CHAPTER XXII
A BREAKDOWN
At first they were inclined to regard the announcement of Washingtonlightly, but the too evident fright of the colored man showed thatthere was some basis for his fear.
"Tell us just what you saw, and where it was," said Mr. Henderson. "Wasthe 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 therewas no further argument.
"Well, tell us about it," suggested Jack.
"It were jest dis way," began Washington earnestly, and with occasionalglances over his shoulder, "I were walkin' along, sort ob lookin' ferdem sparklin' diamonds, an' I didn't see none, when all on a suddint Ilooked down in a hole, and dere I seen HIM!" and he brought out theword with a jerk.
"Saw what--who?" asked Mr. Roumann.
"De ghost--de dead man. He were lyin' all curled up, laik he wereasleep, 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 dishyeah 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?" hewent on.
"Maybe one of the people who came from Mars after the diamonds, who wasforgotten and left here, and who died," said Jack.
"It's possible," murmured Mr. Henderson. "However, we'll go take alook. Get on your fur coats, boys, and take the life-torches. Will youcome, 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 Washingtonhad pointed, holding their gas torches near their heads and talking ofwhat 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 adepression 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 awe-struck tones. "He's turned tostone."
A few seconds later they were all grouped around the strange object--itwas a man no longer, but had once been one. It was a petrified humanbeing, a full-grown man, to judge by the size, and it was a solid imagein stone, even the garments with which he had been clothed being turnedto rock.
For a moment no one spoke, and they gazed in silence at what was anevidence of former life on the moon. The man was huddled up, with theknees drawn toward the stomach and the arms bent around the body, as ifthe 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 thecharacteristics 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 thatwas 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 aplanet like our earth--perhaps even a part of it, and I think that itwas inhabited. In time it cooled so that life could no longer besupported, or, at least, this side of the moon presents thatindication. The people were killed--frozen to death, and by reason ofthe chemical action of the gases, or perhaps from the moon beingcovered with water in which was a large percentage of lime, they wereturned 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 MetropolitanMuseum in New York there are the remains of an ancient South Americanminer, whose body has been turned into solid copper. The corpse, ofwhich the features are partly distinguishable, was found four hundredfeet down in an old copper mine, where the dripping from hiddensprings, the waters of which were rich in copper sulphate, hadconverted the man's body into a block of metal, retaining its naturalshape. The body is drawn up in agony, and there is every indicationthat the man was killed by a cave-in of the mine. Some of his toolswere found near him.
They remained gazing at the weird sight of the petrified man for sometime.
"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 thanone left. Why was this man off here alone?"
"We don't know," responded the German scientist. "Perhaps he was offalone in the mountains when death overtook him, or perhaps all hiscompanions 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 otherside of the country, and to that end I suggest that we set ourprojectile in motion and travel a bit. There is little more to seehere."
This plan met with general approval, and, after some photographs hadbeen taken of the petrified man, and the professors had made notes, andset down data regarding him, and had tried to guess how long he hadbeen 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 nightwhere they were. "Over night" being the way they spoke of it, though,as I have said, there was perpetual daylight for fourteen days at atime on the moon.
Professors Roumann and Henderson made a few more observations forscientific purposes. They found traces of some vegetation, but it wasof little value for food, even to the lower forms of animal life, theydecided. There was also a little moisture; noticed at certain hours ofthe day. But, in the main, the place where they had landed was mostdesolate.
"I hope we get to a better place soon," said Jack, just before theysealed themselves up in the projectile to travel to a new spot.
As distance was comparatively small on the moon, for her diameter isonly a little over two thousand miles and the circumference only aboutsix thousand six hundred miles, the _Annihilator_ could not be speededup. If it went too fast, it would soon be off the moon and into spaceagain.
Accordingly the Cardite motor was geared to send the big craft along atabout forty miles an hour, and at times they went even slower thanthat, when they were passing over some part of the surface which theprofessors wished to photograph or observe closely.
They did not rise high into the air, but flew along at an elevation ofabout two hundred feet, steering in and out to avoid the towering peaksscattered here and there. Occasionally they found themselves overimmense craters that seemed to have no bottom.
For two days they moved here and there, finding no further signs oflife, neither petrified nor natural, though they saw many strangesights, and some valuable pictures and scientific data was obtained.
It was on the third day, when they were approaching the side of themoon which from time immemorial has been hidden from view of theinhabitants of the earth, that Jack, who was with Mark in the engineroom, while the two professors were in the pilot-house, remarked to hischum: "Mark, doesn't it strike you that the water pump and the airapparatus aren't working just right?"
"They don't seem to be operating very smoothly," admitted Mark, afteran examination.
"T
hat's what I thought. Let's call Mr. Henderson. The machinery mayneed adjusting."
Jack started from the engine room to do this, and as he paused on thethreshold there was a sudden crash. Part of the air pump seemed to flyoff at a tangent, and a second later had smashed down on the Carditemotor. This stopped in an instant, and the projectile began falling.Fortunately it was but a short distance above the moon's surface, andcame down with a jar, which did not injure the travellers.
But there was sufficient damage done to the machinery, for with thebreaking of the air pump the water apparatus also went out ofcommission, and together with the breakdown of the Cardite motor hadfairly stalled the _Annihilator_.
"What's the matter?" cried Professor Henderson, running in from thepilot-house, for an automatic signal there had apprised him thatsomething was wrong.
"There's a bad break," said Jack ruefully.
"A bad break! I should say there was," remarked the scientist. "I thinkwe'll have to lay up for repairs." And he called Mr. Roumann.