the projectile built, and everything was ready for a

start," I said, "what would be the method of working it?"

"I should enter the forward compartment," began the doctor.

"But would you make the trial trip yourself?"

"I certainly would not trust the secret of operating the currents to any

one else," he remarked, with emphasis. "And will you accompany me in the

rear compartment?"

"No, indeed; unless you will promise to return in time for the following

day's market," I replied.

"Then I shall engage some adventurous fellow as assistant. First, we

must set the rudder, which is both horizontal and vertical, so that the

projectile can be steered up, down, or to either side. Having fixed it

so as to be directed a little upward, I begin with the currents.

Suppose the projectile weighs a ton, I gradually neutralize the positive

current, which we are acquainted with as gravity. When it is exactly

neutralized, the projectile weighs nothing, and the pressure of the air

is enough to make it rise more rapidly than a balloon. When I have

created a negative current, the projectile acquires a buoyancy equal to

its previous weight. That is, it will now _fall up_ as rapidly as it

would previously have fallen down. It will not do to put on the full

negative current at once, for we should acquire a velocity that would

simply burn us up by friction with the atmosphere. However, the air is

soon passed; if in the ether beyond there is very little friction, or

none at all, we shall go at full speed, which will be the constantly

increasing velocity of a falling body.

"Somewhere between the Earth and the nearest planet," he continued,

"there is a place where the attraction of one is just equal to the

attraction of the other; and if a body is stopped in that fatal spot it

will be anchored there for ever, by the equally matched forces tugging

in opposite directions. There is such a dead line between all the

planets, and our principal danger lies in falling into one of these, for

we should remain there a twinkling star throughout eternity! We must

trust to our momentum to carry us past this point, and into space where

the gravitational attraction of the other planet is paramount. Then we

must promptly change our current from negative to positive, so that the

other planet will attract us to her. Otherwise, she would repel us back

to the dead line.

"With a positive current we are now literally falling into the new

planet. We need not land unless we wish, for as soon as we enter a

resisting atmosphere we can steer a course lacking barely a quarter of

being directly away from the planet, just as you can sail a boat three

quarters against the wind."

"But suppose you experiment at making a landing on this new planet?" I

suggested.

"Very well. Of course, as soon as we enter an atmosphere, it behoves us

to travel slowly to avoid overheating. We can still safely travel

several hundred miles an hour, however. We continue falling until rather

near the planet; then, turning the rudder gently down, we can sail

around and around the planet until we choose our landing place. Gently

reversing currents, a mild negative one soon overcomes our momentum.

Tempering our currents experimentally to the pressure of the air, we

can, if we desire, float like a feather and be wafted with every breeze.

Just a suspicion of a positive current brings us gently to the surface,

and, when we have cooled, we unscrew the rear port-hole and crawl out to

explore a new world."

I had mentally made the trip, and was not only intensely interested, but

infinitely pleased. I was lost for some time with my imagination on the

new sphere, but presently my mind returned to the practical side of the

question, and I inquired,--

"Are you quite sure that ten thousand dollars will be sufficient to

build and fully equip the projectile?"

"Yes, quite certain," he answered with decision. "It will be ample for

that and for the expenses of forming a corporation to own my patents and

exploit the invention. It is easy to see the projectile will be cheap of

construction. No machinery is necessary; no strong building to withstand

enormous shocks or anything of that kind. The principal expenditures

will be for stores of food and for scientific and astronomical

instruments. Of course, I wish to show you my working model and my plans

for the practical projectile, and to explain to you many further

details."

It was growing dark. I arose, turned on the electric light, and rang my

bell. The office boy entered.

"Teddy, tell all the boys they may go, except Flynn. Ask him to wait,

please."

I was quite used to making ten thousand dollar bargains in a few seconds

of time and without the scratch of a pen. I had risked more money than

that on the fact that Slater looked worried and Bawker was very cross

when at his office, and it had won immensely. But here, what a prospect,

what a far-reaching, all-encircling prospect it was! No time was to be

lost; besides, there was pleasure to me in driving a good bargain and

driving it quickly.

"And if I give you the ten thousand dollars, what do I get in return?" I

asked, mentally placing my part at fifty-five per cent. of the shares at

the lowest, so that I might control the company.

"You may organize the corporation yourself. The projectile must bear my

name, and I must have the credit for all discoveries and inventions.

Then you may give me such a part of the shares of the company as you

think right," he replied.

On hearing this, I mentally advanced my portion to seventy-five per

cent. Then I said,--

"When the projectile is built and proves successful, who is to manage

the affairs of the company? Who is to finance it and raise further funds

for exploiting its business?"

"I have no capacity for business," he declared. "I have no ambition to

be a Pullman or an Edison. I would rather see myself a Franklin or a

Fulton. You shall manage all the business affairs."

"Then I will undertake the whole matter, and give you my cheque for ten

thousand dollars to-night, provided you allow me--ninety-five per cent.

of the company's shares!" I said, simulating a burst of generosity.

Doctor Anderwelt ploughed his hair and harrowed his beard. He knew this

was giving too much, but to have the projectile built, to sail away, to

make all those grand new discoveries, to write books, and have future

generations pronounce his name reverently along with Kepler and Newton!

I did not believe he would have the courage to say no. While he

meditated, my bell summoned Flynn.

"Please draw a cheque for ten thousand dollars to the order of Hermann

Anderwelt," I said, watching the doctor as I spoke. There was indecision

in his face.

"Suppose I allow you, say, ninety per cent.?" he said at last.

I was signing the cheque Flynn had brought me. "Done!" I cried, handing

it over. He scanned it carefully, and after a long time said,--

"Mars is nearest to the Earth on the third day of next August.

Fortunately Chicago is a good place to do things in a hurry. The

projectile must be ready to start early in June, but its construction

and its first trip must be kept a profound secret."

The doctor must have been hungry since noon. He began munching a chicken

sandwich. The cold planked whitefish tasted quite as good as smoked

herrings, perhaps, and strawberry short-cake in March was a luxury which

he evidently appreciated.

CHAPTER III

Structure of the Projectile

A few weeks later I received a letter from Dr. Anderwelt asking me to

call at his rooms on the West Side that afternoon, as soon as the market

had closed. He desired to exhibit and explain the drawings of the new

projectile and talk over the preparations for the trip. I had been so

engrossed with every sort of worry that I had thought but little of the

doctor and his grand schemes of late. But now I was anxious to know what

progress he was making. Sometimes I felt that I had been foolish to put

any money into the thing; but the doctor's idea of reversing gravity was

so simple and so elemental, that I marvelled it had never occurred to

scientists before.

After the market I hunted up the street and number the doctor had given

me, and found a little, dingy boarding-house, lost among machine shops

and implement factories, near the west side of the river. In a

third-floor back room, with one small window looking out on dark, sooty

buildings and belching chimneys, Dr. Anderwelt was thinking out all the

incidental problems, and preparing for all the emergencies that might

arise on a trip of some forty million miles, through unknown space, to a

strange planet whose composition was unguessed.

The walls of the room were soiled and bare, except for blue-prints of

drawings from which the projectile was being built in neighbouring

foundries. There were but two plain, hard chairs in the room. The doctor

sat on one with a pillow doubled up under him for a cushion. He was

bending over a draughting board, which was propped up on the bed during

the day and went under it at night.

Three flights of steep stairs had taken my breath, and I dropped into

the other hard chair and exclaimed,--

"I say, Doctor, why didn't you take an office in the twelfth heaven of a

modern office building over in town, where they have elevators? I have

really forgotten how to climb stairs. Didn't I furnish you money enough

to do this thing right?"

"Don't you think this is a good place?" he inquired in some surprise.

"The rent is cheap, and it is convenient to the work. But speaking of

elevators, we are going to revolutionize all that. No more hoisting or

hydraulic lifts after we apply our ideas to the lifting of these

elevator cages!"

"I am afraid this idea of negative gravity is apt to revolutionize

everything, and generally upset the entire universe," I replied. "I

have been wondering what would happen if you were to apply a negative

current to this Earth of ours and send it whirling out of its orbit, an

ostracised Pariah, repelled by all the celestial bodies!"

"Not the slightest danger of any such calamity," he answered. "The

reversal of polarity can only be accomplished with comparatively small

and insignificant masses. It would be impossible to impart a negative

condition even to the smallest satellite. Our projectile will weigh but

a few thousand pounds, compared to the millions of tons of the smallest

celestial bodies. The Creator has looked out for the stability of the

universe, never fear for that! And He has also given us a few hints of

negative currents and repellant gravities in the form of meteorites and

falling stars, which cannot be so well explained by any other theory.

But what I want to talk to you about is the vital importance of

providing against every possible emergency before starting on this trip

through space. A trifling oversight in the preparations may mean death

in the end, and things we put no value on here we might be willing to

give a fortune for on Mars!"

"Well, let's hear how this thing is built," I said, rising and facing

the larger blue-print. "So that's the shape of it, is it? Looks like a

cigar!"

"Yes, the design resembles that of a torpedo considerably," replied the

doctor, and referring to the sectional blue-print he began explaining

the construction.

"This outer covering is a crust of graphite or black lead, inside which

is a two-inch layer of asbestos. Both of these resist enormous heats,

and they will prevent our burning by friction with atmospheres, and

protect us against extremes of cold. Also, when we are ready, they will

enable us to visit planets about whose cooled condition we are not

certain. We might touch safely for a short time on a molten planet with

this covering.

"Next comes the general outer framework of steel, just within which, and

completely surrounding the living compartments, are the chambers for the

storage of condensed air for use on the trip. These chambers are lined

inside with another layer of asbestos. Now, air being a comparatively

poor conductor of heat, and asbestos one of the best non-conductors we

know of, this insures a stable temperature of the living compartments,

regardless of the condition without, whether of extreme heat or extreme

cold. Afterward comes the inner framework of steel, and lastly a

wainscotting of hard wood to give the compartments a finish."

"How large are these living rooms?" I inquired.

"The rear one is four feet high and eight feet long. The forward one,

designed for my own use, is longer, and must contain a good-size

telescope and all my scientific instruments. The apparatus with which I

produce the currents is built into the left wall, and it acts on the

steel work of the projectile only. The rear compartment has a sideboard

for preparing meals, which will have to be wholly of bread, biscuits,

and various tinned vegetables and meats. We shall not attempt any

cooking."

"But are there no windows for looking out?" I queried.

"Certainly, there are two of them, made of thick mica. One is directly

in the front end, through which my telescope will look. The other is in

the port-hole in the rear end. Each window is provided with an outer

shutter of asbestos, which can be closed in case of great heat or cold.

You will notice the two compartments can be separated by an air-tight

plunger, fitting into the aperture between them. It will be necessary

for both of us to occupy the same compartment while the air is being

changed in the other. The foul air will be forced outside by a powerful

pump until a partial vacuum is created. Then a certain measure of

condensed air is emptied in, and expands until the barometer in that

compartment indicates a proper pressure."

"The air will be made to order while you wait, then?" I put in.

"That is exactly what will be done in a more literal manner than you may

suppose!" exclaimed the doctor. "This air problem is a most interesting

one, for we must educate ourselves on the trip to use the sort of

atmosphere we expect to find when we land. For instance, going to Mars

we must use an atmosphere more and more rarefied each day, until

gradually we become used to the thin air we expect to find there. Of

course, there is an especially designed barometer and thermometer,

capable of being read in the rear compartment, but exposed outside near

the rudder. The barometer will give us the pressure of the earthly

atmosphere as it becomes more and more rare with our ascent. It will

show us what pressure there is of the ether, which may vary

considerably, depending on our nearness to heavenly bodies. It will also

immediately indicate to us when we are entering any new atmosphere. When

we have arrived at Mars, we shall observe the exact pressure of the

Martian air, and then manufacture one of the same pressure inside, and

try breathing it before we venture out. The thermometer will give us the

temperature of the ether, will indicate the loss of heat as we leave the

sun, and will show us the Martian temperature before we venture into

it."

"But you have said the condensed air will be used to resist the outer

heat. This will certainly make it so hot it will be unfit to breathe," I

interposed.

"Ah, but you forget that the quick expansion of a gaslike air produces

cold. We shall regulate our temperature in that way. If it is becoming

too warm inside, the new measure of condensed air will be quickly

introduced into the partial vacuum, and its sudden expansion will

produce great cold, and freeze ice for us if we wish it. On the other

hand, if the compartments are already cold, we shall allow the condensed

air to enter very gradually, and its slow expansion will produce but

little cold. The question of heating the projectile is the most

difficult one I have found. We cannot have any fires, for there is no

way for the smoke to escape, and we cannot carry oxygen enough to keep

them burning. I have decided that we must depend on the heat arising

from outer friction and from absorption of the Sun's rays by our black

surface. When we are in ether where friction is very little, the

velocity will be all the greater, and I believe we shall always be warm

enough. You must remember, we shall not have the slightest suspicion of

a draught, and we must necessarily take along the warmest clothing for

use on Mars. Even then we probably cannot safely visit any but his

equatorial districts."

"This is the rudder, I suppose; but haven't you put it in wrong end

first?" I asked. "It is just the opposite of a fish's tail. You have the

widened end near the projectile and the narrow end extending."

"Yes, and with good reason. You will note that the rudder slides into

the rear end of the projectile so that none of it extends out. This is a

variable steering apparatus, adapted to every sort of atmosphere.

Naturally, a rudder that would steer in the water, might not steer the

same craft in the air. There is probably a vaster difference between air

and ether than between water and air. It is necessary, therefore, to

have a small rudder with but little extending surface in thick

atmosphere; but when it becomes thinner the rudder must be pushed out,

so that a greater surface will offer resistance. When we start, the

smallest portion of this rudder moved but the sixteenth of an inch, up,

down, or to either side, will quickly change our course correspondingly.

When we have reached the ether, the full surface of the rudder pushed

out and exposed broadside may not have much effect in changing our

course. This is one of the things that we cannot possibly know till we

try. However, if ether is anything at all but a name, if it is the

thinnest, lightest conceivable gas, and we are rushing through it at a

speed of a thousand miles a minute, our rudder certainly should have

some effect."

"But suppose you cannot steer at all in the ether, what then?" I

interposed, hunting all the trouble possible.

"Even that will not be so very dreadful, provided we have taken a true

course for Mars while coming through the Earth's atmosphere. There is no

other planet or star nearer to us than Mars when in opposition.

Therefore there will be nothing to attract us out of our correct course;

and if we can manage to come anywhere near the true course, the

gravitational attraction of Mars will draw us to him in a straight line.

The Moon might give us some trouble, and we shall be obliged, either to

avoid her entirely by starting so as to cross her orbit when she is on

the opposite side of the Earth, or else go directly to the Moon, land

there, and make a new start. But if the ether which surrounds the Moon

(for she has no atmosphere so far as we know) has no resisting power

whatever, we might have rather a difficult time there. The only thing we

could do would be to land on the side toward the Earth, then disembark

and carry the projectile on our shoulders around the Moon to the

opposite side, making a new start from there!"

"What on earth do you mean?" I exclaimed, interrupting. "Land on a

satellite which has no atmosphere, and carry this projectile, weighing

over a ton, half-way around the globe?"

"But the point is, it isn't on the Earth, but on the Moon! Think it over

a little, and see how easily we could do it now. In the first place, we

shall always carry divers' suits and helmets, to use in going ashore on

planets having no atmosphere. Air will be furnished through tubes from

inside the compartments. In the second place, the projectile in its

natural state will hardly weigh two hundred pounds on the Moon, since

the mass of that satellite is so much less than the Earth's, and weight

therefore proportionately less. But you must remember I can make the

projectile weigh nothing at all, so one of us could run ahead and tow

it, as a child would play with its toy balloon."

"I perceive you have already made this trip several times, and are quite

familiar with everything. But in case the Moon's surface is not suitable

for foot passengers, what then? I understand it to be rough, jagged,

mountainous, and even crossed by immense, yawning, unbridged fissures."

"That is most likely true, and for that reason we must carry a jointed

punt-pole, and take turns standing on the back, landing and punting

along through space just above the surface. Do you remember how far you

can send a slightly shrunk toy balloon with one light blow? And how it

finally stops with the resistance of the air? Without any resisting

atmosphere, how far and how easily could it be sent along?"

"I can quite imagine you, astride the rudder of this thing, with a

punt-pole as long as a ship's mast and as light as a broom-straw,

bumping and skipping along in the utter darkness on the other side of

the Moon; scaling mountains, bridging yawning chasms, and skimming over

sombre sea-beds!" I laughed, for it aroused my active sense of the

ridiculous.

"And the Moon may be well worth the exploration," exclaimed the always

serious doctor. "Who knows what treasure of gold and silver, or other

metals, rare and precious here, may not be found there? Why was the Moon

ever created without an atmosphere, and therefore probably without the

possibility of ever being inhabited? Is it put there only to illume our

nights? Remember, we do the same service for her fourteen times as well;

and if she has inhabitants they may think the Earth exists only for that

purpose. Is it not more reasonable to suppose that some vast treasures

are there, which the Earth will some day be in pressing need of? That it

is a great warehouse of earthly necessities, which will be discovered

just as they are being exhausted here? And who knows but _we_ may be the

discoverers ourselves? If the satellite is uninhabited, it will belong

to the first explorers. Its treasures may be ours! We shall at least

have a monopoly on the only known method of getting there and bringing

them away."

"Ah! now you tempt me to go with you," I said, in a mild excitement.

"Now I see myself, erect on the rudder, a new Count of Monte Cristo,

waving the long punt-pole majestically, and exclaiming, '_The Moon is

mine!_'"

CHAPTER IV

What is on Mars?

"I only wish you _would_ come along with me," replied the doctor. "I

have no idea what intelligent, educated person I can persuade to

accompany me, unless he is given an interest in the discoveries. You are

the person most interested in the enterprise, and you should go. If it

is money-making that detains you here, you may rest assured that we

shall find fortunes for both of us somewhere."

"I am a slave to the excitement of my business," I answered. "I could

not possibly spend two or three months in a lonely cell, flying through

space, without a ticker or a quotation of the market. Besides, there are

people on the earth I should not care to leave, unless I was certain of

getting back soon."

"You may be sure of excitement enough, and of a continuously novel kind.

Besides, of what interest are the people of this earth, who are all

alike, and whom we have known all our lives, compared with the rapture

of finding a new and different race, of investigating another

civilization, and exploring an entire new world?"

"I shall have to warn my friends about you and have myself watched, lest

you persuade me and run away with me when the time comes. If your

adventures are half as exciting and varied as your theories, I should

hate to miss them. But tell me why you have chosen Mars for a first

visit."

"Because of all the planets he is the one which most resembles the Earth

in all the essential conditions of life. He is the Earth's little

brother, situated next farther out in the path from the Sun. He has the

same seasons, day and night of the same length, and zones of about the

same extent. He possesses air, water, and sufficient heat to make

habitation by us quite possible. Moreover, his gravity problem will not

put earthly visitors at a disadvantage, as it would on the very large

planets, but rather at a distinct advantage over the Martians."

"What do you expect to find on Mars?" I queried.

"That is a very comprehensive question, and any answer is the merest

guess-work, guided by a few known facts," replied the doctor. "The

principal controlling fact is the reduced gravitational attraction of

Mars, which will make things weigh about one-third as much as on the

Earth. The air will be far less dense than here. In the mineral kingdom

the dense metals will be very rare. I doubt if platinum will be found at

all; gold and silver very little; iron, lead, and copper will be

comparatively scarce, while aluminium may be the common and useful

metal. Gases should abound, and doubtless many entirely new to us will

be there. It is not unlikely that many of these will serve as foods for

the animals and intelligent beings. It is also quite possible that the

heavier gases may run in channels, like rivers, and be alive with winged

fish and chameleons."

"How about vegetation?" I suggested.

"The vegetable kingdom will certainly not be rank and luxurious, because

there is not enough sunlight or heat for that; nor will it be gnarled

and tough, but more likely spongy and cactus-like. The weak gravity will

oppose but a mild resistance to the activity and climbing propensities

of vegetable sap, however, which is likely to result in very tall,

slender trees. The forces that lie hidden in an acorn should be able to

build a most grandly towering oak on Mars. Among the animals the species

of upright, two-legged things is apt to abound. There is no reason for

four legs when the body weighs but little. On the Earth an extremely

strong development of the lower limbs is necessary for upright things,

as is shown in the cases of kangaroos and men. In order that a cow might

go comfortably on two legs, she would have to be furnished with the

hind-legs of an elephant; but not so on Mars. Creeping things would be

very few, and it is possible that fish may fly in the water with a short

pair of wings. What four-legged animals there are will very likely be

large and monstrous; for an enormous animal could exist comfortably and

move about easily without clumsiness. For instance, an earthly elephant

transferred to Mars would weigh only one-third as much, and so there

might well be elephants three times as large as ours, perfectly able to

handle themselves with ease."

"By the same reasoning then, I suppose the intelligent beings, or what

we call men, will be great giants twenty-five feet high?" I put in.

"Some have thought so, but I do not at all agree with them," replied the

doctor. "I stick to the theory of small men for small planets, and large

men for large planets. There is no possible reason for a large man on

Mars, where muscular development is uncalled for and useless, and where

the inhabitable space is small. If there are men on Jupiter, they must

of necessity be enormously strong to hold themselves up and resist

gravitation. If they walk upright (which I think unlikely), their legs

must be very large and as solid as iron. The Martian legs are likely to

be small and puny, and I believe the upper limbs will be much more

strongly developed. In fact, on Mars the Creator had His one great

opportunity of making a _flying man_, and I do not think He has

overlooked it. With a rather small, tightly-knit frame, and the upper

limbs developed into wings as long as the body, flying against the weak

Martian gravitation would be perfectly easy, and a vast advantage over

walking."

"Ah! then perhaps they will fly out to meet you!" I ejaculated.

"If they do, they will be stricken with fear to see that we fly without

wings and so much more rapidly," he answered, and continued: "If a

flying race has been created there, we shall probably find the

atmosphere deeper and relatively (though not actually) denser than the

Earth's. This would serve to add buoyancy and still further diminish

weight, thus making flying quite natural and simple. I certainly do not

believe that the Martians are subjected to the tedium of walking. If

they do not fly, they will at least make long, swift, graceful hops or

jumps of some ten or fifteen feet each. This would require a more hinged

development of the lower limbs, like a bird's. It is also possible that

the lower limbs may have the prehensile function, and do all the

handling and working."

"But how about intelligence and intellectual development? That is the

main thing, after all," said I.

"To answer that takes one into the realm of pure speculation. There are

but few facts to guide one's guesses. But the trip yonder is worth

making, if only to learn that. I do not incline to the opinion that

their civilization is vastly older and more developed than ours.

Granting the nebular theory of the origin of the universe (which is,

after all, only a guess), it is not even then certain that Mars was

thrown off the central sun before the Earth. It is much smaller, and may

have been thrown off later and travelled farther for this reason.

Another good reason for believing in a less advanced civilization is the

length of the Martian year and consequent sluggishness of the seasons.

He requires 687 of our days to complete his sun revolution, making his

years nearly twice as long as ours. I believe his whole development is

at a correspondingly slow rate of speed."

"Which do you think is the most advanced and enlightened planet, then?"

I ventured.

"That one which finds a way to visit the others first," he answered,

with a touch of pride.

"But there may be a tinge of personal conceit in that idea," I

suggested.

"Possibly a mere tinge, but the essence of it is apparent truth," he

declared. "That planet which has learned the most, made the greatest

discoveries and the most useful inventions, is the best and fittest

teacher of the others, and will be the sharpest and keenest to gather

new information and formulate new science. It is eminently fit that

representatives of such a planet should visit the others, and eminently

unfit that any primitive civilization engaged in base wars and striving

for mere conquest should be allowed that privilege. An all-wise Creator

would not permit a huge, strong, ignorant race entirely to overrun and

extinguish one weaker but more intelligent. He might permit a strong,

intelligent, masterful race to rule and direct a weaker and dependent

one, as a schoolmaster rules and guides a child."

"Then you think we are the wise and masterful race?"

"As no other race has yet discovered us; as they have all left the Space

Problem unsolved, and as it has been uncovered to us, that is my

irresistible conclusion."

"Still, you will not go with ideas of conquest, but to teach and to

learn?"

"We shall take with us swords, shields, and fire-arms, for defence.

Unless I mistake the nature of their metals, our steel will resist any

weapon they can manufacture. But what explosives or what noxious gases

they may have, all strange to us, it is impossible to conjecture.

Therefore, we shall go with peace in our hands."

"What progress do you think they have made in inventions?" I suggested,

as the doctor hesitated.

"If they are winged men, I should say they have never felt that urgent

need of railroads, steam boats, telegraphs and telephones, which was the

mother of their invention here. Flying or air-travelling machines will

no more have occurred to them than a walking machine to us. They will

have thoroughly explored every part of their planet, and it is possible

that their cities will have been built on high plateaus, or even on

mountain peaks. But they will not have builded greatly, for they will

have been able to use the great architecture of nature in a way

impossible to us."

"Have you heard the theory advanced by some humorous scientist not long

ago, that the organs of locomotion and prehension would some day, or on

some planet, be supplanted by machinery, and that digestive apparatus

would give way for artificially prepared blood?" I asked.

"Oh, yes, that fanciful idea is novel, but irrational. It makes man only

a fraction of a being. On every planet, no matter what the advancement

of civilization, we shall find _complete beings_, not dependent on

adventitious machinery for locomotion or labour, or on artificial or

animal blood for nutriment. Think how helpless such a creature would be

at the loss or rusting of his machinery, and at the exhaustion of just

the right sort of nutritive fluid. Our digestive apparatus will convert

a thousand different foods into blood. Suppose we could live only on

buffalo meat? We should all have been dead long ago. We might as well

imagine men as mere fungus brains, swimming in rivers of blood; or as

beings beyond the necessity of personal thought, and living on brain

sandwiches, cut from the thinking heads of others. Eating is not only a

necessity, but a pleasure----"

"That is just what I was thinking," I interposed, looking at my watch,

for it was growing late.

"Well, now I have told you how I would have peopled Mars had the order

been sent to me here to do it," said the doctor, "will you go along with

me, and see how nearly I am right?"

"I am afraid not," I replied; "my business ties forbid. However, I want

to see you make the start and the moment you return!"

CHAPTER V

Final Preparations

On the tenth day of June, Dr. Anderwelt had written me as follows:

"Please catch the 7.25 train on the Lake Shore for Whiting this

evening. I will take the same train, and we will walk from Whiting

to a deserted railway siding two miles further on, where the

projectile has been shipped. We will unload it from the flat car and

take it into a grove of scrub oaks on the shore of Lake Michigan,

near by. This will be enough to demonstrate to you our control of

gravity. The experimental model is there also, and we will send it

off on a trip if you like. Everything will be ready for the start to

Mars to-morrow night."

I dined early and caught the train specified at Twenty-Second Street.

The doctor was looking for me from the rear platform of a car. It was a

local train, and crept slowly out through the smoky blackness of South

Chicago, illuminated here and there by the flaming chimneys of her great

iron furnaces, to the little city of pungent smells, of petroleum tanks

and oil refineries, in Northern Indiana. The doctor was explaining the

difficulties he had experienced in getting a companion for the trip.

"Men whom I could hire for mere wages are not intelligent enough to

understand the workings of the projectile, or to comprehend the risks

they may run. Besides, their companionship and assistance during the

trip through space and on a new planet is worth nothing. On the other

hand, I could not afford to go about explaining the workings of so

important an invention miscellaneously to people capable of

understanding it in an experimental search for a companion. I might not

find one among twenty, and I would be tossing my secrets to the winds,

and inviting all the daily papers to send their representatives to

report the start. My reputation as a scientist, on the other side, is

too dear to me to risk a public failure. If the projectile acts, as I am

confident it must, on our return we shall take out letters patent and

form our company to exploit the business features. But primarily, this

is a test of the projectile and a journey of exploration and research.

Business afterward."

Naturally on this point we had disagreed. My motto had always been

"Business first!" and I had desired to have the patents secured

immediately. But the doctor would not consent to the filing of the

required specifications and claims, lest his secrets should be learned

before success was demonstrated. As a compromise, the doctor had agreed

to leave the necessary descriptions and data in a sealed envelope with

me, which I was to be at liberty to open and place on record at any time

during the doctor's absence that I might deem it necessary in order to

protect our rights.

"Whom have you finally secured to go with you, then?" I asked.

"I will tell you that after we have finished to-night's work," said the

doctor, and then abruptly changed the subject.

The walk from Whiting was inspiriting. It was a beautiful night. There

was not a cloud in the sky and no Moon, which made the stars all the

brighter. Everything was still, save the constant lapping of the great

lake on the sandy shore, but a short way off.

"Yonder is the mustard seed planted in the heavens, which shall grow

into a whole new world for us!" exclaimed the doctor, pointing out a

particularly bright star. "That is Mars rushing on to opposition. In six

weeks he will be nearest to the Earth; so for that time he will be

flying to meet us. To-morrow is our last day on Earth; to-morrow night

the ether! And in six weeks, diminutive but mighty man will have known

two worlds!"

"There you go, soaring again!" I cried. "Let us keep on practical

subjects. What have the foundry people who built this thing, and the

railroad people who brought it down here, thought about its probable

use? Have they not guessed something?"

"You may trust the popular mind not to guess flying unless it sees

wings! They have imagined this is a new sort of torpedo, sent down here

for a private trial in the lake. In fact, the conductor of the freight

train, who switched the car off here, asked me in a confidential way if

he should get teams and men and help me to launch her? I have fostered

this idea, and really had the projectile sent here to carry out that

impression."

A more fitting place for an unobserved start could not have been

selected, however. All this part of the country is a sandy waste, with a

sparse growth of scrub oaks and but little vegetation. There are no

farms, and the nearest houses are at Whiting. No one could see our work,

except, possibly, the passengers from occasional trains, which rushed by

without stopping, and were infrequent at this time of day.

As we were arriving, I stood off at some distance to observe the black

object on the open car. It was five feet through, and twenty feet long,

not counting the rudder, which was now entirely drawn into the rear end.

"Looks exactly like a cigar," I said. "Sharp and pointed in front,

slightly swelled in the middle, and cut squarely off behind. Only it is

too thick for its length, of course."

But the doctor already had the rear port-hole open. This was two feet in

diameter, and permitted a rather awkward entrance to the rear

compartment. The interior was crowded with boxes, as yet unpacked,

containing scientific instruments, tinned foods, biscuits, meat

extracts, condensed milk and coffee, bottled fruits, vegetables, and the

like. Over these the doctor worked his way to the forward compartment,

while I followed him, anxious to explore the interior.

"I will unpack all these goods and put them in their places to-morrow

forenoon," explained the doctor. "Here, in my compartment on the left, I

have my gravity apparatus, battery cells and the like, and a small table

for writing and other work. On the right is the bunk on which I sleep,

and under it is the big telescope, neatly fitted and swinging up easily

into place before the mica window."

"Has the compressed air been put in yet?" I inquired.

"Oh, yes, that had to be done in the city, where they have powerful air

compressors. I would have preferred this purer air out here, but it was

impossible. The air we put in only increased the weight of the

projectile eighteen pounds, but it will be sufficient for two of us for

six months. We were obliged to make the most careful and thorough tests

for leaks in the air-chambers; for if there were any of these, our life

would leak out with the air."

"And such airless satellites as the Moon will make the most desperate

efforts to steal your atmosphere, too!" I added.

"Yes, but we will give them only our foul air as a small stock-in-trade

with which they may begin business. But I see my batteries are

commencing to work nicely. I think I can lift her now. You go outside

and make a hitch with that rope you saw just forward of the middle of

the projectile. Then, when I have neutralized her weight, you tow her

over beyond that clump of trees you saw near the shore. That will be out

of the view of trains."

"Must I concentrate my mind or keep my thoughts fixed on anything?" I

asked quizzically.

"Rubbish! Concentrate it on this. If the projectile starts up, don't try

to hold her with your little rope. Let go quickly, or you may get

uncomfortable holding on!"

I went outside, untied the coil of rope and threw one end over. Meantime

the doctor had opened the forward window, so that he might give

directions, and I said to him,--

"I can't get the rope under her; she is lying flat on the car."

"Wait a moment and I will lift her for you," he replied. The railroad

ties rose a little out of the sand, and there was a slight creaking of

the woodwork of the car as the weight came off. Presently the forward

end of the projectile rose slowly an inch, two inches!

"That's enough!" I cried, thrusting the rope under, and she settled back

gently. Having made my knot, I went out to the other end of the rope,

about thirty feet distant. Forgetting the doctor's injunction about not

hanging on, I wrapped the rope around my body, worked my feet firmly

into the sand, and finally cried out, "All ready!"

There was a faint creaking of the car again, and soon the doctor said,

"Pull away!" I threw all my force into the effort and gave a tremendous

heave, and tumbled over backwards. Had I not done so, the projectile

must have hit me as it glided rapidly from the car, sinking very slowly

to the sand about fifty feet away. I scrambled to my feet, went in front

again, and easily dragged it along on the sand to an open place just

beyond the trees. There the doctor allowed it to settle. It sank into

the loose sand about eight inches, remaining steady in this position.

"She works beautifully!" I cried. "How I would like to see her turned

loose for a real flight!"

"That will come to-morrow night," said the doctor, crawling out of the

port-hole. "But if you will help me remove these boxes from the

experimental model, you shall see it lost in the sky." We uncovered and

dragged out a small steel thing, about the same shape as the projectile,

but less than a foot thick and four feet long. It had a lid opening into

its batteries from the top. The doctor entered his compartment to

secure some chemicals.

"If you have no further use for this model," I suggested, "why not

create a very strong current and let it sail off into indefinite space?"

"Very well; I don't wish to leave it behind me for some one to discover,

and I can't take it along. We will send it off for a long trip, and if

it falls back it will be into the lake."

"Wait a moment, then! Let's put a good-bye message in it;" and so saying

I took an old envelope from my pocket and wrote on the back of it with a

pencil in a bold hand: "Farewell to Earth for ever!" Laughing, I put

this inside and closed the lid.

Then the doctor turned down a thumb-screw upon a little wire which

connected the poles, and stepped back quickly. Presently the forward end

began to rise slowly, until it stood upright, but there it hesitated.

The doctor stepped forward and gave the thumb-screw a hard turn down,

and the model lifted immediately, rising at first gradually, but soon

shooting off with the whizz of a rocket over the lake. We watched it as

long as we could distinguish its dark outline.

"It will go a long way," said the doctor. "I have never seen it make so

good a start. It will lose itself in the lake far from here."

We fastened up the front window and the port-hole, and started back to

Whiting, where the doctor was to remain all night, so as to begin work

early in the morning. Presently, as we walked along, the doctor said,--

"Well, Isidor, now you have seen a practical demonstration of the

elementary working of the projectile. You also have some idea of all

there is to be discovered up yonder in the red planet. You are the most

interested in making and profiting by those discoveries. I want you to

consent to go along."

"Haven't you secured a companion, then?" I inquired.

"Yes, I have a friend, a countryman of mine here, who will go wherever I

say. He appreciates neither the risks nor the opportunities of the trip,

still he will take my word for everything. Yet if I ask him to go I take

the responsibility of his life as well as my own. He is not a suitable

man, however, and I have really relied on you to come," he insisted.

"My dear doctor, I have every faith in you and in the projectile, and I

prophesy a most successful trip. I should like nothing better than the

adventure; but you must not count on me; I could not leave my business.

There's a fever in my blood that thirsts for it!"

"Your business, indeed! You will never really amount to much till you

have left it. It's half a throw of dice and the other half a struggle of

cut-throats!"

"That is what people say who know nothing at all about it," I retorted.

"It occupies a large and important place in the world's commerce.

Besides, I could not well leave Ruth and my uncle."

"Isn't it time you did something to make her proud of you, and to be

worthy the education which he gave you? You have a chance now to be

great. Isn't that worth ten chances to be rich? What would you have

thought of Galileo if he hadn't had time to use the telescope after

inventing it, but had devoted his time and talent to the maccaroni

market? You are one man in ten million; you have an opportunity Columbus

would have been proud of! Will you neglect it for mere gold-grubbing?

Leave that to the rest of your race and to this money-mad Chicago. You

come along with me. Let's make this work-a-day world of ours take time

to stop and shake hands with her heavenly neighbours!"

"You tempt me to do it, Doctor! Can you wait two or three days for me?"

"I can, but Mars won't," he answered laconically. "Besides, you must not

tell any one that you are going."

"If there are any two things I love, it's a secret and a hurry! I will

be here to-morrow night," I exclaimed.

CHAPTER VI

Farewell to Earth

The next day I quietly bought in my wheat, and told Flynn I was thinking

of taking a little vacation. I said I was worn out fighting the contrary

market, and told him to run the office as if it were his own until I

returned. At home I said nothing about the vacation, for I didn't care

to have my stories agree very perfectly. I simply packed a few

necessities for the trip in a dress-suit case. My uncle was used to

seeing me carry my evening clothes to the Club in this manner, and I

casually told him I should remain the night this time.

I could not leave without kissing cousin Ruth good-bye, but this excited

no suspicion, as it was a thing I did on every pretext. Then I slipped

out and took back streets till I was several blocks away from the house.

Taking a closed carriage here, I was driven to the same station and took

the same train for Whiting as on the previous evening. I found the

doctor awaiting me with a lantern. As we walked down the tracks in the

twilight I said to him,--

"I never made so quick a preparation, nor attempted so long a trip. I

have left my friends a lot of guessing! Now, how soon shall we be off?"

"Within an hour," he answered. "Mars will not be directly overhead until

midnight, but there is a little side trip I wish to make first, to test

the projectile before we get too far above the Earth's surface."

The sky was densely cloudy, there was no Moon, and it was already

growing very dark. As we began to have difficulty in finding the way,

the doctor lighted his lantern. Peering up into the darkness, I said to

him,--

"There is not a star visible. How are you to find your way in the

heavens a night like this?"

"That is all perfectly easy. We shall soon rise far above those clouds,

and then the stars will come out. Besides, I shall show you perfect

daylight again before midnight."

"I don't see just how, but I will take your word for it, Doctor. I

daresay you have thought it all out, and the whole trip will contain no

surprises for you."

"I have tried to think it all out and prepare for everything. But I am

certain I have forgotten something. I have a feeling amounting to a

dreadful presentiment that I have overlooked something important. I wish

you would see if you can think of anything I have omitted."

"The only really important thing I have remembered is half a dozen boxes

of the best cigars," I replied.

"Leave them right here in Whiting," he said with emphasis. "We are

carrying only a limited supply of pure air, and we cannot afford to

contaminate it with tobacco smoke. No, sir, you can't smoke on this

trip."

"Then I won't go! Imagine not smoking for two whole months! Do you think

I have sworn off?"

"No, not yet. But you must. It pollutes the air, which we must keep

clean and fresh as long as possible."

"Now, Doctor, you must let me have a good smoke once a day, just before

pumping the air out of my compartment."

"No, not even that. It is impossible to pump all the air out, and what

is left mixes back with what is in my compartment. Once contaminated

with tobacco smoke, we could never get it perfectly pure again."

"Well, may I smoke on Mars, then? I will take them along for that. But,

I warn you, I eat like a farm horse when I can't smoke."

"I have provided plenty to eat, but I know I have forgotten something.

Mention something now, mention everything you can think of, so that I

may see if it is provided for."

"Have you any money?" I asked. "I have changed some into gold, and have

a fairly heavy bag here."

"Oh, yes, I have some gold and silver money, besides a lot of beads,

trinkets, and gaudy tinsel things, such as earthly savages have been

willing to barter valuable merchandise for."

"So you are going on a trading expedition, are you?" I asked.

"Not exactly. I leave all that to your superior abilities. But we may

find these things valuable to give as presents. Many of them are of tin,

and if they do not happen to have that useful metal on Mars, they will

be of rare value there."

We had now reached the little grove where the projectile was hidden. I

proceeded to open the rear port-hole, saying,--

"Let me look inside, and when I see what you have, some other necessary

thing may suggest itself."

"Let me go in first, for I am afraid you will allow the menagerie to

escape," he said, as he peered in by the light of the lantern. A

diminutive fox terrier barked from the inside, and wagged his tail

faster than a watch ticks, so glad he was to see us. The bright light

also awakened a small white rabbit that had been asleep in the doctor's

compartment.

"You are taking these along for companions, I suppose?"

"Yes, for that and for experiments. We may reach places where it will

be necessary to determine whether living, breathing things can exist

before we try it ourselves. Then we shall put one of these out and

observe the effects."

"You may experiment on the rabbit all you please, but this little puppy

and I are going to be fast friends, and we shall die together; shan't

we, Two-spot?"

"Why do you call him Two-spot? There is only one spot on him, and his

name is _Himmelshundchen_."

"Rubbish! The idea of such a long, heavy name for such a little puppy! I

shall call him Two-spot because he is the smallest thing in the pack.

Heavenly-puppy, indeed!"

The doctor had entered and lighted a small gas jet, supplied on the

Pintsch system from compressed gas stored in one of the chambers. The

rear compartment, which was to be mine, looked half an arsenal and half

a pantry. On the right side a cupboard was filled with newly-cooked

meats. I remember how plentiful the store looked at the time, but, alas!

how soon it vanished and we were reduced to tinned and bottled foods!

There was a cold joint of beef, a quarter of roast mutton, three boiled

hams and four roast chickens.

On the left, folding up into the concavity of the wall, like the upper

berth of a Pullman sleeping car, was my bunk. On the walls not thus

occupied the arms were hung. There were two repeating rifles, each

carrying seventeen cartridges; two large calibre hammerless revolvers;

two long and heavy swords, designed for cleaving rather than for

stabbing; two chain shirts, to be worn under the clothing to protect

against arrows; and finally two large shields, made of overlapping steel

plates and almost four feet high. The doctor explained to me that the

idea was to rest the lower edge of these on the ground and crouch behind

them. They were rather heavy and cumbersome to be carried far, and were

grooved in three sections, so that they slipped together into an arc

one-third of their circumference.

I examined everything closely and asked a hundred questions, but the

doctor seemed to have provided for every necessity or contingency.

"Let us waste no more time," said I. "If we have forgotten anything, we

must get along without it. All aboard! What is our first stop?"

"The planet Mars, only thirty-six million miles away, if we are

successful in meeting him just as he comes into opposition on the third

day of August. This is the most favourable opposition in which to meet

him for the past quarter of a century. Back in the year 1877 he was only

about thirty-five million miles away, and it was then that we learned

most that we know of his physical features. But we shall not have a more

favourable time than this for the next seventeen years."

"Still it seems like nonsense to talk about travelling such an

incomprehensible distance, doesn't it?" I ventured.

"Not at all!" he replied positively. "If the Earth travels a million

miles per day in her orbit, without any motion being apparent to her

inhabitants, why should we not travel just as fast and just as

unconsciously? We are driven by the same force. The same engine of the

Creator's which drives all the universe, drives us. When we have left

the atmosphere we shall rush through the void of space without knowing

whether we are travelling at a thousand miles per minute or standing

perfectly still. Our senses will have nothing to lay hold on to form a

judgment of our rate of speed. But if we make an average of only five

hundred miles per minute we shall accomplish the distance in about fifty

days, and arrive soon after opposition."

"But have you given up stopping on the Moon?" I asked. "I had great

hopes of making those rich discoveries there."

"We must leave all that until our return trip. I have chosen this

starting time in the dark of the Moon in order to have the satellite on

the other side of the Earth and out of the way. She would only impede

our progress, as we wish to acquire a tremendous velocity just as soon

as we leave the atmosphere. We must accelerate our speed as long as

gravity will do it for us. When we can no longer gain speed, we shall

at least continue to maintain our rapid pace.

"But if we stopped on the Moon, we should only have her weak gravity to

repel us towards Mars, and we could make but little speed. On our

return, the stop on the Moon will be a natural and easy one. We shall be

near home and can afford to loiter."

While the doctor was saying this, he had been busy making tests of his

apparatus. He now called me to see his buoyancy gauge, which was a

half-spherical mass of steel weighing just ten pounds. It was pierced

with a hole at right angles to its plane surface and strung upon a

vertical copper wire. Small leaden weights, weighing from an ounce to

four pounds each, were provided to be placed upon the plane surface of

the steel. The doctor explained its action to me thus:--

"The polarizing action of the gravity apparatus affects only steel and

iron, and has no effect upon lead. Therefore, when the current is

conducted through the copper wire into the soft steel ball, it will

immediately rise up the wire, by the repulsion of negative gravity. Now,

if the leaden weights are piled upon the steel ball one by one, until it

is just balanced half way up the wire, our buoyancy is thus measured or

weighed. For instance, with the first two batteries turned in we have a

buoyancy a little exceeding one pound. That means, we should rise with

one-tenth the velocity that we should fall. Turning in two more

batteries, you see the buoyancy is three pounds, or our flying speed

will be three-tenths of our falling speed. With all the batteries acting

upon the gauge, you see it will carry up more than ten pounds of lead,

because the pressure of the air is against weight and in favour of

buoyancy. So long as we are in atmospheres, then, it is possible to fall

up more rapidly than to fall down; but, on account of friction and the

resultant heat, it is not safe to do so."

"So we have been doing the hard thing, by falling all our lives, when

flying would really have been easier!" I put in.

"We have been overlooking a very simple thing for a long time, just as

our forefathers overlooked the usefulness of steam, being perfectly well

acquainted with its expansive qualities. But let us be off. Close your

port-hole, and screw it in tightly and permanently for the trip. Then

let down your bunk and prepare for a night of awkward, cramped

positions. We shall be more uncomfortable to-night than any other of the

trip. You see, when we start, this thing will stand up on its rear end,

and that end will continue to be the bottom until we begin to fall into

Mars. Then the forward end will be the bottom. But after the first night

our weight will have so diminished that we can sleep almost as well

standing on our heads as any other way. Within fifteen hours you will

have lost all idea which end of you should be right side up, and we

will be quite as likely to float in the middle of the projectile as to

rest upon anything."

My bed was hinged in the middle, and one end lifted up until it looked

like a letter L, with the shorter part extending across the projectile

and the longer part reaching up the side. I could sit in it in a half

reclining posture. The doctor then pulled out a fan-like, extending

lattice-work of steel slats, to form a sort of false floor over the

port-hole. This was full of diamond-shaped openings between the slats,

so that the view out of the rear window was not obstructed. Then he did

the same to form a false floor for his compartment. Finally he said to

me,--

"Now, if you are all ready, I will stand her on end;" and by applying

the currents to the forward end only he caused her to rise slowly until

she stood upright. The cupboard in my compartment and the desk in his

end were each hung upon a central bolt, and they righted themselves as

the projectile stood up, so that nothing in them was disarranged. I was

sitting on the lower hinge of my bed, clutching tightly and watching

everything, when the doctor called to me to turn the little wheel which

operated a screw and served to push out the rudder.

"But the whole weight of the projectile is now on the rudder," I

objected.

"You will have to make over all your ideas of weight," he said, with

some impatience. "Run the rudder out. The gauge shows an ounce of

buoyancy, which is nearly enough to counteract all the dead weight we

have. You can lift the rest with the rudder-screw."

And, true enough, it was perfectly easy to whirl the little wheel around

which made the rudder creep out. There was a steering wheel in the

doctor's compartment and one in my own. He set it exactly amidships, and

told me to prepare for the ascent. I turned out the gas in my

compartment and crouched nervously over the port-hole window to watch

the panorama of Earth fade away.

"Here go two batteries!" he cried. I held on frantically, expecting that

we would leap into the heavens in one grand bound, as I had seen the

model do. But we began to rise very slowly, a foot and a half the first

second, three feet the next, and so on, as the doctor told me

afterwards. It was all so slow and quiet that I was suddenly possessed

with a fear that after all the projectile was a failure. Had a balloon

started so slowly, it would never have risen far. This fear held me for

only a minute, for when I looked down again, the landscape below was

beginning to look like a dim map or a picture, instead of the reality.

The doctor was steering to the northward, directly over the lake. I

could see its great purple, restful surface below me, but more plainly

could I discern the outline where its silvery edge bathed the white

sands of the shore. Following this outline I could see a web of

railroads, like ropes bent around the lower end of the lake. The night

was too dark to see it long. The hundreds of huge oil tanks of Whiting

had now disappeared, and I could see only the flaming tops of the iron

furnaces of South Chicago. Suddenly they went out in an instant, as if a

thick fog had smothered them, and there was a long minute of pale mist;

and then suddenly a bright blue sky, the twinkling stars and a veil of

grey shutting off all view of the Earth.

"We have passed through the clouds," said the doctor cheerily. "What

does the barometer register?"

I looked, and was astonished to see the mercury down to fifteen. I asked

him if he thought the barometer might be broken.

"No, that is quite right," he replied. "That is half the surface

pressure, which shows that we are two and a half miles high. I have four

batteries in, and we are going at a constantly increasing speed now."

I could easily believe it, for the wind howled around my compartment and

whistled over the rudder aperture in a most dismal way. Whenever the

rudder was changed, there was a new sound to the moaning. Still, as I

looked back at the clouds, I saw that no wind was moving them. It was

not wind, but only the air whistling as we rushed through it.

"Watch the barometer, and let me know the exact time when it registers

seven and a half inches," said the doctor. "We shall be five miles high

then, and we started at nine o'clock to a second."

I noted the rapidly sinking mercury and opened my watch. When it was

just at seven and a half, I looked at the watch, and it said half a

minute after nine. Knowing that could not be correct, I held it to my

ear and discovered it was stopped. I attempted to wind it, but found it

almost wound up.

"Something wrong with my watch, Doctor. You will have to look."

"Half a minute after nine, that can't be right!" he exclaimed. Then as

the truth flashed upon him he added,--

"There is the first thing I have overlooked! Our watch springs are

steel, and the magnetic currents affect them. It is strange I did not

think of that, for I knew a mariner's compass would be of no use to us

in steering on account of the currents. For that reason I have risen

above the clouds so as to steer by the stars. I am making for the North

Star yonder, now."

"We will have to get back to the same primitive methods of measuring

time," I put in. "Neither weight clocks nor spring clocks would have

been of any account. And an hour glass would tell a different tale just

as gravity varied. We will have to rely on the Moon and stars, and it

may be rather awkward." But I did not then appreciate how awkward it

would be when even the markings of day and night would be taken away

from us.

"We can count our pulse or go by our stomachs," said the doctor, who was

really disappointed at having forgotten anything. But he was destined to

get used to that. Presently he inquired,--

"What is the barometer now? Perhaps we are high enough for the present."

"There is scarcely two inches of mercury in the tube!" I cried out.

He hesitated for a moment as if calculating, and then said,--

"That makes us ten miles high. Work the rudder gradually very much

farther out for this thinner atmosphere, and we will try falling awhile,

with a long slant to northward."

And so saying, the doctor detached all the polarizing batteries, and I

could hear the monotonous howling of the wind die down; and the

whistling ceased altogether as the feeble resistance of the rarefied air

slowly but surely overcame our momentum. As we began to fall, the doctor

turned the rudder hard down, in order to give us a long sailing slant.

This modified the position of the projectile so that it lay almost flat

again, with a dip of the forward end downward.

"Lie down and have a nap while she is in this comfortable position," he

said to me. "When you waken, I shall have a surprise for you."

CHAPTER VII

The Terrors of Light

I was weary from the trials of the day on Earth, and fell asleep easily.

It was the red sunlight streaming in at the port-hole that awakened me.

I thought I had slept but a very short time, but the night was evidently

over. As soon as the doctor heard me moving, he cried out to me,--

"Here is the daylight I promised you. Did you ever see it at midnight

before?"

"How do you know it is midnight? It looks more like a red sunset to me,"

I said, for the sun was just in the horizon.

"The sun has just set, and is now rising. It did not go out of sight,

but gradually turned about and began to mount again. That is how I know

it is midnight."

"Sunset presses so closely upon sunrise that night is crowded out

altogether. Then this must be the land of the midnight sun that I have

read about?"

"Yes, we are very near the Earth again, and this is far inside the

arctic polar circle, where the sun never goes down during summer, but

sets for a long night in the winter. I have kept far to the westward to

avoid the magnetic pole, which might play havoc with my apparatus."

"Then your little side-trip is----"

"To the North Pole, of course!" he cried triumphantly.

How simple this vexed problem had become, after all! It had worsted the

most daring travellers of all countries for centuries. Thousands upon

thousands spent in sending expeditions to find the Pole had only called

for other thousands to fit out relief expeditions. Ship after ship had

been crashed, life after life had been clutched in its icy hand! But now

it had become an after-thought, a side-trip, a little excursion to be

made while waiting for midnight! And it is often that such a simple

solution of the most baffling difficulties is found at last.

The doctor had been observing his quadrant, and was now busy making

calculations. He called me up to his compartment.

"Longitude, 144 degrees and 45 minutes west; Latitude, 89 degrees 59

minutes and 30 seconds north. That is the way it figures out. We were

half a mile from the Pole when I took my observation. We must have just

crossed over it since then."

"Go down a little nearer, so we may see what it looks like!" I said

excitedly.

"I dare not go too close to all that ice, or we may freeze the mercury

in our thermometer and barometer. We must keep well in the sunlight, but

I will lower a little."

What mountains of crusted snow! What crags and peaks of solid ice! It

was impossible to tell whether it was land or sea underneath. Judging by

the general level it must have been a sea, but no water was visible in

any direction. The great floes of ice were piled high upon each other. A

million sharp, glittering edges formed ramparts in every direction to

keep off the invader by land. How impotent and powerless man would be to

scale these jagged walls or climb these towering mountains! How

absolutely impossible to reach by land, how simple and easy to reach

through the air! The North Pole and Aerial Navigation had been cousin

problems that baffled man for so long, and their solution had come

together.

"Empty a biscuit tin to contain this record, and we will toss it out

upon this world of ice, so that if any adventurer ever gets this far

north he may find that we have already been here," said the doctor,

bringing down a freshly-written page for me to sign. It read as

follows:--

"Aboard Anderwelt's Gravity Projectile, 12.25 a.m., June 12th, 1892.

The undersigned, having left the vicinity of Chicago at nine o'clock

on the evening of June 11th, took bearings here, showing that they

passed over the North Pole soon after midnight. Then they took up

their course to the planet Mars.

"(Signed) HERMANN ANDERWELT.

ISIDOR WERNER."

This was duly enclosed in the biscuit tin, which I bent and crimped a

little around the top so that the cover would stay on tightly. Then I

learned how such things were conveyed outside the projectile. A

cylindrical, hollow plunger fitting tightly into the rear wall was

pulled as far into the projectile as it would come. A closely fitting

lid on the top of the cylinder was lifted, and the tin deposited within.

The lid was then fitted down again, and the plunger was pushed out and

turned over until the weight of the lid caused it to fall open and the

contents to drop out. The tin sailed down, struck a tall crag, bounded

off, and fell upon a comparatively level plateau. The cylinder was then

turned farther over, causing the lid to close, and the plunger was

pulled in again. I remember how crisply cold was that one cubic foot of

air that came back with the cylinder. My teeth had been chattering ever

since I wakened, and I had been too excited to put on a heavier coat.

"What is the thermometer?" asked the doctor. It was a Fahrenheit

instrument we were carrying.

"Thirty-eight degrees below zero, and still falling!" I told him.

"Then we must be off at once, and at a good speed, to warm up. Now say a

long good-bye to Earth, for it may be nothing more than a pale star to

us hereafter."

The doctor steered to westward as he rose steadily to a height of about

ten miles. Then he fell with a long slant to the south-west. He was

working back into the darkness of night again. We had lost the sun long

before we started to rise again.

"We are now well above the Pacific Ocean, about fifteen hundred miles

north-west of San Francisco," said the doctor, consulting his large

globe.

"It seems to me you cross continents with remarkable ease and swiftness.

From Chicago to San Francisco alone is almost three thousand miles," I

ventured.

"But we have been gone four hours, and if we had simply stood still

above the Earth for four hours it would have travelled under us about

four thousand miles, so that San Francisco would already have passed the

place where we started."

"Then one only needs to get off somewhere and remain still in order to

make a trip around the World!" I exclaimed.

"You are quite right, and travelling upon the Earth's surface is the

most awkward method, because it is impossible to take advantage of the

Earth's own rapid motion. Around the World in eighty days was once

considered a remarkable feat, but if we were to travel steadily

westward we should make the circuit in very much less than twenty-four

hours. The motion of the Earth upon its axis is such an immense

advantage that if we were only going from Chicago to London, the trip

could be more easily and quickly made by going to the westward some

twenty-one thousand miles, rather than going directly eastward less than

four thousand miles. For going eastward we should have to travel a

thousand miles an hour in order to keep up with the Earth. It is

questionable whether we could make that speed tacking up and slanting

down."

"Then we shall have to follow the course of Empire, always westward!" I

laughed.

While we were talking thus, the whizzing and whistling of the wind,

which had been at first very loud and hissing, had gradually died down.

I looked at the barometer, and reported that there was scarcely

three-eighths of an inch of mercury in the tube.

"We are practically above the atmosphere, then," said the doctor,

turning in all the batteries. He tried the rudder in the ether, and

found it turned her when fully extended and turned rather hard over.

"I tried to sleep this morning at Whiting to prepare for to-night's

work," said the doctor presently; "but I find I am getting

uncontrollably drowsy. Come up, and I will show you the course we most

keep, and then I will lie down to get a little rest."

I mounted to his compartment and gazed through the telescope at Mars,

looking like a little, red baby-moon, floating in one side of the blue

circle.

"Keep him always in view, but in the edge of the field like that," said

the doctor. "We must always steer a little to the right of him--that is,

a little behind him."

"But he travels around the sun in the same direction the Earth does," I

objected. "I should think we ought to aim a little ahead of him, or to

the left, to allow for his motion forward in his orbit."

"That looks reasonable at first sight, doesn't it?" said the doctor.

"But a little learning is a dangerous thing. I will explain to you why

we must steer a little behind him after I have had my nap. I am too

sleepy now;" and he finished with a yawn.

He soon fell asleep, and I was left alone to think over the events of

the day and the still more strange happenings of the night. It hurt my

eyes to look long through the telescope, so I closed them and gave free

rein to my thoughts.

How soon will it be morning? How shall I know when it _is_ morning? That

term "morning" applies only to the surface of revolving planets. I had

just seen the morning come at midnight, and then the darkness of night

fall again directly after morning. After all, what are night and

morning? The one is a passing into the shadow of the Earth, and the

other is simply the emerging into the light. They depend on a rotation,

and we shall know no more of them until we land on a revolving planet

again. But which shall we have on the trip, night or daylight? Naturally

we would very soon emerge from the little shadow cast by the Earth. It

had taken us but an hour or two to travel out of it into the daylight

and then back into the darkness again. Even if we did not leave it, the

Earth would move on and leave us.

And what then? Nothing but uninterrupted, untempered, unhindered

daylight! Eternal, dazzling, direct sunlight, unrelieved by any night,

unstrained through any clouds! This deep blue of the starry night would

be succeeded by the hot, white light of a scorching, gleaming Sun. And

then (the thought chilled my bones as it fell upon me!), then how would

we see Mars? How would we see any star, or perchance the Moon? Even the

Earth might be drowned in that sea of everlasting, all-engulfing

brilliancy! Nothing in all the Universe would be visible but the beaming

Sun, and he too blindingly bright to look upon.

As the truth of all this took hold of me, it filled me with a growing

terror. At any moment we might emerge from this grateful shadow of the

Earth, and then we would be lost, drowned, engulfed in a blinding,

sight-suffocating light! In desperate terror I looked around toward the

doctor, as if for assistance. He was sleeping peacefully. He had never

thought of it! _This_ was the great thing he had overlooked! Even at

starting he had a dreadful presentiment of it.

He was a great man, and his discovery a wonderful one; but here was the

trouble with it. He had solved the question of navigating space, but the

sunlight! the dazzling, burning, terrible sunlight! how was he to

navigate that? It was simply impossible! We would have to turn back

before we emerged into it. We would have to retrace our path while we

were still in the grateful shadow. Ah, the blessedness of night after

all!

Then slowly and cautiously, so that I might not waken him, I crept down

to the rear window to see how far away the Earth was. We were at so

great a distance that I could see the whole outline of it, as a great

dull globe filling all the view behind us. And as I looked again I

started and uttered a cry! A thin sickle of bright, white light

glimmered over the whole eastern edge of it, like the first glimpse of

the new Moon, but a hundred times larger! It was the sunlight! It must

be creeping around the eastern edge, and would soon engulf us.

The doctor had been aroused by my cry. Not seeing me in his compartment,

he had gone at once to the telescope.

"What is the matter?" he said. "You have lost the course a little." And

as I peered out of my port-hole I saw that narrow sickle of light grow

thinner and thinner, and finally go out. Had I imagined it all? No, I

had seen it.

"Ah, Doctor, I am so glad you have wakened. I am frightened, terrified,

by the light!"

CHAPTER VIII

The Valley of the Shadow

"Light! Where have you seen any light?"

"I saw the Earth begin to shine like a New Moon on the eastern edge,

but----"

"Ah, that _was_ a danger signal. I am glad you awakened me. But you are

actually pale and trembling! There is no danger if you keep the course.

You see, that rim of light has faded and disappeared since I corrected

the course."

"Yes, but you cannot keep in this little Earthly shadow much longer; and

what can we possibly do when we emerge into the fathomless, trackless

effulgence of eternal sunshine? Let us turn back before we plunge into

it," I pleaded.

"So that is what terrified you! Well, you have hit upon one of the

greatest difficulties of the trip; but it is far from insurmountable. We

will not turn back yet, especially as we have started in the most

opportune time. You have mentioned this 'little shadow.' It is eight

thousand miles wide at the surface of the Earth, and gradually, very

gradually, tapers down to nothing far out in space. Have you ever

calculated how far it reaches?"

"No," I answered. "But we moved out of it and back into it at the

surface very easily, and besides, as the Earth moves forward in its

orbit, the shadow will leave us."

"This little shadow is eight hundred and fifty-six thousand miles long,

and we will never leave it as long as it lasts!" exclaimed the doctor.

"Just at this time it points like a long arrow out in the direction of

Mars. It is moving gradually as the Earth moves and hourly correcting

its aim. At opposition time it will point directly and unerringly at

Mars. Therefore it is a way prepared, surveyed, and marked for us

through the all-enveloping sunlight, which otherwise would be dreadful

enough."

"But how can we be sure of keeping in it? It is rapidly narrowing as it

reaches farther out."

"I see I should have explained that to you before I went to sleep, and

saved you this fright. The shadow now points behind Mars, as it is many

days yet before it overtakes that planet in opposition. That is why I

told you to steer always a little behind the planet. But you went a

little out of the course, and immediately something warned us. That rim

of light on the east of the Earth was notice to us that we were not in

the centre of the shadow, but bearing too far to the left. We must keep

absolutely in the dark of the Earth, with no light visible on either

side of it. If a thin rim should appear on one side, we must turn toward

the other until it is all dark again."

"Grant that this shadow is so enormously long, yet it is only scarcely

one-fortieth of the distance to Mars," I objected. "After we emerge from

it, what then?"

"With the aid of my telescope we shall probably be able to see the Earth

as an orb, half or quarter as large as the Moon usually appears to us,

and to observe its phases until we are several million miles from it. We

must continue to keep the rim of light, which will then surround it,

equal on all sides."

"Ah, but I am afraid," I interrupted, "that as soon as we pass out of

this shadow the sunlight will be so bright that we cannot see any

planets, not even the Earth. You know we cannot see the Moon only a

quarter of a million miles away when the sun shines."

"In that case we must move the telescope to your window, put on a

darkened lens, and steer so as to keep the Earth as a spot in the middle

of the Sun. It must appear to us as Venus does to the Earth when she is

making a transit across the face of the sun. But by our continual

shifting we prevent the Earth from making a transit, and hold it as a

steady spot in the centre of the Sun. This we can do for many, many

million miles, continuing until we have reached the vicinity of Mars.

"And you must also remember," continued the doctor, "that the brighter

the light the darker will be the shadow. Now, this projectile is a

perfectly black, non-reflecting object five feet wide. It will cast a

shadow in front of it five hundred feet long. When we are comparatively

near Mars my telescope, situated in the miniature night cast by the

projectile, will find the planet, and we can then steer directly for

him. If we should chance within eighty thousand miles of him, he would

attract us to him in a straight line. But we shall not rely upon chance.

Moreover, when we are as near to him as that, the light and heat of the

Sun's rays will have decreased sixty or seventy per cent. When Mars is

farthest from the Sun, he receives only one-third as much light as the

Earth does. But he is now almost at his nearest point to the Sun, and

receives half as much light."

"Well, you certainly have a pretty clear idea of how to steer the course

all the way, Doctor. And I was hasty enough to think you had overlooked

this entire phase of the subject!" I ejaculated.

"Indeed, I have thought of it very much. And we should not enjoy all

these advantages if we had not started just before opposition. At any

other time the Earth's shadow would not point toward Mars, nor would the

transit of the Earth over the Sun be of any use to us."

"All this reassures me greatly," I replied; "but I shall keep a close

watch from my rear window for danger lights on the Earth."

"It must be time for breakfast," put in the doctor. "Will you see how

tempting a meal you can prepare?"

There was one reservoir built inside the compartments, from which we

drew cool water, and another built next to the outer steel framework,

from which we could draw boiling water. As this tank was connected with

the discharge pipe of the air-pump, and thus with the exterior, I was

disgusted to find that, although the water boiled furiously, and was

rapidly wasting away in steam, it did not become hot enough to make good

beef tea. The heat escaped with the steam at a comparatively low

temperature, so that I was compelled to boil water over my gas jet for

the meat extract, which we drank instead of coffee. I also prepared some

sandwiches of roast beef and cold ham, and with great relish we began

our diet of ready cooked foods, which was to continue for so long.

After this meal I felt quite sleepy, for I had enjoyed but three hours'

rest. The doctor saw my yawns and told me to turn out the gas and have a

long doze, and I was glad enough to do so.

I must have slept soundly for an hour or two, and then I remember dozing

and rolling lazily in my bed, as I usually did at home on Sunday

mornings. During my previous nap the bunk had seemed hard and cramped,

and I had privately grumbled at the doctor for overlooking personal

comforts; but now I felt that luxurious sensation of sleeping on soft

mattresses and yielding springs, though of course I had neither. I do

not know how soon I should have thoroughly awakened had I not lifted my

hand to rub my eye, and unwittingly dealt myself a stinging blow in the

face. This roused me.

But what was the matter with that arm? It was as it had once been in a

nightmare, when it felt detached from its place, and moved lightly and

without effort, like a bough in the wind. I pinched it with my other

hand, and it was quite sensible to the pain. In fact, the other arm was

now acting in the same queer way. I arose in bed quickly to see what was

the matter, and the upper part of my body bent violently over and struck

against my knees. Then my effort to take an upright position threw me on

my back again. Evidently my muscles were not working as they were when I

went to bed. They must be over-excited and over-active. I immediately

thought of my heart as the principal and controlling muscle, and in my

eagerness to feel its beating my hand dealt me a slap in the chest.

These blows, though rapid, did not seem to hurt as much as they ought,

after the first stinging sensation. I found my heart was beating

regularly enough.

"Doctor!" I cried out presently, more to test my voice than for

anything else. It sounded perfectly natural, and my vocal chords were

not over-stimulated or abnormal.

He came half way down from his compartment soon after hearing me, and

rested his elbow against one side of the aperture between the

compartments, leaning against the other side easily. He had a scale made

of heavy coiled spring in his hand.

"I wish to calculate our distance from the Earth," he said. "Do you mind

weighing yourself on these scales?" and he held the spiral down toward

me.

"You can't support my weight!" I exclaimed, and springing up from the

bed I bumped my head against the partition between the compartments,

eight feet above my floor. I grasped the lower ring of the scale he held

down and lifted up my feet. It seemed as if something were still

supporting me from below, for scarcely one-tenth my weight had fallen

upon my hands.

"You weigh twenty and a half pounds," he said, and then inquired, "What

did you weigh on Earth?"

"One hundred and eighty-five pounds," I answered, just beginning to

understand that our greatly increased distance from the Earth had much

reduced her attraction for us.

"That is disappointing," he answered, "for we are only eight thousand

miles from home; but our velocity is still constantly increasing."

"I would like to buy things here and sell them at the surface," I

exclaimed.

"You wouldn't make anything by it if you used the ordinary balance

scales," replied the doctor.

Try as hard as I would, I could not accustom my muscles to these new

conditions. They were too gross and clumsy for the fine and delicate

efforts which were now necessary. I was constantly hitting and slapping

myself, though these blows scarcely hurt, and never resulted in bruises.

I attempted a thorough re-training of my muscles, which was to all

intents an utter failure, for weight continued diminishing much more

rapidly than my stubborn muscles could appreciate. After another eight

thousand miles, which were quickly made, we had but one twenty-fifth our

usual weight, which reduced me to seven pounds. And for most of the trip

we weighed practically nothing, suffering many inconveniences on that

account.

CHAPTER IX

Tricks of Refraction

The doctor figured out that we should be quite insensible to any weight

when we were seventy-five thousand miles from the Earth. At fifty

thousand miles I would still weigh a pound, and when we had finished the

first million miles, the entire projectile, with its two occupants and

all its dead weight, would weigh considerably less than an ounce. That

was a mere start on the enormous trip ahead of us; but when that

distance was reached, we could no longer count upon terrestrial gravity

for accelerating our speed. We must travel with our accumulated

momentum, unless by that time the Sun should have taken the place of the

Earth, and with his vaster forces continue to repel us Marsward.

As we sat talking the doctor grew weary, and soon unconsciously dropped

asleep. I left him to enjoy his rest, and, tossing a scrap of ham bone

to Two-spot, I went up to take my place at the telescope.

Mars seemed to be exactly in the right part of the field. I surveyed the

starry stretches ahead with a feeling a little akin to fear. I was

queerly affected by the vast expanse of loneliness outside, and by the

deathly quiet prevailing both without and within. There was not the

slightest whizzing or whistling now. We might be hanging perfectly

motionless in space for all I knew. The batteries made no sound either.

I could hear only the low, regular breathing of the doctor as he slept,

and the slight crunching of Two-spot on his bone. Presently I thought of

looking for the danger lights, but I looked through the telescope

instead, and saw the little red planet in his proper place.

What a vast distance we were from any planet! If anything were to happen

to us, no one on Earth or in the heavens would ever know of it. I had

never been homesick, but a very little would have made me Earthsick just

then. I did not like the upper end of the projectile because I could not

look back at the home planet. I wondered if it was all dark back that

way, or if those warning lights had begun to appear. That idea seemed to

haunt me. I touched the steering wheel just a little while I kept my

eyes on Mars. He moved slightly in the field at once. Then I turned the

wheel back until he took his former place. It was reassuring to know how

easily the projectile minded her great rudder, which was now fully

extended like an enormous wing. This made me feel that we were masters

of the situation, that all this vast space was as nothing to us, that

any planet in the heavens must mind us, and that though Earth was

driving us away, she must draw us back if we willed it. More than that,

she would warn us of all dangers. Perhaps she was sending that warning

now. I had promised to look out for it. I felt that I must go down. I

crept softly past the doctor and stooped over the port-hole. My eyes had

scarcely found the Earth in the darkness when I drew back quickly and

clapped my hand over my mouth to prevent a cry escaping me. Then I

looked again more closely. There was no small illuminated portion of the

surface this time, but a great smear of light just outside the edge of

the Earth. It was of a dull red colour, with rainbow tints around the

edges, and was much the shape of a great umbrella held just above one

quarter of her surface to westward.

I gave the steering wheel in my compartment a sharp turn in the

direction which should cause the light to disappear. Then I crouched and

looked again, but instead of being reduced in size the light broadened

and swelled. It was as if one edge of the umbrella were left against the

Earth's surface, and then the umbrella was being turned gradually around

until it faced me and formed an enormous disc, apparently a third as big

as the Earth. Then, as it slowly moved outward, its edge seemed to

cleave to the Earth's, as two drops of water do when about to separate.

Finally, it detached itself entirely, and stood as a great muddy red orb

a little to the west of and above the Earth. It filled me with dismay to

see all this happen after I had turned the rudder in the direction which

should have corrected our course. In desperation I gave the wheel an

additional hard turn and looked again. At last the great red patch was

shrinking; slowly it diminished, and finally disappeared. But just as I

was breathing a sigh of relief, I noticed the white sickle of light on

the east side that I had seen before; only it was increasing most

threateningly now. Yes, it was assuming the same umbrella shape and

detaching itself a little from the eastern edge of the Earth. There was

still a narrow rim of bright white light on the Earth, and this dimmer

umbrella shape was faintly separated from its edge. Its outlines were

marked by flashes of rainbow colours, as had been the case on the other

side. I sprang to the wheel and gave it several frantic turns back the

other way. Then I ran up to the telescope for a hurried view, and Mars

was nowhere to be seen! I hastened back to the wheel and gave it a

vicious additional turn. I was determined to prevent this umbrella from

opening at me! And true enough it ceased enlarging, and gradually shrank

and settled back upon the surface of the Earth. Then slowly it faded and

disappeared, as it had done before when the doctor had corrected the

course. I eased back the wheel and went to look for Mars again, but he

was not in the field. As I returned I brushed unconsciously against the

doctor in my excitement. He roused himself, sat up, and watched me

peering out of the port-hole. I was gazing at a new appearance.

"There it is again!" I cried, for below the Earth and to westward a pale

white disc came into view all at once, not gradually, as if emerging

from behind the Earth, but springing out complete and detached.

"Doctor!" I said, catching him by the arm and pulling him down to the

port-hole, "what is that?"

"That? That is the Moon, my boy. Has it excited you so much?"

"Yes; I have been trying to dodge it. But you had better look to the

wheel," I cried.

He ran up to the telescope, and I heard him exclaim, "_Donnerwetter!_"

half under his breath. But with a few careful turns of the wheel he

found the planet again, and moved him to the right part of the field.

Meanwhile the Full Moon shone on us with its pale glimmer. But a thin

rim of it next to the Earth gleamed brightly with rich silver light.

"I thought you said we had started in the dark of the Moon. I thought it

was behind the Earth," I interposed.

"That is the New Moon just emerging. It will probably not be seen on the

Earth until to-morrow night, but as we are at a greater distance we see

it first," replied the doctor.

"But that is not a New Moon, it is a Full Moon, which should not be seen

for fourteen days yet," I objected.

"Pardon me, it _is_ a New Moon," he insisted. "That inner rim of

brightness is all the sunlight she reflects. The paler glimmer is

Earth-light, which she reflects. When she is really a Full Moon, she

will be perfectly dark to us."

Then I explained to him the first umbrella appearance, and its gradual

swelling and final disappearance.

"Rainbow colours around the edge and a gradual changing of the shape,

you say? That means refraction. The Earth's atmosphere has been playing

tricks on you. The umbrella of dull red light was a refracted view of

the Moon before she really came into sight. Rays of light from the

hidden Moon were bent around to you. Then, as she gradually moved from

behind the Earth, her appearance was magnified by the convex lens formed

by the atmosphere, bent over that planet. Presently it diminished and

went out altogether, you say?"

"Yes, but that was because I steered away from her," I replied.

"No; you could hardly lose her so easily," he answered. "Did you ever

try holding an object behind a water-bottle or a gold-fish jar? There is

a place near the edge of the jar where a thing cannot be seen, though

the glass and water are perfectly transparent. The rays of light from

the object are bent around, through the glass and water, away from the

eyes of the observer. It was like that with the Moon when she

disappeared. She was really drawing out from the Earth all the time.

Finally, when her light passed beyond the atmosphere altogether, she

became suddenly visible in a different place and shining with another

colour. What we see now is the real Moon in her true place. The other

appearances were all tricks of refraction."

"But when I had turned away," I explained, "there came a thin rim of

bright light on the other side of the Earth, and a gradually appearing

umbrella shape there too."

"Ah, then you steered far enough out of your course to see part of the

illuminated surface of the Earth. That was the real danger light. And if

it began to assume the umbrella shape, detached from the Earth, that was

due to atmospheric refraction of sunlight. This great shadow we are

travelling in has an illuminated core, which we shall encounter when we

have proceeded a little further. I tell you of it now, so it may not

give you another shock. Have you ever noticed the small bright spot

which illuminates the centre of the shadow cast by a glass of water?

That is partly the same as the core of light which exists in the heart

of this shadow. Rays from the sun, passing on all sides of the Earth,

are refracted through the atmosphere and bent inward. You must have

steered over into some of these rays just now, and then turned back from

them. Somewhat farther on all these refracted rays will meet at a common

centre, which they will illuminate, and we shall have an oasis of

rainbow-tinged sunlight in this great desert of shadow. The sun will

then appear to us to be an enormous circle of dull light entirely

surrounding the Earth."

"I don't fancy running into that at all," said I. "Can't we avoid it by

steering out?"

"Avoid it!" exclaimed the doctor. "We must investigate it, and

photograph the peculiar appearance of the sun. Light seems to have more

terrors for you than anything else just now. You must get over your

rush-and-do tendency; you must stifle your emotions and impulses, and

learn to think of things in a more calm and scientific manner."

"But that is not so easy for me, Doctor. Whenever I am left alone, a

feeling of dread possesses me. I am used to having many people, bustling

noises, and confused movement all about me. The silence of Space stifles

me, and the loneliness of the ether oppresses and overcomes me

strangely."

"I prescribe a change of air for you," answered the doctor. "You will do

better in a rarer atmosphere. Let us send what we have been breathing

back to Whiting, and make a new one to suit ourselves."

CHAPTER X

The Twilight of Space

"Shall I come up into your compartment for the operation?" I asked.

"No; for this first time we will pump out my compartment, as I wish to

observe from the rear port-hole the action of the air which we set

free."

The bulkhead, with its bevelled edge, was therefore fitted into the

opening between the compartments, and I took the first turn at the lever

handle of the air-pump, while the doctor observed from the window. I had

given the handle less than a dozen vigorous strokes when the doctor

suddenly exclaimed,--

"Stop! Wait a moment;" and he began pulling at the bulkhead, which was

already rather tightly wedged in by the air pressure. "I have left the

rabbit inside," he said, when he found breath to speak. And poor little

bunny's heart was beginning to beat fast when he was rescued.

Then we began again. The doctor watched the escaping air for some time,

evidently forgetting that I was at all interested in it.

"All quite as I expected," he said at last. "Only I had forgotten about

the snow."

"Nothing will ever be very new or interesting to you," I put in; "but

pray remember I am here, and rapidly getting empty of breath and full of

curiosity."

Then he relieved me at the pump handle, and this is what I saw from the

port-hole: The air escaping from the discharge pipe of the air-pump was

visible, and looked like dull, grey steam. Immediately on being set free

it swelled and expanded greatly, and sank away from us slowly. But at

the instant of its expansion the cold thus produced froze the moisture

of the air into a fine fleecy snow, which lasted but a second as it sank

away from us and melted in the heat, which the thermometer showed to be

close upon ninety-five degrees. This miniature snowstorm was seen for an

instant only after each down motion of the pump handle.

"Where is this air going?" I inquired. "The little clouds of it seem to

drop away from us like lead; but that must be because of our speed."

"It is falling back to the Earth, to join the outer layer of rare

atmosphere there. If we had a positive current instead of a negative

one, the air would not leave us, but we should gradually be surrounded

by an atmosphere of our own, which we should retain until some planet,

whose gravitational attraction is vastly stronger than ours, stole it

from us. When we begin to fall into Mars, we shall acquire such an

enveloping atmosphere; and we can draw upon it and re-compress it if our

inner supply should become exhausted."

"If this air is falling home to earth," said I, "we could send messages

back in that manner."

"We can drop them back at any time, regardless of the air," he answered,

and then added suddenly, "but it will make a beautiful experiment to

drop out a bottle now."

He ceased pumping, and opening a bottle of asparagus tips, he placed

them in a bowl, and prepared to drop out the bottle. I took my pencil

and wrote this message to go inside,--"Behold, I have decreed a judgment

upon the Earth; for it shall rain pickle bottles and biscuit tins for

the period of forty days, because of the wickedness of the world, unless

she repent!" And I pictured to myself the perplexity of the poor devil

who should see this message come straight down from heaven!

In order to make his experiment more successful, the doctor put in half

a dozen bullets from one of the rifles, to make the weight more

perceptible. Then he put the bottle into the discharging cylinder, and

preparing to push it out he stooped over the port-hole. At a signal from

him I gave the pump handle several quick, successive motions, and at the

same instant he let drop the bottle. At once he cried out,--

"Beautiful! and just as I thought."

"But I didn't see it!" I protested. "What was it?"

"The instant the bottle was released the discharged air was immediately

attracted toward it, and gradually surrounded it entirely. It was like a

little planet with an atmosphere of its own, as they fell back to the

Earth together."

"But I couldn't see it; I had to pump," I complained. "We must do it

again."

"We shall soon have our bottled things all emptied out on plates to dry

up and spoil," he objected. So I emptied a biscuit tin this time, and

delaying for no message, I put it in the discharging cylinder. Then I

bent over the port-hole and gave the signal for the pumping. As I thrust

out the tin I was astonished to see the lid pop off the first thing. The

quick expansion of the air inside it did that. This air, as well as the

air from the discharge pipe, seemed to flee from it instead of

surrounding it, as the doctor had said. I continued watching so long

that he finally said,--

"Hasn't it fallen out of sight yet?"

"No; it is not falling away swiftly as the air does. It is following the

projectile! It is not gathering any air about it as you said it would.

It does not quite keep up with us; but considering our speed, it is

doing remarkably well!"

The doctor was not inclined to believe me until he had looked for

himself. He watched and pondered for a minute or two. Then his surprise

ceased, and he spoke in that assured way which always irritated me.

"Quite natural, after all," he said. "That biscuit can is made of thin

sheet-iron with a surface coating of tin. The iron has become magnetized

by induction, and the Earth repels the can just as it repels us. It will

follow us to the dead-line, and probably on to Mars, unless the

sheet-iron loses its polarization. If we had cast out a thing of solid

iron, it would rush ahead of us, instead of falling a little behind, as

this does, for it would have no dead weight to carry. But we could not

put such a thing out of the rear end, for no force would make it fall

that way. If we put it out of the forward port-hole, it would beat us in

the race toward Mars."

I remarked to the doctor that the air-pump seemed to be incorrectly

built, for its action was strangely difficult in the reverse manner that

it should have been. The down strokes went by themselves with a quick

snap, but the up strokes were as if against pressure, and the moment the

handle was released it flew down again. He had not tested the pump at

the surface, as it was of a well-known make, but it certainly seemed to

work backwards. Moreover, the more nearly we had a compartment emptied

of air, the more difficult the pumping should become, but here again the

reverse seemed to be the case, for the longer we worked the easier the

up strokes became.

The temperature of the projectile was still fairly comfortable, and the

doctor allowed the condensed air to issue very slowly into the partial

vacuum in his compartment until it produced a barometric pressure of

twenty-seven. Then we pulled back the bulkhead, and when the new

atmosphere had mixed with the old in my compartment, a pressure of

twenty-eight resulted.

"That is about the way the barometer stands during tempests at sea,"

remarked the doctor. I could not notice much difference from the air we

had previously had. Possibly it was fresher and slightly more

exhilarating.

The effort at the pump had made us both hungry again, and I prepared

from meat extracts a warm and rather thick gravy to put over the

asparagus tips. I attempted to pour it, but it was so light that its

sticky consistency prevented it from running. We had a hundred such

examples daily of the changes which lack of weight caused in the

simplest operations. With sandwiches made of biscuits and condensed

meat, we eked out a luncheon. This must have been about noon, for when

it was over I remember noticing that we no longer needed the gas in the

compartment, for there was a gradually increasing mellow light outside.

"Are we already emerging from the shadow?" I inquired eagerly.

"No, not yet," replied the doctor. "But we are now entering its

illuminated core. I must prepare to photograph the strange appearance of

the Sun that we shall see presently."

I hastened to the port-hole, and did not leave until it was all over.

What I then saw was one of the most beautiful things of the whole trip.

The light outside was not bright, but soft and dreamy, like the first

twilight after a rich day of summer. The great corona all around the

outer edge of the Earth was the most magnificent appearance I have ever

seen. It was not at all dazzling, but had the melting shades, first of a

sunrise and then of a gorgeous sunset. We had missed the gradual

appearance of the phenomenon, but we had a good view of its highest

splendour. The colours were continually but slowly changing, and finally

the darker hues gradually suffused and dyed the pinks and crimsons.

The Earth was now about three times the diameter of a rising Full Moon,

and the corona was about a quarter her width, and looked as if twenty

shell-pink suns were set one against the other and overlapping all about

the edge of the dark orb.

"How do you know that is not really the extending edge of the Sun?" I

asked the doctor. "Perhaps we are already far enough away to see it all

about the Earth like that."

"If that were really the Sun, the light from his extending edge would

illuminate the surface of the Earth towards us. The planet's outline

would be irregular and partly glowing, but you see it is quite dull and

dark, and the outline is most plainly visible."

In rapt attention I watched the delicate shell-pink change to a deeper

hue of orange, and then our twilight waned a little and turned a sombre

grey. Presently the corona glowed a rich maroon, gradually dying to a

luminous purple, which slowly deepened and darkened, and finally melted

into the general blackness. And lo! we were in the shadow again, and the

dreamily beautiful panorama was over.

"It must have lasted nearly an hour," said the doctor. "I am sorry we

did not notice the beginning, but it must have commenced with the same

dull shades we saw at the end, and gradually changed to brighter

colours. I secured three negatives when the glow was most intense."

"Then we have had a waxing and a waning twilight coming together in the

middle of our night. And the corona was like a sunrise, followed

immediately by a sunset," I exclaimed.

"And why shouldn't it appear so?" said the matter-of-fact doctor.

"Twilight is the commonest phenomenon of refraction with which we are

acquainted, and sunrise and sunset are merely a mixture of refraction

and reflection. There is nothing new about it."

"Now, Doctor, we must remain friends, but you shall not continually

tarnish my poetry with your accursed science! I thank my Creator that

He made me ignorant enough to admire the beauties of nature. You are

continually peeping behind the scenes, and pointing out the grease

paints, the lime-lights and the sham effects. Let me enjoy the beauty of

the tableau, no matter how it is produced. I would give all of your pat

knowledge for that feeling of profound awe which rises in the untutored

breast at beholding the magnificent grandeur of unfamiliar nature."

"When your ecstasy has quite passed, I shall appreciate a little cold

mutton and biscuits, and then we must pump out again," he replied.

CHAPTER XI

Telling the Time by Geography

After supper I went up into his compartment, and having arranged the

bulkhead, began the tedious operation at the pump handle. It was a

matter of pure muscular strength, as the effort had to be made to lift

the handle, which snapped back sharply when released. I was working

vigorously when I was suddenly struck dumb at seeing the handle break

off just at the point of leverage, so that it was quite impossible to

operate it. The doctor heard the handle fall, and looked around in great

vexation.

"That means asphyxiation within twenty-four hours!" he exclaimed.

"Which is plenty of time to think it over," I answered.

After all, why was this pumping necessary? If a way could be devised to

open a valve, all the air would rush out of my compartment as easily as

beer runs out of a bung-hole. In fact, it did rush out a little at a

time, which is what made the handle go down of itself. But any such new

valve would have to be automatically closed, as it would be manifestly

impossible to enter and shut it. I kept on thinking, and finally began

examining the partition between the compartments. There seemed to be

several long screws that went quite through it.

"Doctor, did you ever hear of those wise people who, after every

freshet, shipped the surplus water down the river in boats? Well, it

strikes me this air-pumping is just about as useless labour. Help me

pull in the bulkhead and I will show you something."

I went at once to the cylinder we used for discharging things from the

projectile. With a pair of pliers I chipped off a small piece of the

edge of the closing lid in two places, one near each end. This made two

little irregular holes into the cylinder about eight inches apart. Then

I pushed it half way out, so that one hole was outside and the other

inside. Of course the air rushed through the inner hole into the

cylinder, and thence through the outer hole to the exterior.

"Shut that thing!" cried the doctor, when he saw what I had done. "Do

you wish to suffocate us? That will let the air out perfectly, but how

are you going to close it to admit the condensed air?"

"People unskilled in these matters are so hasty!" I said rather

sarcastically. "Wait until I have finished and you will see."

I found he had a screw-driver, and I loosened one of the long screws

and enlarged the half of its hole toward my compartment. Then I whittled

a block of soft wood, so that it would slide smoothly into this half of

the hole. Driving the screw home again, I just allowed its tip to enter

the end of the block. Then I fastened a piece of stout twine to the

cylinder and the other end to the block of wood, which was almost

opposite it. Pushing the cylinder half way out, I made the twine taut,

and hastening into the doctor's compartment, I thrust in the bulkhead.

The air was rapidly escaping. Waiting long enough for all of it to have

leaked out, I then unscrewed the long screw, which gradually drew in the

block of wood and the twine, and thus pulled the cylinder into the

projectile so that there was no connection with the exterior. Then the

doctor let in the condensed air to a barometric pressure of twenty-six,

and the whole operation was over in a few minutes. My compartment must

have been almost a complete vacuum. When it was over, I cried rather

triumphantly to the doctor,--

"There, you see, one doesn't need a steam pump to make the water run

over Niagara! At this distance from the surface, nature abhors a gas and

prefers a vacuum!" He was inclined to be rather sulky at first, but he

really did not like pumping any better than I did.

I should say it was about five hours later that we noticed it was

growing gradually lighter outside. Mars lost his ruddiness and grew

pale in a grey field. Our view of the Earth was also becoming more and

more misty.

"We are emerging from the black core of the shadow into the

semi-illuminated penumbra," said the doctor. Then he altered his course

experimentally, and found a slightly darker path, but it soon began

changing again to grey.

"There is no use trying to keep in the umbra any longer. It is growing

too narrow. The penumbra will last quite a long time yet, but it will

gradually get fainter and fainter. We shall not plunge at once into the

dreadful light you fear so much. Keep your eyes glued to the Earth. I

can scarcely see Mars any longer. The whole field is getting blank and

white."

The rear vista was also growing a pale white, and I could distinguish

the form of the Earth as a darker object slightly larger than a full

moon when risen. But it was all growing dimmer and dimmer as the

penumbra faded toward the perfect light.

"Mars is completely gone now," said the doctor. "The field of the

telescope is one pale curtain of light. I have steered to the left to go

ahead of him now, as there is no longer any reason for going behind

him."

I heard him working at the telescope as if loosening it from its

fastenings, but I dared not take my eyes from the Earth to see what he

was doing. Presently he called out to me,--

"Make room down there. I must bring the instrument down and observe the

Earth now. Be careful you don't lose sight of her." But the instant he

removed the telescope from its bearings and uncovered his forward

window, I lost all view of the Earth. The new light now entering by his

window, from behind me, made it impossible to see so far.

"Too late!" I cried; "I have lost her! We are alone in limitless space,

without even the company of the planets!"

But while the doctor was carefully lowering the telescope, my eyes were

still searching, and presently I perceived a thin crescent of faintly

brighter light, growing gradually wider. It was like a new moon dimly

seen in a clear part of the sky when the afternoon sun is cloud-hidden.

The doctor stopped to look where I pointed it out to him, and then

changed the wheel a little.

"That is a thin slice of the illuminated part of the Earth," he said.

"We can no longer see the dark side which has been visible to us while

in the shadow. Fortunately our new course a little ahead of Mars will

give us a constant view of this thin crescent."

We now stood the instrument on end over the port-hole window, which

brought the small end near the aperture between the compartments. When

the doctor had secured a focus, he called me to look. The crescent was

greatly magnified, but the outline of the sphere on the other side could

not be seen, nor could anything be distinguished in the centre. Both

the outer and inner edges of the crescent were ragged and irregular in

places, and there were faint darker spots on its surface. I called the

doctor's attention to the fact that the ragged appearance was always in

the form of extending teeth on the outer side of the crescent, and in

the form of notches eaten into its inner edge. He studied all these

appearances carefully and finally said,--

"This crescent is that part of Earth which is just coming into morning.

It is gradually shifting from east to west with the Earth's rotation of

course. What we see now, however, is _land_ almost from pole to pole.

There is a small sea just above the middle, which might be the

Mediterranean. Moreover, it must be mountainous land to cause the ragged

edges and the shadows inside."

Then he turned away to get his globe, and I took the place at the

instrument. He was slowly turning the globe and examining it

thoughtfully as he said to himself,--

"The only continuous land from pole to pole with one interrupting sea

must be over the two Americas or over Europe and Africa. The American

mountain ranges run from north to south, while through Europe and Africa

they are scarce, and almost uniformly run from east to west. Besides,

the sand of Sahara would be sure to show as a large, bright, regular

spot. A section from longitude 70 to 80 west would include the Green

Mountains and the Alleghanies of North America and the Andes of South

America, and in that case the darker spot in the centre would be the

Caribbean Sea."

"Look here!" I cried. "Toward the lower end the inner outline is growing

darker but more regular, and faint streaks or shadows reach through the

brighter light toward the dark greenish regular surface which looks like

water."

He observed closely and said,--

"Those shadows must be cast to westward by the enormous peaks of the

Andes, and the dark greenish surface they reach toward must be the

Pacific Ocean."

Then he consulted his globe while I looked. "The first two to come into

view," he said, "would be the two great peaks in Bolivia, over

twenty-one thousand feet high."

"There _are_ two of them together," I said, "and now others are rapidly

coming into view. There are five more scattered unequally, and then,

lower down, three near together."

"Then there is not the slightest doubt that we see the Lower Andes," he

said. "These last you mention are scattered just as you say along the

border between Chili and Argentina, and the group of three are near

Valparaiso, the peak of Aconcagua being the tallest. But watch now for

the group in Ecuador, about midway between the top and bottom of the

crescent. There are four very large peaks and numerous smaller ones."

"The middle all looks bright yet, like land, with no shadows or greenish

spots. But a queer thing is happening lower down, where the shadows have

ceased lengthening and are now fading. There are several fine points of

light just beyond the outer edge of the crescent. They are mere bright

specks, but gradually they join with the surface, making a rough toothed

edge."

"Ah, that phenomenon has been observed upon the Moon," said he. "That is

the sun shining on the snow-capped peaks first, and then, when the

diminutive outline of the mountain comes into view, it looks like a

tooth."

"The same is happening all down the coast," I reported. "Now I see it on

the lower group of three."

"Give me the instrument," demanded the doctor. "That can be nothing but

the west coast of South America, and if that be the case, the whole

thing will be repeated for the tall group in Ecuador, dominated by

Chimborazo."

As I surrendered the telescope to him, the whole lower part of the

crescent was dark, but with regular edges. Only in the middle, which

should have been about the Equator, and in the upper part, was there the

bright lustre of land reflection. He watched for fully half an hour

before observing anything remarkable. At last he exclaimed,--

"Now they are beginning! Five streaks near together and just at the

Equator. They are almost equidistant from each other, and the next to

the lowest one is the longest. Now the top one begins to fade! Yes, and

a point of light has appeared detached from the outer edge, and now

another and another! They are growing inward toward the surface. Now

they are all connected like five saw teeth; the bottom one is the

shortest, and that next very high one is old Chimborazo."

"Then it is morning at Quito and also at Pittsburg!" I said, tracing up

the 80th meridian.

"Yes, and we have been one complete day and about five hours more

travelling the nine hundred thousand miles that lie between this and

Earth," replied he.

"That makes us one full meal behind time," I said; "but we have

discovered a way to make the Andes call us for breakfast. When the

Pacific Ocean has passed from view, Japan and Australia shall strike

noon for us, and we will have supper and call it night when the Indian

Ocean is gone and darkest Africa has come into view!"

CHAPTER XII

Space Fever

We counted seven successive returns of the peaks of the Andes, and being

by that time certainly six million miles from the Earth, we could

distinguish them no longer. Then followed what I remember as a very long

and unspeakably monotonous period, without any adequate method of

marking the time. Our days became a full week long, for the only way we

could guess at the time was by the quarterings of the Moon. We could

still see her about the size of a marble in the telescope, and as her

crescent began to wane, and finally her light entirely disappeared, we

knew she was then just between us and the Earth, and shining upon that

planet as a Full Moon. This was due to occur fifteen days after our

departure. Then we watched her grow from a thin crescent to a bright

quarter, and we knew another week had elapsed.

"We shall soon be able to determine one date with absolute certainty," I

said to the doctor, when we must have been some twenty days out. "I have

been reading up your almanack, and I find there is a total eclipse of

the Sun by the Moon on June 29th."

"You might as well try to eclipse him with a straw-hat, as far as we are

concerned," he replied. "The Moon will necessarily be on the further

side of the Earth when that occurs, and the eclipse will barely reach

the Earth. It will fall short of us by a matter of some thirty million

miles!"

It was soon after this that we gave up observing the Earth as a planet,

put on our darkened lens, and proceeded to hold her as a spot in the Sun

a little to the left of his centre. The Moon remained a tiny spot of

light outside for a few days; but finally she entered the Sun also, and

was seen as a faint spot travelling toward the Earth-spot.

Although the dazzling quality of the light, into which we had emerged

after the second day, was finally beginning to wane and pale a little,

Mars was still invisible. In fact, no stars or planets were visible;

only the gleaming Sun with the Earth-spot upon it. Our thermometer was

poorly placed in the glare of the Sun at the rear; but it showed the

heat was decreasing, and from a temperature of thirty-five degrees,

observed at the end of the second day, it had now fallen to twelve, and

was diminishing regularly about two degrees daily as nearly as we could

reckon.

Our appetites were steadily failing, and for two very good reasons: the

unsuitable foods and the impossibility of getting any exercise. There

was no such thing as getting any healthy actions of the body. Nothing

had any weight, and such a thing as physical labour was impossible on

the face of it. I attempted to go through regular courses of gymnastics

at frequent intervals; but as my body and its members weighed nothing,

my muscles found nothing whatever to expend their force upon. I thought

myself worse than Prometheus bound upon his rock, for he could at least

struggle with the birds of prey and pull upon his chains! I might as

well have been utterly paralyzed, and I actually began to fear that I

should lose all my strength, and that my muscles would forget their

cunning.

And our foods could not have been more unsuitable. The light vegetable

diet which this lack of exercise called for was impossible. We had never

had any fresh vegetables or fruits, and our tinned and canned supplies

of these had been rapidly exhausted. We had plenty of solid, meaty foods

and beef essences; but our systems did not require these, and at last

absolutely refused to have them. I lived for days at a time upon beer

and biscuits, and looked longingly at my cigars. I believed I could have

existed comfortably and luxuriously upon smoke alone. My dreams were

filled with visions of ripe, luscious fruits and fresh, crisp

vegetables. When I awoke, I loathed the only foods we had.

I believe I should finally have given up eating, had I not hit upon a

method of exercise at last. It was a sort of rowing or pulling machine,

which I rigged up by running a bar through one end of the doctor's

spring scales, and fastening the other end to the foot of my bed. I

pulled vigorously against this spring for hours at a time, and was

delighted to find that my strength had not left me, and that I could

easily lift as much as these scales had been made to weigh. I remember

the returned appetite with which I enjoyed potted meat and a tinned

pudding, after the first hour of as vigorous exercise as our rarefied

air would permit.

The Moon-spot had disappeared and gone to her eclipse behind the Earth,

when an incident occurred to vary the monotony of our existence a

little, and to suggest to me a diversion that had been hitherto

forbidden. Our supply of water in the outer tank had long ago boiled

away, and I had lighted the gas to heat water for the doctor's coffee. I

had taken the cup up to him and remained chatting with him, when

presently I smelled something burning from the compartment below. I

descended quickly, and saw that my light bedclothes, which now weighed

less than a feather, and often floated from their place, had been drawn

into the flame by the draft of the burning gas. They were floating about

the compartment now, all aflame and threatening to set fire to

everything. We had not a drop of water to spare; but for once I thought

of the right thing to do without hesitation. I pushed out the

ventilating cylinder, hurried back to the doctor's compartment and

thrust in the bulkhead. Within two minutes all the air had escaped from

my room, and the fire had died for lack of oxygen. I waited a few

minutes longer for the smoke to escape, and then we admitted condensed

air, but only to the remarkably low pressure of eighteen. Within five

minutes the compartment was ready again, and there was not a trace of

smoke or smell of fire to be perceived.

"I congratulate you on your quick perception and prompt action," said

the doctor when it was over.

"Quick rubbish!" I exclaimed. "I have been a dundering fool for four

weeks by the Moon! I might just as well have been smoking ever since I

contrived this self-ventilating arrangement. The compartment becomes a

perfectly clean vacuum at each operation, yet I had to wait for this bed

clothing to catch fire before I could think of so simple a thing!"

It was at the meal time just preceding the next changing of air that I

opened the last tin of canned peas, as a sort of treat for the doctor to

offset my expected revel in fragrant tobacco. I prepared half the

quantity for him, but left my portion in the tin until I should be

hungrier. With the prospects of a good smoke before me, I had no

appetite for food. I put in the bulkhead to prevent the smoke from

entering his compartment and lighted my Havana. Then I took Two-spot on

my lap and stretched myself for a reverie. On Earth, smoking time had

been my period for reflection. And far back on that distant planet, what

were they doing now? In that one busy corner that had known me, they had

probably wondered at my disappearance for a day or two; but after the

month that had passed I was certainly forgotten. There were few back

there whom I cared for, and not many had much reason to remember me. My

interests, my desires, my hopes were all ahead of me on a new planet.

And what was waiting for me on Mars? Discovery, riches perhaps, and a

measure of fame when I returned. Then I thought of the numberless

problems that the next few weeks must solve for us. Would there be

intelligent inhabitants on Mars? Would they be in the forms of men or

beasts? Would they be civilized or savage? Would they speak a language,

and how could we learn to communicate with them? Would they have foods

suitable to us; indeed, would the very air they breathed be fit to

sustain our lives? Should we find them peaceable, or, if warlike, should

we be able to cope with them?

These thoughts were interrupted by the doctor, who called feebly to me

to come up. "Don't eat any of the peas," he said weakly. "There was a

queer taste about them, and they have made me deathly sick."

He was very wretched, and grew rapidly worse. I immediately saw that it

was a severe case of poisoning, and I did everything I could to relieve

him, but he groaned in agony for several hours. Finally he fell asleep,

but his rest was disturbed by fits of delirium, in which he raved wildly

in German mixed with English. As he slept I had time to think the matter

over carefully. After all, it was a thing which required only simple

remedies, and I had administered them. It was only a question of a

little nursing and a careful diet, and he would be well again.

But his fever increased and his delirium became more frequent, and I

began to appreciate that the derangement incident to the poisoning had

prepared the way for a more serious illness. During his ravings I caught

a glimpse of the struggling and ambitious side of his nature, which he

always so carefully repressed.

Once I heard him mumble this to himself in German: "Kepler perceived a

little, he saw dimly; Newton comprehended the easy half; but Anderwelt,

Anderwelt of Heidelberg, grasped the hidden meaning!"

In spite of all my attentions (I did not then understand the nature of

Space Fever, of course), he was growing steadily worse, and I was

becoming desperate. I could not afford to have him ill long. The

currents would probably continue to work fairly well until it became

necessary to reverse them, and that time was not far off. Unless they

were reversed exactly at the right moment, we might fall into the

neutral spot and be held there for ever. Even if I managed to stop the

negative current, and succeeded in falling towards Mars, I could not

regulate the positive current so as to temper our fall and make a safe

landing. It was equally dangerous to remain fixed in space, or to fall

headlong upon a planet and be smashed, or be buried miles deep if the

projectile did not collapse.

I had no way of telling how much time passed, but it seemed to me a very

long period, and he grew steadily worse as we approached the neutral

point. I tried to rouse him from his delirium. I addressed him

jocularly, then commandingly, then beseechingly. And he answered me

always with reflections from that other side of his nature which one

rarely saw when he was well.

"Hast thou seen red ants crawling upon a cherry? Such are the mere

circumnavigators of a globe! What! Hath not the world forgotten a

Columbus? How long, then, will it remember---- Hast thou no cooler

water? This is tepid and bitter!"

Ever since the last quarter of the Moon, which must have been ten days

ago, there had not been the slightest perceptible evidence of movement.

The standards by which we judge motion on the Earth had failed ever

since we left the atmosphere. There was no rushing or whizzing; we

passed nothing; all the ordinary evidences of speed were absent. When

you lie in the state-room of a smoothly moving steamer, no forward

motion is perceptible. If you see another ship pass near by, you get a

sudden surprising idea of the speed. If you watch the receding water,

you appear to be going forward slowly; and if you watch the spray at the

bow or the wake astern, you appreciate the movement more fully. But if

the waves or the tide happen to be running with the ship, she has

apparently almost stopped, when really her speed has been somewhat

accelerated. If you watch the distant stars, you can scarcely perceive

any motion at all; and if the clouds should be moving in the same

direction as the ship, her motion appears reversed.

We had none of these things by which to judge, and we appeared to be

hanging perfectly still in space, though the doctor had assured me we

were travelling at least five hundred miles a minute. This was rational,

as it agreed with the diminishing size of the Earth; but it required an

effort of faith on my part to believe that we had been moving at all.

But suppose we should gradually lose our speed and stop in a neutral

point, how should I know it? The Earth now was, and had been for ten

days, a mere spot on the Sun. While Mars had been visible, he had never

increased in size in the telescope, and he was now invisible. The only

way I could tell would be to wait until after many days had elapsed, and

if Mars did not finally come into view, I should know something was

wrong. But it would be too late then; there would be no winds or tides,

no weight or buoyancy, nothing to move us out of that dreadful calm

where even gravity does not exist. That must be avoided at every cost!

But might we not be very near it now? Weight had been practically

nothing for a month, within an hour it might be positively nothing,

and----

The doctor's mutterings interrupted these thoughts. "The power with

which to travel was so simple and so vast! It all lay hidden in that

elementary law of magnetism, like poles repel and unlike poles attract.

But the road to travel and the problems by the way, those were the hard

things!"

He was putting them all in the past tense, as if he had already solved

them! But what was that law of magnetism he mentioned? Perhaps he would

reveal his secrets to me in his ravings! I must mark every word he said;

for it was clear I must solve the problem, he would not be well in time.

I must brush the cobwebs from my meagre science and struggle with his

invention.

"Unlike poles attract," he had said. Then Earth and matter must normally

have unlike poles, and to make Earth repel matter it would only be

necessary to change the polarization of the matter. Yes, he had told me

it was all accomplished by polarizing the steel and iron of the

projectile! When they were made the same pole as the Earth, then she

repelled them. But if the whole thing were so simple, why had it never

been discovered before? Ah, that is the strong shield behind which

incredulity always takes refuge!

I ventured near the gravity apparatus and examined it carefully. There

was a small thing which looked like the switchboard of a telegraph

office. The perforations in it were all in a row, and the ten holes were

now filled with little brass pegs, which were suspended from above on

small spiral springs. These were evidently the points of communication

of the negative current to the framework of the projectile. It certainly

would do no harm to pull out one of these pegs, as that would only

slightly diminish the current. At least I would risk it. My fingers had

scarcely closed upon the brass, when I was given such a violent shock as

to be thrown powerfully across the compartment; and had my body weighed

anything, my bones would certainly have been broken by the concussion.

My arm and shoulder did not recover from the stinging and deadening

sensation for some time. I noted the little peg I had pulled out hanging

by its spiral spring just above the hole it had filled. It would be

worth my life to remove the other nine in the same way.

Besides, how would I know when the time came to remove them? My eyes

fell upon the two large leaden balls suspended from short copper

chains. I had seen these before, but now I thought I understood them.

They would swing whichever way gravity attracted. They hung down toward

my compartment now, and if we ever passed the dead line, they would hang

forward toward Mars. But in the neutral point what would they do? When

the gravity of planets neutralized each other, the steel of the

projectile would repel these balls towards its centre, which would tend

to put them both in the same spot and thus bring them together.

Moreover, they would slightly attract each other. Yes, it was quite

certain that these had been devised as a Gravity Indicator, and they

would tell me when we were approaching a dead line, when we were in it,

and when it was safely passed. But all that would do me but little good

unless I could manage the currents.

I sat thinking this over a long time, when it suddenly occurred to me

that the doctor would recognise, even in his delirium, the importance of

action when these two balls came together. As soon as they had

approached each other, I must lift him up and show them to him. The

brain that had made them would know their meaning, and know how to act

even in illness! Perhaps I was like a drowning man clutching at a straw;

but from the moment I thought of this I believed firmly that the

solution of the whole problem would come in this manner. My hopes were

ready to hang on the slightest peg. It consoled me to remember some

instances where men temporarily insane had been brought to consciousness

by impending danger, or by the sight of what last weighed upon their

mind.

When I glanced at the balls next, I saw that their chains lacked an inch

of being parallel. They were already moving slowly inward toward each

other. I noted that the chains, which ran through the balls and were

connected with a small copper plate on the bottom of each, were just

long enough to allow the bottom edges to touch, if they were drawn as

far toward each other as possible.

The doctor's fever was at its very worst, but that did not dampen my

hopes. The balls were gradually drawing nearer together. I wished them

to be quite close before I made the supreme trial which was to liberate

us or leave us prisoners in space for ever! Presently I loosened the

knotted sheets which held him to his bed, and lifted the feverish man,

as I might have carried a doll, and brought him in full view of the

approaching balls.

"Doctor, listen now and look," I said firmly and commandingly.

"Always stubborn and unbelieving!" he raved. "I must take it to a new

country, to America, where they invent things themselves, and are

willing to listen, and anxious to try!"

"Doctor, don't you know me? It is I, Werner, who helped you. This is a

crisis for us! Do you see those approaching balls? You know what they

mean! You must save us."

"Thou'rt too busy, like all the rest! Why, then, remember that to-morrow

will despise those who are so busy with to-day! Opportunity has knocked

and listened for thee and thou hast bade her begone!"

"Listen, Doctor. I am he who heard you and gave you the pink cheque. I

am he who refused three times to go with you and then came at last. I am

he who was afraid of the light, who dodged the Moon, and chaffed you

about the pump. Do you not remember it all? Come, you are no longer ill.

There is work to do. Have you forgotten the leaden balls? See! they are

touching each other now, and we are in the dead-line, the neutral spot,

the one danger of the trip which you acknowledged."

But it was useless. He remembered nothing, his eyes were dim and vacant,

and the great brain that had planned all this was overthrown by fever.

The experiment had failed and we were lost!

I tied him gently back on his bed and turned in desperation to the

apparatus, deciding to risk my life to pull out those nine pegs with my

hands, one after another.

My God! they were already out! Every one of them was hanging by its

spiral spring, just above the hole it had filled. The switchboard had

opened a little and released them. It was all automatic! The contact of

the copper surface of the balls had completed a short circuit which cut

the negative current. He had thought of it all, even to this emergency,

and the machine could take care of itself!

And in the wave of thankfulness and rejoicing which swept over me, I

sank on my knees and kissed the forehead of the feverish old man again

and again!

CHAPTER XIII

The Mystery of a Minus Weight

It was the doctor himself who gave the name Space Fever (now so

generally adopted) to the peculiar malady from which he suffered in that

long period when weight was very slight or nothing at all. A little

reflection on the physiological bearings of the conditions we were

passing through, will serve to explain the illness.

For the period of a month, owing to the impossibility of effort, there

was scarcely any wasting of our bodily tissues, and very little need for

oxydization of the blood. The limbs, which the heart really works

hardest to serve, did scarcely any labour and needed very little blood.

But the heart had its stubborn habits the same as the other muscles. It

is a high-pressure engine, and there is no way of slowing it down

materially. It kept up its vigorous pumping and driving just as if the

great muscles of the limbs had wasted and needed building up, and just

as if it had the task of forcing the blood through those parts of the

body usually compressed by its weight or strained by the effort of

carrying it. The result was much the same as if your heart now should

suddenly begin to beat much too fast, the blood was heated into a state

of fever, which naturally increased as we lost weight, culminated at the

dead-line and began decreasing as soon as we commenced having a weight

toward Mars. It was only my fortunate invention of a method of exercise,

and my religious adherence to it, which saved me from a similar attack.

But many things happened before the doctor recovered consciousness. The

Moon had re-appeared on the other side of the Earth-spot, the light

about us had grown less dazzling than sunlight on Earth, and the

temperature had fallen to four degrees. It was perhaps two days after

passing the dead-line that, as I was gazing carefully out of the forward

window, I saw far to the right of us a large circular patch of faintly

redder light in the general curtain of white. Its size quite startled

me, for it was rather larger than a full moon, and I had expected Mars

to re-appear as a very bright star before we could distinguish any disc

with the naked eye. This misapprehension probably arose from the fact

that I had thought the dead-line about half way between the two planets,

which upon reflection I saw to be impossible, as it must be much nearer

the smaller planet.

The outline of the planet was not clearly visible yet, but I could not

have missed seeing that red glow long before, had it been more directly

in front of us. Evidently we were steering much ahead of the planet,

which indicated that we were arriving before opposition. I immediately

changed our course so as to go more nearly toward it, but yet to keep a

little ahead. Then I hastily brought the telescope back to the forward

compartment, which was now the bottom of the projectile. The lenses

easily pierced the curtain of light that seemed to be hung in front of

the new planet, and I could distinguish the outline of the greatly

magnified orb very clearly.

Judging from appearances, it could not be farther from us than twice the

distance of the Moon from the Earth. I resorted to the scales at once,

and found that weight was beginning slowly to return, for I weighed a

little less than an ounce. From a rule the doctor had explained to me, I

calculated that this indicated a distance from the planet of about four

hundred thousand miles, if it really was Mars. But I had some doubts

about its really being that planet; for a clear white, irregular-shaped

spot upon it, which I had noticed as soon as the telescope was focussed,

did not appear to move at all, as it should have done had it been upon a

rotating planet. Upon closer observation, I detected a dull, greenish

spot, just coming upon the lower edge. But when I looked again a bright

white and perfectly circular spot had appeared in the same place and

covered it up. But this new white spot travelled much more rapidly, and

soon uncovered the greenish spot, which seemed to move in the same path,

but much more slowly. This was something I could not understand. The

white circle was too bright and regular to be a cloud, yet if they were

both on the surface how could one travel faster over the same path?

Very soon the white circle passed entirely across the greater orb, and

then I was surprised to see it detach itself from the planet and remain

for a few moments as a separate small orb in the sky! Could this be

another freak of refraction? But before I could determine, the little

orb disappeared behind the greater disc and was gone. The greenish spot,

which I judged to be truly on the surface and caused by an ocean or

great sea, was about three times as long in crossing the disc. I next

turned my attention to the immovable and irregular white spot, and

discovered that its edges seemed to be revolving slowly around its

centre. Then it occurred to me that this spot must be located at one of

the poles and be caused by polar ice and snows. The doctor had expected

such on Mars, and I no longer doubted that this was our objective

planet.

It was like a great holiday for me when the doctor regained

consciousness. Almost as soon as his fever abated he was well enough to

perform his customary duties. His illness had not made him appreciably

weak, because as yet scarcely any effort was required to move about. He

was quite as anxious to hear all my experiences as I was eager to

relate them. I gave him a full account of my struggle passing the

dead-line, of my discovery of Mars, and the various spots I had noted.

"From the time it took the greenish spot to cross, I should judge a

Martian day to be about fifty hours long," I said.

"Then you _must_ have been very lonely," he replied. "For a Martian day

is just forty-one minutes longer than an Earthly day, unless a great

number of our scientists have continually made the same mistake in

observing him."

"When we arrive, we shall be able to determine the point exactly if our

watches commence running again," I answered. "But I think I know one

reason why I have misjudged the time. Ever since you have been ill I

have slept very little. I have hardly felt the need of rest since I lost

my weight. I have been growing more and more wakeful, and I rarely sleep

more than an hour at a time. That seems quite sufficient to refresh me."

"As we regain our weight we shall feel the need of sleep again," he

said. "But on Mars we may need but one-third as much as we had on Earth,

unless we exert ourselves proportionately more."

Then I told him about the circular spot which had seemed to slip off the

upper edge of Mars, and asked his explanation of it.

"That must have been Phobos, one of the moons of Mars," he said.

"One of his moons!" I exclaimed; "I didn't know he had _any_."

"You are an American, and say that!" he answered in surprise. "It is one

of the astronomical glories of your people that they discovered the two

moons of Mars, during the favourable opposition of 1877."

"This is the first case I remember where we have left it to a foreigner

to tell us how great we have been!" I laughed.

"These two moons of Mars also furnish a most interesting example of how

fiction may forestall and pre-figure actual scientific discovery. Dr.

Swift made Gulliver, in his wonderful travels, discover two moons of

Mars, revolving at a speed which he must have thought ridiculously fast.

Many years afterward the American telescopes really found two moons, but

actually revolving more rapidly than Dr. Swift had dared to boast! If

your white circle was really Phobos, you have seen the freak among

satellites. She is the smallest, swiftest moon ever discovered, and

travels so much more swiftly than the revolution of her primary that she

appears to go opposite to everything else in the Martian sky, rising

where the Sun sets and crossing the heavens from west to east!"

"What I saw did travel in the same direction as the rotation of the

planet, and much more rapidly," I exclaimed.

"Then it was Phobos without a doubt, and she is due to appear again in

the west in three hours and fifty minutes after she sets in the east. We

must watch closely, for I wish to land upon her and make a flying trip

all around Mars with her. Do you realize what a glorious view we shall

have of the great planet, sailing around him on this satellite in a

period of a little over seven and a half hours, and at a distance of

only about four thousand miles? There will be no night, for if one side

of the little moon is heavier than the other, the heavier side will

always be turned toward Mars. Therefore, when the Sun does not shine on

Phobos, Mars will do so, and keep her continually illuminated, except

for the brief period of the regular eclipse during each revolution. And

one-fourth of the entire heavens, as seen from Phobos, will be filled

with the glowing orb of Mars! The great planet will exhibit to us at a

near range all the configurations of his surface, his oceans and his

clouds. We will survey and photograph him to our hearts' content."

The doctor was justly enthusiastic on this subject, and I felt that such

a landing would, in some measure, compensate for my disappointment in

not being able to visit the Moon.

As I watched carefully, the satellite finally came into view, but very

much more distant from Mars than before. Also, it moved very slowly now,

and seemed to grow larger as it approached the disc. I pointed it out to

the doctor, and remarked that it was acting quite differently. Just as

it entered upon the orb of Mars, another moon, somewhat smaller, mounted

hurriedly from the under side of the planet and began hastily ploughing

her way over the ruddy disc.

"That last one is the one I saw before, that is my Phobos!" I cried

excitedly.

"Then the other slow one is Deimos, the outer moon. She appears the

larger to us now, because her greater distance from Mars makes her

nearer to us, but she appears to the Martians as the smaller. We must

observe closely, and we may discover some new and lesser satellites

which Earthly telescopes have never found."

"Time enough for that when we land on Mars," I answered. "If we get in

past these two without being hit, I shall be satisfied. You dare not

venture in front of that Phobos, and I don't see how you can ever

overtake her if you approach from behind."

"That reminds me to slacken speed, for we must be getting very near," he

said. "Please weigh yourself every few minutes and note your increasing

weight. You should weigh seventy-two pounds on Mars, and eight pounds at

the distance of Phobos."

He immediately reversed currents, and when I reported that I weighed

almost a pound, it frightened him, and he turned in the full power of

the negative currents to overcome our momentum. And it proved that the

repelling power of Mars at the distance of 15,000 miles, which this

indicated, was not at all strong against the great velocity we had been

daily acquiring. I hung upon the scales every few minutes, and reported

a steadily increasing weight up to three pounds.

"That shows a distance of eight thousand miles," he figured. "Almost

exactly in the orbit of Deimos, but she has safely passed, and will not

return for thirty hours. We must turn the rudder hard over to the right,

and sail around the planet in a circle until Phobos overtakes us; then,

if we approach her travelling in the same direction at almost the same

rate of speed, her gravitational attraction will pick us up and draw us

safely ashore."

Mars was already an enormous orb ahead of us, and many of his features,

such as oceans, ice-caps, and continents, could easily be distinguished;

but we paid little attention to them, being occupied with making a safe

landing on Phobos, and expecting to make a systematic study of him from

there.

"We must not attempt a landing on the outer side of the satellite," the

doctor reflected, "for we should have no way of getting around to the

inner side to make our observations. We must go within her orbit, and

then as she comes past allow her attraction to draw us gently toward

her."

We had quickly overtaken and passed Deimos, far within her orbit. I was

keeping a close watch for Phobos out of the rear window as we circled

about Mars at a distance which we calculated, from my weight on the

scales, must be within the path of the satellite. We were circling in

the same direction that the great planet was rotating, and yet we passed

by things on his surface, which proved that we were travelling faster

than his rotation. The doctor noticed, with his telescope, a brilliant

snow-capped peak of a great mountain towering up from a small island.

The contrast of the snow peak, with the darkish green waters all around

it, was the most pronounced thing visible on the great planet, and he

decided this must be the white spot detached from the polar ice which

our astronomers have frequently observed at about twenty-five degrees

south latitude, and to which they have given the name Hall's Island.

"I am afraid we have not appreciated the speed at which we have been

travelling," remarked the doctor. "Phobos is very slow in overtaking

us;" and he was just beginning to slacken speed still more, when he

suddenly cried out,--

"Here she is ahead of us now! We have overtaken her, instead of waiting

for her to catch us!"

And, true enough, we were gradually approaching a small brownish mass,

feebly illuminated on its outer half by the sun, and more faintly still

on its inner half by reflected light from Mars.

And how shall I describe that queer little toy-world which we were

gradually overtaking? Imagine, if you can, a little island, less than a

third the size of the Isle of Wight, tossed a few thousand miles into

space, and circling there rapidly to avoid falling back upon the greater

sphere. Imagine that flying island devoid of soil, of trees or

vegetation, of water or air, of everything but barren, uncrumbled,

homogeneous rock, and you have some idea of the unadorned desolation of

Phobos, into which we were slowly sailing, or falling. There was not

even the slightest trace of sand or scraps of rock, such as time must

have abraded from even the hardest surfaces, but the reason for this

soon became apparent.

The doctor feared steering directly against her as we approached, lest

we should land with a crash. We had already reached her and were

travelling along her inner side. Although we were very near her, she

seemed to have very little attraction for us. Then he turned very much

closer, but as soon as the influence of the rudder was released, we

seemed to leave her instead of falling upon her as we expected. We were

still travelling faster than she was, and had we steered directly

against her, we would have crashed and bumped against her protuberances.

Still there seemed to be no other way to make a landing. In order to

estimate the amount of such a shock, the doctor calculated, from the

best information he had of her size and a guess at her density, that she

would attract the projectile and its entire load with a force of only

two pounds. That was not enough to cause any very great shock, and he

decided to take chances at once, before we had entirely passed her. He

turned the rudder hard over toward the satellite, and we came against

her with scarcely any crash, but with a bumping and grating that

continued until the rudder was eased back. Then, to our great surprise,

we did not remain on the surface, but rose from it and sailed inward

towards Mars.

"Something wrong here!" exclaimed the doctor. "She has no attraction for

us."

"Well, how do you explain this?" I asked. "You say the whole projectile

weighs only two pounds toward Phobos, when, just a short time ago, I

weighed nearly eight pounds myself on the scales."

"True enough!" he cried; "the gravity of Mars must be dominant." He

began figuring rapidly, and then exclaimed: "We weigh one hundred and

thirty pounds toward Mars, and only two pounds toward the satellite.

Small wonder that we could not make a landing, with Mars pulling us away

sixty-five times harder than Phobos attracted us! But this is very

strange! I remember no mention of this in any of the astronomical

writings, and it is as easily calculable on Earth as it is here.

Moreover, this must cause everything that is loose upon Phobos to fall

upon Mars. The great planet is tugging at everything the satellite has

with a force sixty-five times stronger than her own!"

"Now, I am afraid those figures won't do, Doctor," I put in. "For, if

what you say is true, what prevents the whole satellite from tumbling

into Mars at once?"

"She would do so were it not for centrifugal force. The speed with which

she whirls around the planet must just balance the force with which he

attracts her, and thus she is kept in her orbit. But stones and loose

things on this side of her centre are attracted more strongly by Mars

than they are repelled by the whirling, so they must all have fallen to

the planet. That is why the surface was perfectly barren. If Phobos

always keeps the same side turned toward Mars, there may be rocks and

soil on the outer side, and we could land there with a positive current;

but we could not see the great planet, as I had hoped."

"I have had quite enough of this moon-chasing," I said; "let us be off

for the large game at once!" and the doctor agreeing, we turned directly

toward Mars.

BOOK II

Other World Life

CHAPTER I

Why Mars gives a Red Light

Our telescope was now pointed exactly at Mars, and we were observing

every feature as we approached him. Compared with the illuminated

crescent of the Earth, which we had studied when we were observing the

Andes, our present view was infinitely vaster and more comprehensive. We

were approaching the illuminated side of a planet, whereas we had then

been rapidly receding from the dark side of one partly lighted at its

edge. In our new vista there were remarkably few clouds. There were a

few pale mists here and there over the seas, but no such heavy, black

masses as had frequently obscured the Earth.

On Mars there were fewer large bodies of water, and a very much greater

proportion of land. In fact, about the Equator, whither we were

steering, there seemed to be a broad, uninterrupted zone of land, with

occasional bays or inlets cutting into it, but never crossing it. An

open sea of considerable proportions surrounded the great ice-cap at

each pole, and it was apparently thus possible to travel entirely

around the globe, either by sea or by land, as one might choose.

"Behold again the infinite wisdom of the Creator!" cried the doctor.

"Although Mars is a much smaller planet than our own, it is fitted for

almost as large a population. The land is nearly all grouped about the

Equator, where it is warm enough to live comfortably. On the contrary,

on Earth there is no important civilization under the Equator, and most

of the land is favourably located in the north temperate zone. On Earth

the intervention of great oceans between the continents kept the

population restricted to Asia and Egypt for centuries, and to the Old

World for a still longer time. But here, this band of continuous land

has made it easy and natural to explore the whole globe, and its

inhabitants have had ample time and opportunity to distribute

themselves."

But by far the most wonderful thing that we had been observing for a

long time, and which became more remarkable as we approached, was that

the entire planet, seas and continents alike, gave off a reddish light.

This tinge of red had been visible ever since we had left the Earth.

Much further back we had observed that it seemed to extend a little

beyond the outline of Mars, and we now saw that even the white light

from the snow-caps had a faint tinge of red.

"For centuries the ruddy light of this planet has been remarked," said

the doctor. "His very name was given him because of his gory, warlike

appearance. Scientists have attempted to explain it by supposing that

his vegetation is uniformly red, instead of green like ours. Still

others, objecting that his vegetation could not possibly be rank or

plentiful, or continue the same colour through all seasons, have

supposed that his soil or primaeval rock is of a deep red colour. But

neither of these suppositions explain why his seas should give off a

reddish light mixed with their green, or why the pure white of polar

snows should be tinged with crimson."

We must have been still two hundred miles above the surface when the

barometer began to rise feebly, indicating that we were already entering

the Martian atmosphere; and, as we proceeded, the reddish glow spread

all around us, and was even dimly visible behind as well as in front. We

were still travelling too rapidly to plunge into the denser atmosphere

or attempt a landing. Besides, we wished to explore the planet, and find

life and civilization before choosing a landing place. And as we drew

nearer, in a constantly narrowing circle, that red haze was all about us

everywhere.

"There can be but one explanation of it," said the doctor at last. "This

red is a colour in the Martian atmosphere. It seems very strange and

almost impossible to us; but we must prepare ourselves for extremely

unusual and even apparently impossible things."

But this seemed to disturb the doctor greatly, as also did the fact that

we could no longer breathe with comfort the rare air which we had not

found objectionable far back in space. Our returning weight made

physical effort again necessary, and we were able to exert ourselves but

little without panting and gasping. The rarest air we had used had shown

a pressure of fourteen, and we were now compelled to increase this to

eighteen in order to be comfortable.

"This Martian air is sure to give us trouble," the doctor said to me

after considerable reflection. "In the first place, its red colour makes

me fear it is not composed of the same gases that our air is. If it

should turn out to be a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen, like ours, there

is the possibility that this red matter which gives it colour will be

poisonous to us. And even if it is not harmful, I do not think the air

will have a pressure above ten or eleven, and we seem to need eighteen

or twenty for comfort. I shall be very sorry if we have to return at

once; but our supply of air is limited, you know."

"You keep a close watch through your telescope for those flying men you

promised to show me," I answered. "If they can live in this air, I think

we can manage it somehow. I will not go back while there is a breath

left in me."

But as we drew nearer and nearer to the surface we did not discover the

slightest sign of habitation. As far as we could see there was a great

desert, barren of all vegetation, and apparently unwatered since

creation. Our telescope did not detect the existence even of animals or

creeping things.

"The wisdom of the Creator is probably quite as profound, but certainly

not as apparent just here as it was somewhat farther back," I ventured.

"We must search over the whole surface of the globe until we find smoke

rising," said the doctor. "That is the sure sign of intelligent life on

Earth. There has hardly been a tribe of the lowest savages there which

did not know how to light a fire, and this knowledge would be far more

essential on a cold planet like this. Wherever we find smoke we shall

find those intellectual creatures, corresponding to men on our planet."

Presently, far ahead of us, we discerned a small black cloud rapidly

crossing our path. As we approached we examined it through the

telescope, and soon saw that it was nothing less than an enormous flock

of swiftly-flying small grey birds. This was our first acquaintance with

what we afterwards found to be the predominating form of animal life on

the planet. But the swift-winged cloud bore away from us, as if fleeing

from the desert, and was soon lost to view.

It was not long after this that we perceived a broad stripe of

brilliant green extending down into the dull expanse of the desert. In

the middle of this verdant zone there was a weaving silver ribbon, which

could be nothing else than a great river, along whose banks we could

discern hundreds of hovering or wading birds, hopping lugubriously, or

spreading their broad wings in a low flight.

As we now lowered rapidly to examine the soil more closely, we saw that

we were approaching some great geometrical masses of hewn rock, whose

regularity of design indicated that they were buildings of some sort. We

at once decided to land and investigate these, even if we had to take up

our search for intelligent life later.

We remarked that none of these enormous structures were square, or with

right-angled corners, such as we were used to. They all seemed to be a

combination or multiplication of a single design, which was nothing more

than a massive triangular wall, with its right angle on the ground and

its acute angle at the top. Sometimes two were built together, with

their perpendicular surfaces joining; again, four were joined in the

same manner, and one very large one was composed of twelve of these,

radiating from a common centre, which, if they had quite joined each

other, would have formed a gigantic cone.

I took another look at the tall, slender birds down the river, and

remarked to the doctor,--

"These great structures are no birds' nests! You can't make me believe

winged men would build with stone. These look more like giants'

playthings than anything else."

"They appear to me like the gnomons of enormous sundials," remarked the

doctor; "and, indeed, their uses must certainly be astronomical. With

these one can not only tell the time, but the ascension and meridian of

the sun and stars, and therefore the months and seasons."

We lowered and circled about above the largest one, which had twelve of

the triangular walls built in circular form, with their common

perpendicular line in the centre and their acute angles at the

circumference. On closer observation, the twelve slanting sides, which

radiated from the common peak, had a tubular appearance, and we were

soon able to look down through almost a hundred great cylindrical

chambers, which ran from a common opening at the top, slanting at every

different angle down to the surface.

"These are nothing more than great, immovable masonry telescopes, for

watching the stars in their courses!" cried the doctor. "Look, there is

one perpendicular cylinder for observing just when a star or planet

comes directly overhead, and these scores of other cylinders, at

different angles, successively afford a view of a given constellation as

it rises and then declines."

"Then they have built a separate masonry telescope, pointing in almost

every conceivable direction, instead of having one movable telescope to

take any direction," said I.

The wonderful size and massive construction of these was very striking,

rivalling the pyramids of Egypt in their ponderous and enduring

character. They were located on a raised plateau, whence the view in all

directions was quite unobstructed. We came gently to land in the midst

of them. To the rear, whence we had come, I could see the desolate waste

of the desert. From the forward window we observed that the peaceful

river kept a straight course from the cataract where it plunged over the

plateau, through the green valley, between level banks, as far as we

could see; and just at the foot of our plateau restfully nestled a city,

whose massive and towering structures reached almost to our level. With

the aid of the telescope we saw beings moving slowly about. Their form

was upright and unwinged, but more than this we could not see. The

deliberation and stately dignity of their movements comported perfectly

with the majestic city wherein they dwelt.

"At last we have arrived at the boundaries of Martian civilization,"

exclaimed the doctor. "We will rest here and test the atmosphere; and if

it permits us, we will then venture forth to measure our skill and

knowledge against this race of builders. I hazard a guess that we will

excel them in many things, for they are apparently only at the

perfection of their Stone Age, while we finished that long ago, and have

since passed through the Ages of Iron and of Steam, and are now at the

dawn of the Era of Magnetism and Gravitation. Our minds are more fertile

and elastic, for with this little movable telescope we probably obtain

better results than they have done with their years of toiling

calculation and patient building."

"You will be sadly disappointed if they so far excel us that they eat us

up at two mouthfuls," said I. "As they move about yonder, they impress

me as being full of power."

"They are as sluggish as elephants," he replied. "We are certainly more

rapid in thought and action, and it is highly probable that we shall

excel them in physical strength, as we have been built for three times

as heavy muscular tasks as they."

"Still, if we cannot make them understand that we come peaceably as

friends, they may attempt to kill us as the quickest solution of the

question. And they are a whole race against two of us," said I, just

beginning to realize all the difficulties that were yet ahead of us.

"Unless they are a very intelligent and magnanimous race, they will

probably attempt to take us prisoners," he answered. "It is the mark of

an enlightened nation to welcome strangers whose powers are unknown. A

primitive race fears everything it does not understand, and force is

its only argument against a superior intelligence."

Thereupon I immediately began a thorough overhauling of all the arms and

ammunition, while the doctor prepared to test the air. There was a tone

of confident exultation in his voice when he spoke again.

"This redness of the air will not trouble us a whit. Look! you can see

no tinge of red between here and that huge wall yonder, nor anywhere

along the ground as far as you can see. It is so slight a colouring that

it is only noticeable in vast reaches of atmosphere, like the blue

colour in our own air. See here, where a small cloud obscures the sky

there is no ruddy tinge. There is no more colouring-matter in this than

there is indigo in our own air. The amount of it is so infinitely small

that it will never trouble us. Now, if it only contains oxygen enough,

we are sure of life in it."

"Yes, if they will leave us alive to breathe it," I added, counting out

seventeen cartridges for each rifle.

"The air outside shows a pressure of only eleven, while we have eighteen

inside," he said. "I will bring in the discharging cylinder full of the

outer air, and by keeping it upside down the lighter air will remain in

it. Then, if a candle flame will burn steadily in it, the oxygen we need

is there."

Suiting the action to the word, he carefully drew in the inverted

cylinder, and cautiously brought a lighted candle into it. To our great

delight the flame burned for a moment with a brighter, stronger light

than it did in the air of the compartment.

"Hurrah!" cried the doctor, as happily as if he had just earned the

right to live. "It seems to have more oxygen than our own air, which

will make up for the lesser density."

Then he put the lighted candle in the cylinder, and quickly discharged

it outside upon the ground where we could see it. The flame had almost

twice the brilliancy that it had had inside.

"Our scientists who have sneered at the possibility of life on Mars,

because of its rare atmosphere, have overlooked the simplicity of the

problem. They delight in propounding posers for Omnipotence. If a

Creator dilutes oxygen with three parts of nitrogen on one planet where

conditions make a dense atmosphere, why should He not dilute oxygen with

an equal part of nitrogen on a planet where the air is rare? Air is not

a chemical compound, but a simple mixture. When a stronger, more

life-giving atmosphere is needed, let there be less of the diluting gas.

The nitrogen is of no known use, except to weaken the oxygen."

"Let me out into it, if you say it is all right," I cried. "I am tired

of this bird-cage."

"Put on the diver's suit and helmet, and I will weaken the pressure of

the air gradually, to prevent bleeding at the nose and ears which a

sudden change might cause. When you are used to the low pressure, you

can throw off the helmet and try the Martian double-oxygenated air."

I hurriedly donned the queer, baggy suit and the enormous helmet with

the bulging glass eyes, and then connected the two long rubber tubes

which sprang from the top with the air pipes which led to the doctor's

compartment. He put in the bulkhead, and I went to the port-hole to

unseal it. As I glanced out the little window, I thought I saw a light

very near the mica. Was it our candle flame that something had lifted?

The thick glass of the helmet blinded me a little, and I approached the

window and peered out, coming face to face with a Martian, whose nose

was pressed against the mica! What a rounded, smooth, and expressionless

face! But what large, deep, luminous eyes!

I sprang back from the window in surprise, but not more quickly than he

did. Just then the projectile rolled over slightly with a crunching

noise, and I hear the thud of a heavy muffled blow on the doctor's end.

Suddenly he pulled away the bulkhead and whispered to me excitedly:--

"They are all about us outside--dozens of them! They are examining the

projectile and trying to break it open. If they strike the windows, it

will be too easy."

The projectile tottered a little again. There was a heaving noise, and

one end rose a little from the ground.

"They are trying to carry us off, Doctor," I cried. "You must turn in

the currents and fly away from them."

The projectile was just then lifted awkwardly, and wavered a little and

pitched, as if it were being carried by a throng struggling clumsily all

about it. The doctor sprang to his apparatus and turned in four

batteries at once. We shot up swiftly in a long curve, and from my

window I could see the circle of amazed Martians, standing dumbly with

their hands still held up in front of them, as they had been when the

projectile left them, while they gazed open-mouthed into the sky at us.