Through Space to Mars, Roy Rockwood [e book reader pdf txt] 📗
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into it, will it?” inquired Jack.
“That’s just the trouble. We don’t know that it is gas,” said
Mr. Roumann. “It may be solid, and then to rush into it at
terrific speed would mean that we would be demolished. Also, if
the gas is flaming, you can easily imagine what would happen to
the Annihilator. There would be nothing left of it—or us—in
less than an instant.”
“But isn’t there some way of escaping it?” asked Mark.
“I’m going to try,” responded Mr. Roumann. “Jack, ask Professor
Henderson to step here. I wish to consult him.”
Jack delivered the message, and it was overheard by Washington
White. Something in Jack’s manner told the colored man that
there was trouble aboard.
“What’s de mattah?” he asked.
Jack saw no reason for concealing the danger from the cook.
“We’re heading into a comet,” he, said.
“What? One ob dem tings wid long, fiery tails, Massa Jack?”
The youth nodded.
“Am we gwine t’ hit it?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Well, I hopes we does!” exclaimed Washington with great
earnestness. “I hopes we knocks it clean outen de universe,
dat’s what I hopes.”
“We’re a great deal more likely to be knocked out ourselves,
Wash.”
“No, sah! Don’t yo’ believe anyt’ing like dat!” exclaimed the
colored man. “I know dis airship. I helped build it, an’ it’s
de strongest one de perfesser eber made. A comet won’t be one,
two, six wid it. We’ll jest knock a piece of his tail off, at’s
what we’ll do. I don’t laik comets. Dey allers brings bad luck.
Onct, when I was a young feller, I had a ten-dollar gold piece.
Dat same year a comet was observed, an’ de fust t’ing I knowed
somebody done up an’ stole mah ten-dollar gold piece. Comets
brings bad luck, an’ I knows it; Golly! I want t’ see one ob ‘em
busted all t’ pieces.”
“I guess you don’t appreciate the danger,” said Jack gravely, as
he followed Professor Henderson back to the pilot room, where the
two scientists began to consult.
“We have decided on a plan, Mr. Henderson and myself,” said Mr.
Roumann. “The fact that so little is certainly known concerning
comets makes it difficult to know what to do. We might keep on
our course and come to no harm, merely pawing through a gaseous
mass which makes up the comet’s tail. But there is a danger that
we might strike the solid head of it, for that the head is solid,
and of a glowing, fiery mass, which gives off a train of sparks,
is my belief. To collide with a fiery ball, larger than the sun,
would indeed be terrible. So we have decided to try to pass
through the less dense part the tail of the comet.”
“Can’t we steer to one side, or above or below the comet?” asked
Jack.
“Impossible,” replied Mr. Roumann. “We have made some calculations,
and have ascertained that this is Donati’s comet—the one of 1858—and
the head of it is two hundred and fifty thousand miles in diameter.
The tail is many millions of miles long, and as many thick. To pass
entirely beyond it would consume much time. In fact, we could not move
quickly enough to escape it, as we are now being attracted out of our
course toward the comet.”
“How far off is it now?” asked Mark.
“About seven hundred and twenty thousand miles.”
“Then we’ll be up to it in about two hours,” went on Mark, making
a rapid calculation.
“I only hope we don’t get into it, as well as up to it,”
commented Jack.
“We all do,” observed Mr. Henderson. “But now, boys, we are
going to do our best to escape. Mr. Roumann will remain in the
pilot house to steer the projectile, while you and I will attend
to the Etherium, motor.”
“Try and see if you can get any more speed out of it,” advised
the German. “Use the accelerator plates, as I instructed you.
Perhaps we can pass so quickly through the gaseous tail, or a
portion of it, that we shall not be harmed.”
“Even if it blazes?” asked Jack.
“Even if it blazes. The gas between the two shells of our
projectile will absorb an enormous quantity of heat. It is our
only hope.”
Their hearts filled with apprehension, the two boys accompanied
Professor Henderson back to the engine-room. There the scientist
changed the plates on the motor, and made some adjustments, as
suggested by Mr. Roumann, so that more speed would develop.
Anxiously they watched the gages, to see if the motor did work
any faster.
“It’s increasing!” cried Jack, as he watched the needle swing,
until it indicated a rate of one hundred and thirty miles a
second. “We are going faster than we ever went before.”
“And we need to,” observed Mr. Henderson. “A comet is a terrible
mass to escape from.”
In spite of the increased speed of the projectile, it could not
be noticed by those within it. For all they could tell they were
stationary, but they were really flying through the ether at
enormous velocity. For over an hour the motor was worked at the
increased rate. Then, leaving the boys in charge for a few
minutes, Mr. Henderson went to the pilot house to ask Mr. Roumann
if there was any chance of escape. He met the German coming
toward the engine-room.
“Well?” inquired the professor.
“No, not well—bad,” was the gloomy answer.
“Why so?”
“I can’t force the Annihilator to one side or the other. I have
tried, time and again, to steer it away from the comet’s head and
into the less dense part of the tail, but, so far, without
success. The rudder arrangement appears to be affected by the
comet and will not work.”
“What can we do?”
“Nothing, unless, perhaps, we can get a little more speed out of
the motor. The rudder might work then.”
They tried, but without success. Not a bit more speed could the
Etherium machine be induced to give out. Indeed, Mr. Roumann
admitted that it was working faster than he had ever expected it
would.
“I’ll go back and make one more attempt to steer out of the way,”
he said.
He was gone for perhaps ten minutes. In that time Mr. Henderson,
aided by Jack and Mark, tried to adjust the motor differently,
but unavailingly. Mr. Roumann came hurrying back from the pilot
house.
“It’s of no use!” he exclaimed. “We are heading right toward the
point of the comet. We must prepare for the worst!”
There was silence for a moment. It was an awful fate to meet,
and they realized it. Then Washington White, looking into the
engine-room from his kitchen, exclaimed:
“Now, don’t yo’ all go t’ worryin’ ‘bout dat ole comet. It can’t
hurt us, an’ we’ll knock it into smithereens!”
“You talk that way because you know nothing of comets,” said Mr.
Roumann solemnly.
“I don’t know nuffin’ ‘bout ‘em?” demanded the colored man. “I
knows too much ob ‘em, dat’s what I does. Didn’t I lose mah ten
dollars?”
He stopped suddenly. From without there came a terrible roaring
sound, that grew louder and louder.
“The comet!” cried Mr. Roumann. “We are almost upon it. That
roaring is caused by the flaming gases!”
There was nothing that could be done. There was no place to go—no
place to run to—no place in which to hide. They could only
stand there and wait for total annihilation, which they expected
every moment.
The roaring grew louder. It was like the howling of a mighty
mind. The projectile seemed to tremble.
Then there came a brilliant light, rivaling even that of the sun,
in the rays of which they constantly were. The light streamed in
through the plate-glass ports in the engine-room. It showed
violet rays, purple, orange, green, yellow—all the colors of the
rainbow.
“We’ll be consumed in a moment!” murmured Mr. Roumann. “We are
in the midst of the comet!”
Several seconds passed. There was no increase in temperature.
After all, would the wonderful gas in the space between the two
shells of the projectile absorb the terrific heat?
The light faded away. Only the glow of the sun remained. The
Annihilator shot onward.
Mr. Roumann rushed to the pilot house. He uttered a cry.
“We have escaped the comet!” he called to the boys and Professor
Henderson, who followed him. “We went right through a small
section of the tail. And I was mistaken in thinking it was
composed of flaming gases. It is only nebulous light. There is
no harm in a comet, after all!”
“Dat’s what I said all along,” remarked Washington White, as he
went back to his kitchen. “All a comet is good fer is t’ bring
bad luck. Look at mah ten dollars. I wish we’d batted dis one
inter pieces!”
THE MOTOR STOPS
They were hardly able to realize their escape. That is, all but
Washington. He took it as a matter of course.
“How did it come about?” asked Jack.
“It’s hard to say,” replied Mr. Roumann. “I couldn’t steer away
from the comet, but it’s probably just as well that I could not.
It seems that the mass of queer light attracted us to it, but to
a certain section where we came to no harm. And we must have
gone through it at an angle, or we would have been much longer
within its influence.”
“Can we see the comet?” asked Mark.
“There it is,” replied the German. “Only it doesn’t look as a
comet does when you view it from the earth. We are too close to
it.”
They looked from the side window of the projectile. Far off
appeared to be a great mass of clouds, except that instead of
being white, the mass was colored with many hues, It was so vast
in extent that they could see neither the beginning nor the
ending of it.
“Our first comet,” remarked Jack.
“And I hope our last,” added Mark.
“Yes, indeed,” interjected Mr. Roumann. “Now I think we will
slow down the motor somewhat. We must save some of the energy
for our return trip, though I have a large surplus. Still, we
cannot be too careful.”
“Are we once more headed for Mars?” asked Mark.
“Yes, we are pointing directly toward it. Perhaps you boys will
go and slow down the motor, while Professor Henderson and I make
some scientific notes concerning the comet. It will be great
information to the astronomers on earth. Many of their theories
will be changed, I fancy.”
Jack and Mark started for the engine-room.
They passed through the living or dining-room, where Washington
was setting the table for dinner.
“What I done tole yo’?” he demanded triumphantly. “I wasn’t
skeered ob no ole comet.”
“That’s right, Wash,” admitted Mark. “You had one on us that
time.”
Andy Sudds was in one corner of the room, oiling his gun.
“Getting ready to go hunting?” asked Jack.
“Well, I heard Mr. Roumann say we’d be on Mars in a few days,”
replied the old man, “and if there’s any game there I want to get
a shot at it.”
“That’s right,” said Jack. “I guess I’ll take—”
He got no further. From the engine-room there sounded a
tremendous racket, as if some one was pounding on the machinery
with a big hammer.
“What’s that?”
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