Lost on the Moon, Roy Rockwood [best reads of all time .txt] 📗

with us then, if we don’t starve to

death in the meanwhile,” answered Jack. “But I’m afraid we will get out

of food before the torches are exhausted. They were freshly filled

before we started out after that tool, and they’ll last for two weeks.

So we don’t have to worry about that.

 

“By Jinks! this is all my fault, anyhow, it seems. If I hadn’t seen

that item in the Martian paper about the diamonds, we never would have

come here, and if I hadn’t left that tool on the ground outside of the

projectile we wouldn’t have had to come back after it, and we wouldn’t

have become lost. So I guess it’s up to me, as the boys say.”

 

“Oh, nonsense!” exclaimed Mark, who, as soon as he heard his chum

blaming his own actions, was ready to shoulder part of the

responsibility himself. “We all wanted to come to the moon,” he went

on, “and, as for leaving the tool and forgetting it, I’m as much at

fault as you are. Let’s go to sleep, and maybe we’ll feel better when

we wake up.”

 

It was a new role for Mark—to be cheerful in the face of difficulties

—and Jack appreciated it. They stretched out on the hard, rocky floor

of the cavern, taking care to fix their life-torches so that the fumes

would dispel the poisonous gases. Then the two lads joined Andy in

slumberland.

 

Meanwhile, as may be imagined, those aboard the projectile were very

anxious about the fate of the two boys and the hunter. They could not

understand what delayed them, and, though they guessed the real cause,

after several hours had passed, there was nothing the two scientists

could do.

 

They could not move the projectile until it had been repaired, and this

could not be done, without the tool—at least, they did not believe so

then. Nor did Mr. Henderson and the German think it would be safe to

start out in search of the wanderers.

 

“For,” said Mr. Henderson, “if we went we would easily get lost amid

these peaks ourselves, and they are so much alike and in such numbers

that there is no distinguishing feature about them. We had better stay

here in charge of the Annihilator until the boys and Andy come back.

They can’t be away much longer now.”

 

So worn out and exhausted were the boys and the hunter that they slept

for several hours in the cave, and the rest did them good. They awoke

in better spirits, and, after a frugal meal and a sip of the fast-dwindling water, they started off once more to locate the projectile.

 

“I’m a regular amateur hunter to go and lose my compass,” complained

old Andy. “I ought to have it fastened to me, like a baby does the

rattle-box. I ought to kick myself,” and he accepted all the blame for

their misadventure. But the boys would not suffer him to thus accuse

himself, and they insisted that they would shortly be with the two

professors and Washington in the Annihilator once more.

 

“Well, it can’t come any too soon,” said Jack, “for I am beginning to

feel the need of a square meal and a big drink of water.”

 

“So am I,” said Mark, “but let’s not think of it.”

 

All that day they wandered on, crossing the rugged mountains, climbing

towering peaks, and descending into deep valleys. At times they skirted

the lips of craters, to look shudderingly into the depths of which made

them dizzy, for the bottoms were lost to sight in the black gloom that

enshrouded the yawning holes.

 

Their food was getting less and less, and what there was of it was most

unpalatable, for the bread was stale and dry, though the meat kept

perfectly in that freezing temperature. How they longed for a hot cup

of coffee, such as Washington used to make! and how they would have

even exchanged their chance of filling their pockets with the moon

diamonds for a good meal, such as was so often served in the

projectile!

 

On and on they went. Once, as they were crossing the lip of a great

crater, Mark became dizzy, and would have fallen had not Jack caught

him. Mark had forgotten, for the moment, and had lowered his life-torch, so that his mouth and nose were not enclosed in the film of

vapor that emanated from the perforated box.

 

“You must be careful,” Andy warned them.

 

“What’s the use?” asked Mark despondently. “I don’t believe we’ll ever

find the projectile.”

 

“Of course we will!” exclaimed Jack. “I know we can’t be far from it,

only we can’t see it because of the mountains. If we only had some way

of letting them know where we are, they could signal to us.”

 

“By gum!” suddenly exclaimed Andy.

 

“What’s the matter?” asked Jack, for the old hunter was capering about

like a boy.

 

“Matter? Why, the matter is that I’m a double-barrelled dunce,” was the

answer. “Look here; do you see that?” and he held up his rifle.

 

“Sure,” replied Jack, wondering if their sufferings and worry had made

the old hunter simple-minded.

 

“What is it?” asked Andy, shaking it in the air.

 

“Your rifle,” answered Mark, looking at Jack in surprise.

 

“Of course,” answered the hunter, “and a rifle is made to be fired off,

and here I’ve been carrying mine for nearly three days now, and I

haven’t shot it once. You wanted a signal to make the folks in the

projectile hear us. Well, here it is I I guess they can hear this, and

when they do they can come and get us, for we don’t seem able to reach

them. I’ll just fire some signal shots.”

 

“That’s the stuff!” cried Jack, and Andy proceeded to discharge his

rifle.

 

The report the gun made in that quiet place was tremendous, and the

effect was curious, for, there being no air in the ordinary acceptance

of the word, there was no echo. It was as if one had hit two shingles

together. Merely a loud, sharp sound, and then an utter silence, the

vibrations being swallowed up instantly.

 

“Do you think they can hear that?” asked Andy.

 

“It sounds loud enough,” answered Jack. “Shoot some more,” which the

old hunter did. They wandered on still farther, firing at intervals all

that day, but there came no answering report or calls to direct them to

the projectile. They climbed once more to the tops of towering peaks,

but there they found their range of vision limited by peaks still

higher, while there were great valleys, in one of which, whether near

or far they could not tell, they knew, the Annihilator was hidden.

 

They had almost lost track of time now, and they did not know how far

they had wandered. They had sought out lonely caves to sleep in when

they were so weary they could go no farther, and they had sat about on

bleak rocks shivering, and had eaten their scanty meals—shivering

because in spite of their fur garments they were cold, as they did not

eat enough to keep their blood properly circulating. They could not

when they did not have the food to eat!

 

Andy used up all but a few of his cartridges in firing signals, but to

no purpose. Their water was all but gone, and of their food only enough

remained for a day longer, though their life-torches still gave forth

plenty of vapor.

 

“Well, what’s to be done?” asked Jack, as they sat about, looking

helplessly at one another.

 

“Might as well give up,” suggested Mark bitterly.

 

“Give up? Not a bit of it!” cried Andy, as cheerfully as he could.

“Let’s keep on. We’ll find the projectile sooner or later.”

 

So they kept on. It was while making their way between two great

mountain peaks that towered above their heads on either side, thousands

of feet up, making a sort of natural gateway, that Jack, who was in the

lead, cried out in astonishment at the sight that met his gaze when he

had passed the pinnacles.

 

“Look!” he shouted, pointing forward.

 

What he indicated was a great crater—larger and deeper than any they

had yet met with. It seemed a mile across, and, if gloom and darkness

were any indications, it was a hundred miles deep.

 

But it was not the size of the great hole in the ground, not its

fearful gloom, that attracted their attention. What did was a great

natural or artificial bridge of stone that was thrown across the middle

of it from edge to edge. A bridge of stone that spanned the abyss; a

roadway, fifty feet wide, which reached into some unknown land,

connecting it with the desolate country in which our friends had been

wandering.

 

“A bridge of stone across the cavern,” said Jack, “but see. Here is a

house of stone. This was the guardhouse, I’ll wager—the guardhouse at

the entrance to some city, and that bridge is the means by which the

inhabitants entered and left. Maybe we are at the edge of the inhabited

part of the moon!”

 

His words thrilled them. They pressed forward to the beginning of the

bridge across the crater. They looked into the stone hut. Clearly it

had been made by hands, for it was composed of blocks of stone, neatly

fitted together. Jack’s theory seemed confirmed.

 

Mark peered into the house, and uttered a cry of alarm.

 

“There’s a petrified man in there!” he gasped.

 

Jack and Andy looked in at the open window. They saw, sitting at a

table, which was also of rock, a man, evidently a soldier, or rather he

had been, for he was nothing but stone now, like the hut in which he

dwelt.

 

The wanderers looked at each other with fear on their faces. What

dreadful mystery were they about to penetrate? “Let’s cross the

bridge,” suggested Jack, in a low voice. “Maybe this marks the end of

desolation. Perhaps we may find life and food across the crater.”

 

“But—but the petrified man!” gasped Mark.

 

“What of it? He won’t hurt us. Maybe there are live men, who will take

care of us, beyond there,” and Jack pointed across the bridge of stone.

 

There was nothing to keep them where they were—in the land of

desolation. They could not live much longer there, with no food and

water. To pass on over the crater seemed the only thing to do.

 

“Come ahead,” called Jack boldly. They followed him. They kept in the

middle of the road, for to approach the edge, where there was a sheer

descent of so many feet that it made them dizzy to think of it, filled

them with terror. On they hurried until, in a short time, they had

crossed the great chasm.

 

The road over the crater came to an end between two peaks, similar to

those at the beginning. Jack was the first to pass them, and as he

emerged he once more uttered a cry—a cry of fear and wonder.

 

And well he might, for in a valley below the wanderers there was a

city. A great city, with wonderful buildings, with wide streets well

laid out—a city in which figures of many men and women could be seen—

little children too! A fair city, teeming with life, it seemed!

 

But then, as they looked again, struck by the curious quiet that

prevailed, they knew that they were gazing down on a city of the dead—

a city where the inhabitants had been turned to stone, even as had the

soldier