CHAPTER XXII
A BREAKDOWN
At first they were inclined to regard the announcement of Washington lightly, but the too evident fright of the colored man showed that there was some basis for his fear.
"Tell us just what you saw, and where it was," said Mr. Henderson. "Was the 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 there was no further argument.
"Well, tell us about it," suggested Jack.
"It were jest dis way," began Washington earnestly, and with occasional glances over his shoulder, "I were walkin' along, sort ob lookin' fer dem sparklin' diamonds, an' I didn't see none, when all on a suddint I looked down in a hole, and dere I seen HIM!" and he brought out the word with a jerk.
"Saw what—who?" asked Mr. Roumann.
"De ghost—de dead man. He were lyin' all curled up, laik he were asleep, 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 dish yeah 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?" he went on.
"Maybe one of the people who came from Mars after the diamonds, who was forgotten and left here, and who died," said Jack.
"It's possible," murmured Mr. Henderson. "However, we'll go take a look. Get on your fur coats, boys, and take the life-torches. Will you come, 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 Washington had pointed, holding their gas torches near their heads and talking of what 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 a depression 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 to stone."
A few seconds later they were all grouped around the strange object—it was a man no longer, but had once been one. It was a petrified human being, a full-grown man, to judge by the size, and it was a solid image in stone, even the garments with which he had been clothed being turned to rock.
For a moment no one spoke, and they gazed in silence at what was an evidence of former life on the moon. The man was huddled up, with the knees drawn toward the stomach and the arms bent around the body, as if the 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 the characteristics 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 that was 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 a planet like our earth—perhaps even a part of it, and I think that it was inhabited. In time it cooled so that life could no longer be supported, or, at least, this side of the moon presents that indication. The people were killed—frozen to death, and by reason of the chemical action of the gases, or perhaps from the moon being covered with water in which was a large percentage of lime, they were turned 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 Metropolitan Museum in New York there are the remains of an ancient South American miner, whose body has been turned into solid copper. The corpse, of which the features are partly distinguishable, was found four hundred feet down in an old copper mine, where the dripping from hidden springs, the waters of which were rich in copper sulphate, had converted the man's body into a block of metal, retaining its natural shape. The body is drawn up in agony, and there is every indication that the man was killed by a cave-in of the mine. Some of his tools were found near him.
They remained gazing at the weird sight of the petrified man for some time.
"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 than one left. Why was this man off here alone?"
"We don't know," responded the German scientist. "Perhaps he was off alone in the mountains when death overtook him, or perhaps all his companions 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 other side of the country, and to that end I suggest that we set our projectile in motion and travel a bit. There is little more to see here."
This plan met with general approval, and, after some photographs had been taken of the petrified man, and the professors had made notes, and set down data regarding him, and had tried to guess how long he had been 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 night where they were. "Over night" being the way they spoke of it, though, as I have said, there was perpetual daylight for fourteen days at a time on the moon.
Professors Roumann and Henderson made a few more observations for scientific purposes. They found traces of some vegetation, but it was of little value for food, even to the lower forms of animal life, they decided. There was also a little moisture; noticed at certain hours of the day. But, in the main, the place where they had landed was most desolate.
"I hope we get to a better place soon," said Jack, just before they sealed themselves up in the projectile to travel to a new spot.
As distance was comparatively small on the moon, for her diameter is only a little over two thousand miles and the circumference only about six thousand six hundred miles, the Annihilator could not be speeded up. If it went too fast, it would soon be off the moon and into space again.
Accordingly the Cardite motor was geared to send the big craft along at about forty miles an hour, and at times they went even slower than that, when they were passing over some part of the surface which the professors wished to photograph or observe closely.
They did not rise high into the air, but flew along at an elevation of about two hundred feet, steering in and out to avoid the towering peaks scattered here and there. Occasionally they found themselves over immense craters that seemed to have no bottom.
For two days they moved here and there, finding no further signs of life, neither petrified nor natural, though they saw many strange sights, and some valuable pictures and scientific data was obtained.
It was on the third day, when they were approaching the side of the moon which from time immemorial has been hidden from view of the inhabitants of the earth, that Jack, who was with Mark in the engine room, while the two professors were in the pilot-house, remarked to his chum: "Mark, doesn't it strike you that the water pump and the air apparatus aren't working just right?"
"They don't seem to be operating very smoothly," admitted Mark, after an examination.
"That's what I thought. Let's call Mr. Henderson. The machinery may need adjusting."
Jack started from the engine room to do this, and as he paused on the threshold there was a sudden crash. Part of the air pump seemed to fly off at a tangent, and a second later had smashed down on the Cardite motor. This stopped in an instant, and the projectile began falling. Fortunately it was but a short distance above the moon's surface, and came down with a jar, which did not injure the travellers.
But there was sufficient damage done to the machinery, for with the breaking of the air pump the water apparatus also went out of commission, and together with the breakdown of the Cardite motor had fairly stalled the Annihilator.
"What's the matter?" cried Professor Henderson, running in from the pilot-house, for an automatic signal there had apprised him that something was wrong.
"There's a bad break," said Jack ruefully.
"A bad break! I should say there was," remarked the scientist. "I think we'll have to lay up for repairs." And he called Mr. Roumann.