The Ring was hanging over a vast rocky plain, pockmarked with small craters, furrowed with crevasses, and bristling with jagged ridges and grotesque turrets and pinnacles. In the glare of the sun, it shone dazzlingly white—like snow—so that it hurt their eyes, and Rhoda was forced to turn hers away.
"How high up are we?" inquired Bennie.
"The manometer doesn't register," answered Burke. "There can't be any atmosphere. We won't be able to use it for landing—more's the pity! Just have to judge by appearances. I think we're hovering now—no—by George, we're rising a little!" He advanced the lever of the rheostat another point. "Now we're descending. This is about right, I reckon."
Slowly the Ring dropped toward the surface of the plain. Immediately below them was a small forest of pinnacles.
"For heaven's sake, keep away from that!" shouted Bennie. "If you land there, you'll spike the Ring on one of those things, just as if you were playing ringtoss. There's a good place—that round, level spot about three hundred yards to the left."
"Trust me for a bull's-eye!" laughed Burke, slanting the tractor, and the ground slid slowly off to one side until they were clear of danger and over the smooth patch, which looked as if it had been made to order for their purposes.
Up—up—nearer and nearer—came the lunar plain. The helium ray was now playing directly upon its surface, and throwing up great clouds of white dust, which, as the Ring sank closer to the ground, rose and completely enveloped it. Sight was no longer possible. They could not be more than two hundred feet above the surface. Beneath and above them, they could see only whirling clouds of white powder.
"Here goes for luck!" announced Burke, pulling back the lever.
They grasped the ropes tightly, standing on tiptoe for what seemed ages. Suddenly, the Ring struck with a noise like that of a giant sledge-hammer upon a boiler. The accompanying jar, however, was comparatively slight. Burke touched his forelock.
"We have arrove!" he remarked, with a grin. "All out for the moon!"