下载掌阅APP，畅读海量书库
立即打开
Ever since the doctor had been inside of the moon he had not ceased to regret that we had left all our goods in the car of our balloon. He mourned the loss of the instruments and other apparatus which had cost him so much care, and then there were our official papers. Our introduction to Mona had been rather too informal, and we thought we might stand better with her if we could show her our credentials, though, to be sure, she could not read them.
Several times the doctor proposed to me that we should go out and bring in what we could carry if, perchance, we should find the wind had left us anything. But I had my own reasons for preferring to remain where we were. I was happy and was expecting every day to be happier still, and so I put the doctor off by reminding him that the weather was very bad outside and that we had been glad enough to get in with our lives.
I think he would have agreed with me and would have been contented to stay if the question had been left entirely to ourselves. But Mona heard us talking it over one day and said we could go without much risk if we cared to try it, and she would go with us to take care of us.
Although it would be difficult to tell how Mona could help us when we were outside, this idea sounded so assuring that the doctor determined to make the attempt. I was obliged to acquiesce, fearing, in my ignorance of all that was to happen to us, that the trip would keep me too much from Mona's side.
After due preparation we started, and reached the upper end of the long passage without incident. But as we emerged we noticed that the light had a peculiar tinge of red, quite different from its usual tone. Meditating on this phenomenon, and speaking to each other as we could find breath, we ascended the side of the crater, when there burst upon our view a magnificent world, apparently but a little way off. Its ruddy face showed us plainly what had caused the red light, and the doctor made haste to exclaim:
"Aha! let me introduce you to the planet Mars."
"Yes," I replied, "and we may become too well acquainted before a great while if our rapid flight is not checked."
We soon found our car just as we had left it, and were glad to take advantage of its shelter. In the new danger which loomed up before us so threateningly, we all agreed that it would be rash to return into the interior of the moon, to be crushed to death in the shock of the impending collision; and yet, in remaining where we were, the doctor and I felt that no reputable insurance company would call our lives a very good risk.
But now was our opportunity to witness some of the depths of Mona's character. What was there in her nature so entirely different from anything we had ever known? We had seen persons of cheerful disposition before, and had heard of many exhibitions of courage and indifference to danger, but here we had the very personification of fearlessness and contentment. She talked freely of our situation and of what was likely to happen, but appeared to be as light-hearted as ever, and her song was just as cheerful as it had been in her quiet home. When we asked her if she were not afraid, she replied that there was no such word in her language and she could not appreciate its meaning.
"Fear," said the doctor, "is a feeling excited by the apprehension of danger."
"I think I know about the danger we are in," she answered, "but I have not the feeling you are trying to describe. When I was alone in my underground village and thought the roof was about to fall down and bury me there, I had no fear, as you say. I know that whatever has come to me or to any of my race has always been for our good, and I am sure it will be so in the future. I have but a short time to remain as the sole inhabitant of this now useless globe, and the manner of my taking off is not of the slightest moment. This old world's day is now passed, and I realize in that fact the reason for its unseemly behavior, first knocking its toughened crust so rudely against the earth and then coquetting in this manner with Mars. It certainly no longer shows any respect for the race it has nourished, and hence I see that my day, too, will soon be over. Whatever may be your fate you will doubtless see no more of me after this excursion is ended."
In the light of history this seemed extremely probable, and yet Mona was not half as concerned about it as I was. I thought she ought to have shown more anxiety about her future for my sake if not for her own, and I ventured to say, although in a rather doleful tone:
"I hope, Mona, if the doctor and I are freed from this peril that you will escape with us. If I thought there was no hope of that, I am sure I should propose that we return at once to the middle of the moon and be buried together."
She laughed aloud as she sang out in joyous notes:
"Your mournful voice, my ardent friend, makes me think you would not be very happy with the last alternative. But cheer up, we will all stand by each other to the last." It was in her abounding good nature and in her faculty for inspiring us with her own hopeful disposition that we found Mona fulfilling her promise to take care of us.
But now our attention could not be diverted from the planet which was rapidly growing before our eyes. As we approached nearer and nearer every minute, flying at such a terrific rate and aimed, apparently, for a direct collision, it may be imagined that the doctor and I, in spite of Mona's presence, began to be exceedingly anxious lest our journey and our lives should meet an abrupt and common end.
Unless such excursions as ours become more frequent in the future, it will probably always remain a mystery how this one came to a close. I can only relate our experience during the time that we retained our consciousness, and leave the imagination to picture the rest. As we entered the atmosphere of the planet, the rush of air increased till it seemed as if a hundred Niagaras were sounding in our ears. I remember having a dim feeling of satisfaction in the belief that such a violent contact with the atmosphere must impede the moon's progress, and offer us some chance of landing in safety. Then I was bereft of all sense, and when I regained consciousness I was lying in the bottom of our car in perfect quiet and apparently unharmed.
I called aloud for the doctor, but no voice replied. Rising, I looked about me and found I was afloat on a ruddy sea, alone, as far as my senses could inform me, alone in a new world. Such a sensation of homesickness came over me, such a longing for human fellowship, that our former lonesome condition on the moon seemed like a paradise compared to my present wretchedness.
So this was Mars, which we had studied with our telescopes and about whose condition and history we had so often speculated. And now, as I leaned my elbows on the edge of the car and gazed off over the deep, I wondered, with more interest than I had ever before possessed, if the world I had discovered were inhabited. Perhaps because it was such a vital question with me, my naturally hopeful disposition began to find reasons for a cheerful view. There were certainly favorable evidences all about me. I was breathing an atmosphere evidently made for lungs like mine. The air was soft and pleasant, and though I was drenched with water by my fall I was not uncomfortable. I tasted the water and, oh! joyful reminder of home, it was salt. The sun shed a beautiful light around me, and as I glanced upward to see how bright and cheerful the sky was, my reverie was suddenly broken off, for directly over my head, poised as quietly as if it had always been there, was our old moon. It seemed but a few miles away and I gazed at it with mixed feelings, with thankfulness that I had escaped from its inhospitable surface with my life, and with scorn for its present behavior. For there it was, apparently perfectly at home and ready to bear the torch for Mars as faithfully as it always had for the earth, its rightful mistress.
"Inconstancy," I cried, "thy name is Luna."
[Illustration: THORWALD DISCOVERS ONE OF THE EARTH-DWELLERS.]
When the novelty of this sensational discovery was gone, my mind returned to the contemplation of myself, and my situation seemed to me so unique as to remove some of the natural feeling of fear. When one is shipwrecked in the ordinary way his anxiety is caused by the uncertainty that anyone will come to his rescue; while in my case I did not even know there was anyone to come. But when I looked up at the moon and remembered its erratic climate and our wild, unearthly journey, I could not suppress a feeling of satisfaction with my changed condition. If the doctor had only been with me we would have been able to extract considerable comfort from our surroundings. But, as it was, I was very lonesome, and whatever consolation I got from my reasoning about the planet's habitability was increased a thousand fold by seeing a speck upon the horizon, which I hoped might prove to be a sail. I watched it with intense interest, and was not disappointed. I will not try to describe my feelings as this ship of Mars approached me, while I sat wondering what manner of men I should see. The first thing that struck me was the enormous size of the craft, and as it drew near I could see that it was manned by beings proportionately large. I now began to fear I should be run down, but soon I noticed one of the passengers or crew who seemed to be looking at me through a glass. In a little while the vessel slowed up, and a boat was put off in which a number of giants, including the man with the glass, rowed toward me. When they had nearly reached me I heard the latter say to the others:
"Yes, this is surely the little fellow we are searching for."
I could not imagine what he meant by this, although it occurred to me that it was a pleasant thing to have him speak good, plain English; but the other circumstances were so entirely novel that, instead of opening the conversation with some conventional remark, like a sensible person, I burst out with:
"But Proctor says Mars has passed its life-bearing period."
I hardly knew what I said, but it proved that they were just the words to commend me to my new friend, for as he reached over and lifted me into the boat he said:
"Why, how did you know Proctor? You must have misunderstood him, for he would never say such a thing as that."
While I was puzzling over this strange speech he continued:
"I think we have some one in the ship whom you will be glad to see."
I began to fear I should not get on very well in Mars if all the inhabitants talked in such riddles, but I said, as politely as I could:
"I am sure I need not wait to get to the ship to be pleased. I am delighted to see you and your companions here."
While we were returning to the vessel I gave Thorwald, for such I found to be his name, a brief account of our journey on the moon and of my mysterious arrival on their planet. I expatiated on the merits of the doctor, and told Thorwald that he was probably still on the moon or else at the bottom of their ocean.
I was thinking that Thorwald did not show much sympathy with me, when, our boat having nearly reached the ship's side, I looked up and saw the doctor himself standing on the deck, a pigmy among giants. I was soon by his side, and we embraced before our new-found friends without a blush.
"Where's Mona?" were the first words he said.
"Mona!" I replied. "Who's Mona?"
"Who's Mona?" he returned. "Well, you have recovered pretty rapidly."
I now discovered that, although I had found the body of my friend, the best part of him was missing. In the fall from the moon he had evidently lost his wits. I thought I would not let him know too suddenly what was the matter, and so I merely said:
"Yes, I went into the water, but was not much hurt. When I came to my senses I found myself in our car still. Tell me how you escaped."
"Oh, I happened to fall near this ship, fortunately, and they picked me up, and then, at my request, they set out to search for you and Mona."
"Well," said I, "you found me, and I am very thankful for it, but Mona I fear you will never see."
"What was the last you saw of her?" he asked.
I had great difficulty in keeping myself from laughing in the doctor's face at his odd fancy, but the thought came to me with some force that I must not let his mental condition become known to the men of Mars around us; and so, instead of replying to his question, I turned to Thorwald and asked him if he could tell us how the moon had landed us so easily on their planet.
In answer he gave it as his opinion that as the moon came rushing toward them so swiftly it compressed the air in its path to such a degree that it acted as a cushion, preventing a collision and sending the moon bounding back over the path by which it had come. Probably at the moment when it was nearest the surface, we had fallen off into the ocean. The rebound, he supposed, was not sufficient to carry it beyond the attraction of the planet, and so it poised itself and began to make a revolution around Mars in its old-fashioned way.
Thorwald told us we had taken the best possible time to visit them, for
Mars had not been so near the earth before in a great while.
Our new acquaintances were from nine to ten feet tall and proportionately large every other way, so that they appeared quite monstrous to us. But they were agile and even graceful in their movements, while in manner they were so gentle and pleasing that we recognized at once their high culture.
The vessel was soon under way and made rapid progress, and though our voyage was not very long, it proved to be an exceedingly profitable one to the doctor and me, for we learned more, through conversation with our new friends, about the history and condition of Mars than we could have gained in any other way. The men were all kind to us and seemed to be all equally able to impart information, but most of our intercourse was with Thorwald. He gave us much of his time, at intervals as he could be spared from work, for every man helped at the service of the ship. There seemed to be no system of leadership, but all appeared to know what was to be done, and did it without orders and without clashing.
As we entered into conversation about the earth and Mars, I was surprised to find the doctor taking his full share in it with his usual intelligence. His questions and answers were all so pertinent that I should have supposed his mind was entirely unaffected, had I not known to the contrary. When I saw he could hold his own so well, I determined to take the first opportunity when we were alone to ask him again who Mona was.