AN ALARMING THREAT
The main machines in the engine-room were the two motors, one
designed to send the projectile through the atmosphere, the other
intended to propel it through the space filled with what is
called ether.
It was to these two massive machines that the eyes of all were
now directed. The smaller one, the atmospheric motor, did not
appear to have been damaged, but several wheels and pipes of the
other were broken and twisted.
"Is it ruined?" asked Professor Henderson.
Mr. Roumann was anxiously looking at the apparatus to see what
damage had been done by the bomb.
"Can't we go to Mars?" inquired Jack.
"I think so," was the reassuring reply of the scientist. "It is
not damaged so much as I feared. The wheels and pipes are easily
replaced, and as long as the generator and the distributing
plates are not disturbed, I can easily repair the rest. But it
was a fortunate chance that the bomb did not explode nearer the
projectile. Otherwise we would have had to give up our journey."
"And we would have had to if you had been killed," remarked the
professor. "I thought the secret of the power was going to die
with you!"
"It will," replied Mr. Roumann, "but not just yet. I shall never
disclose the source of the power until I reach Mars, get what I
am after, and come back. Then I may bequeath it to you,
Professor Henderson, in return for the kindness of yourself and
your young assistants."
"I will appreciate that. But you had better go to the house now
and let me doctor you up."
"No, I feel well. I want to get right to work repairing the
damage. It will delay us several days, but we cannot avoid it.
I wish I could catch the men responsible for this outrage."
"Have you any idea who they were?"
"No; but I suspect they were in the enemy of mine. A man who
used to work for me, but whom I discharged because of dishonetesty.
His name was Zeb Forker."
"One of the men who threw the bomb was same one who was at the
window one night," said Mark. "Do you suppose he could be
Forker, Mr. Roumann?"
"No, I do not believe so. But we will not discuss that now. I
fancy the men will not bother us again."
"I'll tell Andy to keep a better watch," said Mr. Henderson.
"And we'll help him," added Mark. "There is little for us to do
on the projectile now, and we can do guard duty, Jack and I
together."
It took Mr. Roumann several days to repair the damage done to the
Etherium motor by the bomb. During that time Andy and the boys
were constantly on guard about the shop, but the crazy machinist
and his companion did not return.
Washington White agreed to stand guard part of one night, and, as
the others were tired, they agreed to it. But a fox or some
animal got in among the colored man's chickens, and at the first
sound of alarm from his favorite fowls, Washington deserted his
post and rushed for the coop. Jack, who was awakened by the
noise, looked out of the window.
"It is some one trying to get in, Wash?" he asked.
"Dat's what, Massa Jack."
Jack awakened Mark, and the two hurried down with their guns.
They found the colored maw making a circuit of his coop.
"I thought you said some one was trying to get in," observed
Jack.
"So dey was, Massa Jack. I done heard de most, tremendousness
conglomeration of disturbances in de direction ob my domesticoryian
orinthological specimens, an' I runned ober to see what it were."
"You mean that something was after your chickens?" asked Mark.
"Dat's de impression I done endeavored to prognostigate to yo',
but seems laik I ain't understood," replied Washington with an
injured air.
"Oh, I understand you, all right," said Jack, "but I thought you
meant some one was gettin in the machine shop."
"No, dere ain't been no one dere, but I was skeered dat somebody
was after mah chickens, but I guess it were only a rat. I'll go
back an stay on guard now."
"No, you'd better go to bed," decided Jack. "Mark and I will
finish out the night."
"All right," agreed Washington, who, to tell the truth, was getting
sleepy.
There were no further disturbances, and Mark and Jack found their
tour of duty rather lonesome.
"Well, I suppose we'll start in a day or so," marked Jack, as
they paced about the big shed which housed the great projectile.
"Yes. The motor seems to be in good working order again. But
say, I've just thought of something."
"What?"
"Suppose something should happen to Mr. Roumann or to the motor
while we were half way to Mars? I mean, suppose he should die,
why, we wouldn't know how to stop the motor, and we might keep on
going forever."
"Oh, I guess he'll tell the professor enough about it so that in
case anything happened we could start it or stop it. It's only
the secret of the power that he wants to keep."
"I wonder what he wants to go to Mars for, anyhow?"
"Well, you know what he said. That he wants to get possession of
some wonderful substance. I guess it is the same stuff that
makes the planet seem red to us."
"What's he going to do with it?"
"I don't know."
"Wonder what it is?"
"I don't know that, either. Maybe it's some sort of a mineral,
like radium."
"Radium would be valuable, if he could get that. Maybe that's what
he's going after."
"No, I think not. If it was, he wouldn't be particular about not
telling us. We'll just have to wait and see."
The following two days were busy ones, as many little adjustments
had to be made to the machine. But at last Mr. Roumann announced
that all was completed.
"We will start day after to-morrow," he said. "All the stores
are in the projectile, I have every thing arranged, and we will
begin our trip Mars."
"Are we going to go up like a balloon, through the roof of the
shed?" asked Jack. "If we we'll have to take the roof off."
"No, we'll start out through the great doors," said the German.
"My plan is to elevate the nose or bow, of the projectile, point
it toward the sky, at a slight angle, by means of propping it up
on blocks. Then we will get in, seal all the openings, and I
will turn on the power, and off we go. We can shoot right through the
big doors at the end of the shed, and no one will know anything
about it, for we will leave the earth so fast that before any one
is aware of our plans we will be out of sight."
"That is a good idea," commented Mr. Henderson. "Have you boys
put everything in the projectile that you'll need?"
"I guess so," replied Jack, "though it's hard to tell what you
really will need on another planet."
"All I want is my gun and some ammunition," declared Andy Sudds.
"I can get along with that."
"How about you, Washington?" asked Jack.
"'Well, I suah would laik t' take mah fowls along."
"I don't see how you can do that very well, Wash," objected Mr.
Henderson. "We would have to carry food for them, and our space
is very limited at best. I'm afraid you'll have to get rid of
your chickens."
"Couldn't I take mah Shanghai rooster?" begged the colored man.
"He's a fine bird, an' maybe dem folks on Mars nebber seed a
real rooster. I suah does hate to leab him behind."
"Oh, I guess you could take him," agreed Mr. Roumann.
"I'll gib him some ob my rations," promised Washington. "He eats
jest laik white folks, dat Shanghai do. Golly! I'se glad I kin
take him. I'll go out an' make a cage."
"What will you I do with the rest of your fowls, Wash?" asked
Mark.
"Oh, a feller named Jim Johnson'll keep 'em fer me till we gits
back. Jim's a cousin ob mine."
The next day was spent in jacking up the prow of the projectile
so that it pointed in a slanting direction toward the sky.
"Am yo' aimin' it right at Mars?" asked the colored man, pausing
in the work of making cage for his rooster.
"No; that isn't necessary," said Mr. Roumann. "Once it starts
upward, I can steer it in any direction I choose. I can send it
directly toward Mars."
"Hit's jest like a boat," observed Washington.
"That's it."
"Well, to-morrow we start," spoke Jack that night, as they were
gathered in the dining-room of the professor's house after
supper, discussing the great trip.
"And to think that in ten days we'll be on thirty-five millions
of miles away from the earth!" added Mark.
"It's a mighty long way," said Andy. "Mebby we'll never git
back."
"Oh, I guess we will," declared Jack "We got back all right
from--"
His words were interrupted by a breaking of glass. One of the
windows crashed in, and something came through it into the room.
It fell upon the floor--a square, black object.
"Dat's one ob dem bombs!" cried Washington. "Look out,
everybody! It'll go off!"
There was a scramble to get out of the room, Washington falling
down on the threshold. Jack, who was in a corner, behind some
chairs, found his way blocked. This gave him a chance to take a
little longer look at the object that had been thrown through the
window.
"That's not a bomb!" he cried. "It's something wrapped in black
paper."
The professor, Mark and Mr. Roumann stopped their hurried egress.
They came back and looked at the object. As Jack had said, it
was something tied up in black paper with pink string.
"It doesn't look like a bomb," observed Mark.
"More like a brick," said Jack, and started toward it.
"Maybe it's an infernal machine," suggested Mark.
Jack hesitated a moment, listened to detect any possible ticking
of some hidden clock mechanism, and then, as no sound came from
the object, he picked it up. Rapidly tearing off the paper, he
disclosed a harmless, red brick.
"Some one wanted to scare us," remarked Andy.
"There's a paper wrapped around the brick--a white paper," said
Professor Henderson.
"So there is," spoke Jack as he removed it. "There's writing on
it, too."
He held it up to the light.
"It's a message," he went on, "and not a very pleasant one,
either."
"Who's it from?" asked Mr. Roumann.
"It's signed 'The Crazy Machinist', Jack, and this is what it
says:"
"Beware, I am still after you! I will yet blow you sky-high!"
"He threw that in through the window!" cried Mark. "He must be
outside here. Let's see if we can't catch him."
"That's right," added Jack. "Andy! Washington! Come on!"
The boys, followed by the hunter and the man, hurried from the
house.