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

>CHAPTER XXIX

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!”