Lost on the Moon by Roy Rockwood (best fiction novels .txt) 📕
But the spirit of adventure was still strong in the hearts of the boys and the professor. One day, in the midst of some risky experiments at college, Jack and Mark, as related in "Through Space to Mars," received a telegram from Professor Henderson, calling them home.
There they found their friend entertaining as a guest Professor Santell Roumann, who was almost as celebrated as was Mr. Henderson, in the matter of inventions.
Professor Roumann made a strange proposition. He said if the old scientist and his young friends would build the proper kind of a projectile, they could make a trip to the planet Mars, by means of a wonderful motor, operated by a power called Etherium, of which Mr. Roumann held the secret.
After some discussion, the projectile, called the Annihilator, from the fact that it annihilated space, was begun. It was two hundred feet long, ten feet in diameter in the middle, and shaped like a cigar. I
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Hand over hand he pulled on the hide rope until, with a final heave, he
had Jack out of his perilous position. He had pulled him up from the
mouth of the crater, and the thick fur coat Jack wore had prevented the
sharp rocks from injuring him. In another moment he stood beside Mark,
a trifle weak and shaky from his experience, but otherwise unhurt.
“How did you happen to go down there?” asked Mark.
“Not from choice, I assure you,” answered Jack. “I couldn’t see the
crater when I jumped, as it was hidden by some rocks, and I was into it
before I knew it. But don’t stand talking here. Put on my coat. I don’t
need it. I’m warm.”
“I will not. I’m not a bit cold. But we may as well get back to the
projectile, for they’ll be worrying about us.” Thereupon Mark broke
into a run, for, now that the exertion of hauling up Jack was over, he
began to feel cool, and the chilling atmosphere of the moon struck
through to his bones.
In a short time the two lads were back at the Annihilator, where
they found Professors Roumann and Henderson getting a bit anxious about
them. Their adventure was quickly related, and the boys were cautioned
to be more careful in the future.
“This moon is a curious, desolate place,” said Mr. Henderson, “and you
can’t behave on it as you would on the earth. We have discovered some
curious facts regarding it, and when we get back I am going to write a
book on them. But I think we have seen enough for the present, so we’ll
stay in the rest of the day and plan for farther trips.”
“Aren’t we going to look for those diamonds?” asked Jack, who had
almost fully recovered from his recent experience.
“Oh, yes, we will look around for them,” assented Mr. Roumann. “I
think, after a day or so, we will move our projectile to another part
of the moon. We want to see as much of it as possible.”
They sat discussing various matters, and, while doing so, Washington
White peered into the living cabin.
“Has yo’ got one ob dem torch-light processions t’ spare?” he asked.
“Torch-light processions?” queried Mark. “What do you think this is, an
election, Wash?”
“I guess he means a life-torch,” suggested Jack. “Are you going out,
Wash?”
“Yais, sah, I did think I’d take a stroll around. Maybe I kin find a
diamond fo’ my tie.”
Laughing, Jack provided the colored man with one of the torches,
instructing him how to use it, and presently Washington was seen
outside, walking gingerly around, as though he expected to go through
the crust of the moon any moment. Pretty soon, however, he got more
courage and tramped boldly along, peering about on the ground for all
the world, as Mark said, as if he was looking for chestnuts.
They paid no attention to the cook for some little time until, when the
boys and the two professors were in the midst of a discussion as to
where would be the best place to move the projectile next, they heard
him running along the corridor toward the cabin.
“Wash is in a hurry,” observed Jack.
The next instant they sprang to their feet at the sight of the
frightened face of the colored man peering in on them. He was as near
white as a negro can ever be, which is a sort of chalk color, and his
eyes were wide open with fear.
“What’s the matter?” asked Jack.
“A ghost! I done seen de ghost ob a dead man!” gasped the colored man.
“A ghost?” repeated Mark.
“Yais, sah, right out yeah! He’s lyin’ down in a hole—a dead man.
Golly! but I’se a scared coon, I is!” and Washington looked over his
shoulder as though he feared the “ghost” had followed him.
A BREAKDOWN
At first they were inclined to regard the announcement of Washington
lightly, but the too evident fright of the colored man showed that
there was some basis for his fear.
“Tell us just what you saw, and where it was,” said Mr. Henderson. “Was
the man alive, Washington?”
“No, sah. How could a ghost be alive? Dey is all dead ones, ghosts am!”
“There are no such things as ghosts,” said Mr. Henderson sternly.
“Den how could I see one?” demanded the cook triumphantly, as if there
was no further argument.
“Well, tell us about it,” suggested Jack.
“It were jest dis way,” began Washington earnestly, and with occasional
glances over his shoulder, “I were walkin’ along, sort ob lookin’ fer
dem sparklin’ diamonds, an’ I didn’t see none, when all on a suddint I
looked down in a hole, and dere I seen HIM!” and he brought out the
word with a jerk.
“Saw what—who?” asked Mr. Roumann.
“De ghost—de dead man. He were lyin’ all curled up, laik he were
asleep, an’ when I seed him, I didn’t stop t’ call him t’ dinner, yo’
can make up yo’ minds t’ dat all.”
“Can you show us the place?” inquired Jack.
“Yais, sah, massa Jack, dat’s what I kin. I’ll point it out from dish
yeah winder, but I ain’t g’wine dar ag’in; no, sah, ‘scuse me!”
“Well, show us then,” suggested Mark. “I wonder what it can be?” he
went on.
“Maybe one of the people who came from Mars after the diamonds, who was
forgotten and left here, and who died,” said Jack.
“It’s possible,” murmured Mr. Henderson. “However, we’ll go take a
look. Get on your fur coats, boys, and take the life-torches. Will you
come, Andy?”
“Sure. It’s got to be more than a ghost to scare me,” said the hunter.
They emerged from the projectile and walked in the direction Washington
had pointed, holding their gas torches near their heads and talking of
what they might see.
“This will be evidence in favor of my diamond theory,” declared Jack.
“It shows that the Martians were here.”
“Wait and see what it is,” suggested his chum.
They walked along a short distance farther, and then Mark spoke.
“That ought to be the place over there,” he said, pointing to a
depression between two tall pinnacles of black rock.
Jack sprang forward, and a moment later uttered a cry of astonishment.
“Here it is!” he called. “A dead man!”
“A dead man?” echoed Professor Henderson.
“A petrified man,” added Jack, in awestruck tones. “He’s turned to
stone.”
A few seconds later they were all grouped around the strange object—it
was a man no longer, but had once been one. It was a petrified human
being, a full-grown man, to judge by the size, and it was a solid image
in stone, even the garments with which he had been clothed being turned
to rock.
For a moment no one spoke, and they gazed in silence at what was an
evidence of former life on the moon. The man was huddled up, with the
knees drawn toward the stomach and the arms bent around the body, as if
the man had died in agony. The features were scarcely distinguishable.
“That man was never an inhabitant of Mars,” spoke Professor Henderson,
in a low voice. “He is much too large, and he has none of the
characteristics of the Martians.”
“I agree with you,” came from Mr. Roumann.
“Then who is he?” asked Jack.
“I think,” said the aged scientist, “that we are now gazing on all that
was once mortal of one of the inhabitants of the moon.”
“An inhabitant of the moon?” gasped Mark.
“Yes; why not?” went on Mr. Henderson. “I believe the moon was once a
planet like our earth—perhaps even a part of it, and I think that it
was inhabited. In time it cooled so that life could no longer be
supported, or, at least, this side of the moon presents that
indication. The people were killed—frozen to death, and by reason of
the chemical action of the gases, or perhaps from the moon being
covered with water in which was a large percentage of lime, they were
turned to stone. That is what happened to this poor man.”
“Such a thing is possible,” admitted Professor Roumann gravely.
And, indeed, it is, as the writer can testify, for in the Metropolitan
Museum in New York there are the remains of an ancient South American
miner, whose body has been turned into solid copper. The corpse, of
which the features are partly distinguishable, was found four hundred
feet down in an old copper mine, where the dripping from hidden
springs, the waters of which were rich in copper sulphate, had
converted the man’s body into a block of metal, retaining its natural
shape. The body is drawn up in agony, and there is every indication
that the man was killed by a cave-in of the mine. Some of his tools
were found near him.
They remained gazing at the weird sight of the petrified man for some
time.
“Then the moon was once inhabited?” asked Jack at length.
“I believe so—yes,” answered Professor Henderson.
“Then where are the other people?” asked Mark. “There must be more than
one left. Why was this man off here alone?”
“We don’t know,” responded the German scientist. “Perhaps he was off
alone in the mountains when death overtook him, or perhaps all his
companions were buried under an upheaval of rock. We can only
theorize.”
“It will be something else to put in the book I am to write,” said Mr.
Henderson. “But, now that we have evidence of former life on the moon,
we must investigate further. We will make an attempt to go to the other
side of the country, and to that end I suggest that we set our
projectile in motion and travel a bit. There is little more to see
here.”
This plan met with general approval, and, after some photographs had
been taken of the petrified man, and the professors had made notes, and
set down data regarding him, and had tried to guess how long he had
been dead, they went back to the Annihilator.
“Well, did yo’ all see him?” asked Washington.
“We sure did,” answered Jack. “You weren’t mistaken that time.”
They got ready to move the projectile, but decided to remain over night
where they were. “Over night” being the way they spoke of it, though,
as I have said, there was perpetual daylight for fourteen days at a
time on the moon.
Professors Roumann and Henderson made a few more observations for
scientific purposes. They found traces of some vegetation, but it was
of little value for food, even to the lower forms of animal life, they
decided. There was also a little moisture; noticed at certain hours of
the day. But, in the main, the place where they had landed was most
desolate.
“I hope we get to a better place soon,” said Jack, just before they
sealed themselves up in the projectile to travel to a new spot.
As distance was comparatively small on the moon, for her diameter is
only a little over two thousand miles and the circumference only about
six thousand six hundred miles, the Annihilator could not be speeded
up. If it went too fast, it would soon be off the moon and into space
again.
Accordingly the Cardite motor was geared to
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