THE FIELD OF DIAMONDS
Dumbly the wanderers gazed at each other. They could not comprehend it
at first. That the projectile, on which their very lives depended in
this dead world of the moon, should float away and leave them seemed
incredible. Yet they had witnessed it.
"Do--do you really think we saw it--saw the _Annihilator_, Mark?" asked
Jack in a low voice, after several minutes had passed.
"Saw it? Of course, we saw it. We've seen the last of it, I'm afraid.
But what do you mean?"
"I--I thought maybe I was out of my head, and I only saw a vision,"
answered Jack. "You know--a sort of mirage. It was real, then?"
"Altogether too real," spoke Andy Sudds grimly. "They didn't see us nor
hear us. We're left behind!"
"But can't we do something?" demanded Mark. "Let's start off and try to
catch them. They were going slow."
"The wonder to me is how they moved at all," said Jack. "I thought the
machinery wouldn't work until we got back with the lost tool."
"Probably the two professors found some way of patching up the motor,"
was Mark's opinion, and later they found that this was so.
For some time they remained staring in the direction in which the
projectile had vanished, as if they might see it reappear, but the
great steel shell did not poke its sharp nose in among the towering
peaks which hid it from view. Probably it was many miles away now.
"Well," remarked old Andy at length, "we've got to make the best of it.
We won't have many more days of light, and we must gather what food we
can, put it where we can find it in the dark, and also bring in some
water from the black pool. We can store that in some of the stone
tables. By turning them upside down they will make good troughs, and it
won't freeze. We must work while we have light, for soon the long night
will come."
The sight of the projectile going away seemed to take the heart out of
all of them, and they did not know what to do. For some time they
remained there idly, until Andy roused the boys to a sense of their
responsibility by urging upon them the necessity of getting together a
store of meat and water.
As they had about exhausted the limited food supply in the ancient
restaurant, they sought and found another and larger one. There they
had the good fortune to come upon some whole sides of beef and lamb,
which were petrified on the outside, but which, when they had blasted
off the outer shell of stone, gave them good food.
They made several trips to the black pool, and brought in all the
liquid they could, for they did not want to have to go outside the
petrified city into the wild and desolate country beyond, after the
dismal night had settled down. They feared they would become lost again.
Their lonely situation seemed to grow upon them. The appalling silence
all about terrified them. The weird sight of the petrified men and
women in the petrified city got on their nerves.
They had done all they could. A store of meat had been blasted out and
put away. It would keep outside of the stone shell now, for the weather
was getting colder with the advent of the long night.
This fact worried them. With the temperature at twenty-eight when the
sun was shining, what might it not fall to in the darkness? The
terrible cold of the arctic regions might be nothing compared to the
frostiness of the dead moon in the shadow. Their fur garments, thick as
they were, might be no more protection than so much paper. And they had
no means of making a fire, nor anything to burn on one had they been
capable of kindling it, for Andy had used the last of his cartridges to
blast with, and where everything was petrified there was no wood.
Then, too, their life-torches were giving out. The emanations of oxygen
were weaker, and they had to hold them almost under their noses to
breathe the vital vapor.
One day, or rather what corresponded to a day, for they had lost all
track of time, Andy Sudds arose from the stone bench on which their
meager meal had been served. He started from the restaurant where they
had taken up their abode.
"Where are you going?" asked Jack.
"I'm going to make one last attempt to find the projectile before it
gets too dark," answered the hunter. "We can go out, look around for
several hours, and get back before darkness sets in. We might as well
do it as sit here doing nothing. Then, too, we can bring in some more
water. We'll need all we can store away."
"I'll go with you," volunteered Jack, and Mark, not wanting to be left
alone in the dead city, followed. Carrying their life-torches and
wrapping their fur garments closely about them, for it had grown much
colder, they sallied forth.
They found a thin film of ice on the black pool, showing that it would
probably freeze when it got cold enough, though the ordinary
temperature of thirty-two degrees had not affected it. They filled
their water bottles, and then Andy proposed that they take a new
path--one they had not tried before.
They hardly knew where they were going, but ever as they tramped on
they cast anxious looks upward to see if they might descry the
projectile hovering over them. But they did not see it.
Jack had taken the lead, and was walking along, glancing idly about. He
came to a place where two peaks were so close together that it was all
he could do to squeeze through. But the moment he had passed the defile
and looked out on a broad, level field, he came to a sudden stop. His
companions, who pressed after him, saw him rub his eyes and shake his
head, as if disbelieving the evidence of what lay before him. Then Jack
murmured: "It can't be true! It can't be true!"
"What?" called Mark.
"There! Those," answered his chum. "See, the field is covered with
diamonds! We have found the diamonds of the moon--the field of Reonaris
that the men of Mars discovered! There are the diamonds--millions of
them!"
"Diamonds!" exclaimed Mark. He squeezed through the defile, and stood
beside Jack. Before him in the fading light of the sun was a broad
field, girt around with towering cliffs, and the surface of the field
was covered with white stones.
Jack sprang forward and gathered up a double handful. He let them run
through his fingers in a sparkling stream. Old Andy came up to the boys.
"They're only glass or crystals," he said.
"They are _not_ glass or crystals!" declared Mark, who had made a study
of gems. "I should say they were diamonds, probably meteoric diamonds,
very rare and valuable. Why, there is the ransom of a thousand kings
spread out before us!"
He fell upon his knees and began to scoop up the gems. His chum was
making a little heap of the stones.
"The ransom of a thousand kings!" murmured Jack. "More diamonds than in
all the world--and I'd give my share for a good ham sandwich!"