On a Torn-Away World Part 17

"I'd like to hear of a dozen ways of getting out of this hole," murmured Mark Sampson.

"Mr. Roebach," said the professor, ignoring the youth, "what do you say? What is your advice?"

"The sun will be up in an hour, or thereabout. It's pretty dim down here. Let us wait and see what daylight shows us," was the oil man's reply.

"The moon--the _other_ moon--is just appearing," Jack said. "We'll have light enough in a few minutes."

"Two moons! what do you think of that?" cried Mark.

"Are you sure, Jack?" queried the professor, eagerly.

"I just saw it peeking over the eastern cliffs while Andy was patching me up." He carried one arm in a sling, and his other hand was bandaged.

"Then I must take an observation," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the professor, and seizing some instruments he had arranged on the table he went out to where the powerful telescope was adjusted.

"He's forgotten all about gittin' out of this hole in the ice," said Andy. "I, for one, think we'd ought to take axes and begin to cut steps up the wall. How else will we escape from the place?"

"The poor old _s...o...b..rd_ cannot be repaired in a hurry, that is sure,"

muttered Mark.

"And this is no place to remain for fun," agreed Jack. "Suppose the walls of the crack should shut together--where would we be?"

"Just about here, for fair!" said Phineas Roebach, grimly, while Washington uttered a most mournful wail.

"Gollyation! Is we gotter be squeeged ter deaf in disher awful cavernarious hole? Dis is suah a time ob trouble an' tribbilation."

They heard an exclamation from the professor and Jack led the way to the open deck of the crippled flying machine. By chance the _s...o...b..rd_ in landing had remained upright, her decks on a level. They found the professor bending over some further calculations on a great sheet of paper. Here, two hundred feet below the surface of the ice, the heavenly bodies all looked brighter and more distinct than they had while the aeroplane was in flight above the ground.

The strange new planet had not yet gone out of sight. From the east the old moon was soaring steadily. There could be no mistaking the two orbs, now that both were visible in the sky at once. The new planet or moon was much larger than the real moon.

"What do you suppose that great planet is?" queried Jack.

The professor looked up from his calculations. His face was very pale; his eyes glowed with excitement. The boys had seldom seen the old gentleman so moved.

"You are right, my boy. A planet it surely is," he said to Jack.

"But why have we never seen it before?" demanded Mark.

"For a very good reason," returned the professor, solemnly. "We were never in a position before to behold that planet, save on two occasions."

"Then we have seen it twice before?" asked the puzzled Jack.

"On two occasions we have been enabled to stand off, as it were, and look at that planet as though we were inhabitants of another world--when we went to the moon, and when we went to Mars."

"What do you mean, Professor?" cried Mark.

"It's the earth!" exclaimed Jack Darrow. "It's the earth! We have left the earth--is that it, Professor?"

The old scientist nodded. Phineas Roebach snorted his disbelief, while Washington White gave vent to his trouble of mind most characteristically:

"Goodness gracious gollyation! De fat am suah in de fiah now! We'se done los' de earf an' b.u.t.tsy an' me will nebber see our happy home no mo'."

"Oh, Professor! how could we have left the earth?" demanded Mark. "See!

we are standing upon it now; at least, this glacier is an ice-river of Alaska, and Alaska has not been wiped off the map!"

"But that is exactly what has happened to it," said the professor, earnestly. "At least, a part of Alaska--we do not know how much of that territory, or how much other territory with it--is no longer a part of the sphere called the earth."

Phineas Roebach looked at the old scientist as though he thought the latter had taken leave of his senses. But Jack Darrow leaped to the right conclusion.

"You mean, sir, that the earthquake and the volcanic eruption have torn away some great fragment of the world, and we are on it?"

"That is what I mean."

"We are floating in s.p.a.ce, then--an entirely new world? And _that_ is the old world shining there in the sky?"

"That is what has happened, Jack," declared Professor Henderson, with solemnity. "I suspected it when we first felt the lightness of the atmosphere. I was convinced when I found the ether envelope of this new world--this island in the air, as it were--was so thin. My calculations regarding the rising of the moon, and the outlines of objects upon the great globe hanging yonder, prove to my mind conclusively that the awful cataclysm we endured, when we all completely lost consciousness, was the time when the eruption occurred, and we, with this great fragment of the earth, were blown out into s.p.a.ce."

"It can't be! it can't be!" shouted Phineas Roebach. "We've lost our heads, perhaps; but we haven't lost our hold on the earth. It's nonsense!"

"I sincerely wish I could feel that same confidence, Mr. Roebach,"

said Professor Henderson, drily. "These instruments of mine, however, cannot lie. It is a simple calculation to figure that the moon, now just risen, is thousands of miles out of her course, if we are still on the earth. No, Mr. Roebach, I am stating the exact truth when I say that we have been blown off the earth by that awful volcanic eruption, and that we are now floating on a torn-away world, or a new planet, in s.p.a.ce, doubtless hanging between the earth and the sun. We are as unsafe as though we were on a wandering star, or meteor--only this island is not afire. But in time we shall fall into one or the other greater bodies of our system--of that end there can be no possible doubt."

CHAPTER XVII

ON AN ISLAND IN THE AIR

The stern and uncompromising statement of Professor Henderson relating to the awful fate that had overtaken his friends and Phineas Roebach was so uncompromising--almost brutal--that not a word was spoken for several minutes.

Even Washington White was dumb. The fact that the fragment of the earth on which they were imprisoned was floating miles above the globe, in the rarified atmosphere of the outer universe, and that they were at that moment able to look up and see the great, calm, palely glowing sphere which had been their home, rolling across the arch above them--all this was too awful a mystery to be grasped immediately by the professor's companions.

Jack Darrow, whose mind was the keenest of any, was the first to break the depressing silence. And he spoke in an awed tone that showed how fully he realized the horror of their situation, if nothing more.

"Then, Professor, we are at the mercy of Chance--at any moment this fragment of the earth may fall again--or be propelled into the sun?"

"We are in the hands of Providence, my boy," replied Professor Henderson, reverently.

"The fact remains that we are totally unable to help ourselves," said Jack, firmly. "Even could we repair the _s...o...b..rd_, and get her out of this crack in the ice, we could not fly to the earth. Between us and the earth lies a portion of the universe that has no atmosphere--no breathable air--like that envelope which surrounds the moon. Am I right?"

"Practically correct, I believe, Jack," responded the aged scientist.

"But," cried Mark, at last getting _his_ speech, "how can such a thing be possible? Blown off the earth! Why, we'd simply go up in the air and come down again."

"Now you're talking sense, young fellow," muttered Roebach, still rubbing his head as though stunned.