Lost on the Moon Part 29

But on the far-off moon--the dead moon, which contained no living creatures save themselves, as far as they could tell--with no form of animal life that might serve to keep them from starving, with only the scantiest of vegetation, their situation was most deplorable.

"And then there's another thing," said Mark, as if he was cataloguing a list of their troubles.

"What is it?" asked Jack. "I guess we have all the troubles that belong to us, and more, too."

"Well, what are we going to do when the life-torches give out, and we can't breathe any more?" asked Mark dubiously.

"Well, I guess it'll be all up 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 pa.s.sed, 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 compa.s.s," 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 pa.s.sed 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 guard-house, 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.