"We'll try it at once, then," I said, excited now at this faint gleam of hope. "For the changing-hour for the Neptunians on the dark and sunward sides comes soon, and we don't know how soon those Neptunian scientists, who are to question us, will be coming here."
We prepared for the attempt at once. Our first and main preparation was to unbind once more from our feet the little and great-weighted disks of metal, which increased our weight against Triton's lesser gravitation to its normal Earth-figure. With those disks removed, our lightest step sent us a few feet into the air, so greatly were the results of our muscular efforts increased. Then, since with my somewhat greater strength I was to be the first to try Marlin's plan, I stepped, or rather floated, toward the compartment-cell's side with a single step, crouching down there with my body braced against the wall behind me. From that position the square little opening of the cell, two hundred feet above, seemed infinitely distant, yet I did not despair, drawing a long breath and then with all the force of my muscles leaping obliquely upward. Upward and slantwise thus I went with the force of that leap for more than a score of feet, toward the opposite wall that much higher from the floor, seeming to float smoothly up—so much slower than on Earth was my progress through the air.
And as I shot smoothly toward the opposite wall I was twisting myself in mid-air, so that when I struck that wall, more than a score of feet above the floor, it was my feet that struck it. And as they struck it, bent with my impact against the wall, I abruptly straightened them again, shot suddenly away from that wall again on an upward slant again toward the other wall. Again, as I floated upward, I was twisting in mid-air to strike that wall feet-foremost, and again as I struck it I was kicking against it with my legs, so that hardly had I touched it than I was shooting back across the cell again toward the opposite wall, but again on an upward slant, gaining a score of feet on each strange leap I made thus across the cell! Thus, in zig-zag leaps from wall to wall, I was progressing up the narrow cell toward its roofless top far above! It was just the same as when on Earth a man in a wide chimney can work himself up from bottom to top of it by bracing himself now against one wall and now against another. And the fact that the cell was much wider, could only be touched one wall at a time, was counterbalanced by the fact of Triton's far lesser gravitational power, which alone was making it possible for me to continue my strange progress upward!
On Triton alone, indeed, or on a world of similar size and gravitational power, was such a feat possible, for only thus could one leap with such new impetus each time from wall to wall, and twist in mid-air to strike braced for another leap. And as I leapt up in that criss-cross fashion from wall to wall, my heart beating rapidly, putting all my strength into each great leap, I could see Marlin on the cell's floor below gazing up tensely through the dusk, knew what depended upon our escape, and so struggled upward with a superhuman strength. Up—up—back and across—across and back—in leap after slanting leap upward I progressed, until with a half-dozen more leaps the cell's open top lay close above me. By then, though, the energy which I had summoned for this superhuman feat seemed fast waning, and as I shot from wall to wall I realized that I was gaining less and less toward the top with each leap!
Another leap—another—and as I shot back across the cell's width from wall to wall I was aware of the wall's top but a few yards above me, yet felt at the same time the exhaustion that had gained upon me, now almost near to overcoming me. Another leap—with agonized muscles I propelled myself back to the opposite wall, with the top of that wall but a few feet above me. One more up-slanting leap would take me back up and across to the opposite wall's top, I knew, but in that tortured moment I felt that I could never make it, and knew that if I missed it I must inevitably fall downward. So, as I struck that wall feet-foremost, I put the last of my strength into a great effort and shot floatingly across the cell's width for the last time. And this time, with hands outstretched, I struck the top edge of that opposite wall, fumbled with it for an agonizing moment, and then had grasped it and had drawn myself up on the thick wall's top!
For a moment I lay across its top, oblivious to all else in the exhaustion that possessed me, inhaling and exhaling great panting breaths. Then as I drew myself up a little I peered about me. Far away on all sides of me stretched the walls of the compartment-city that covered all of Triton, those walls' tops intersecting like a great checkerboard, and all level with the thick wall's top on which I lay. Twilight lay over a broad band of that compartment-city about me, the twilight band between the dark and sunward sides, the brighter day of the sunward side stretching away to one side, humming with activity and with many cylinders moving to and fro above it, while to the other side stretched the silent, sleeping dark side, beneath its unchanging night. Now I gazed down through the dusk toward the cell's floor far beneath, and saw Marlin gazing up toward me anxiously, gestured silently to him. And in a moment more he was coming up toward me by the same great zig-zag leaps from wall to wall that I had used.
In anxious suspense I watched him as he came gradually up toward me, shooting from side to side of the cell in upward-slanting leaps that brought him each many feet upward. Gradually, though, I saw that the force of his leaps was lessening, his upward progress slowing, as he, too, began to feel the waning of his strength. I knew that, older than myself as he was, those leaps were telling against Marlin even more than they had done against me, and in utmost suspense I watched as he came more and more slowly toward me. At last he was but a score or more feet beneath, his face tense and strained as he shot from wall to wall, gaining now but a few feet each leap. With clenched fingers I watched him, powerless to help, saw him by a last gathering of his strength making another up-slanting leap and another and another, until but one more was needed to reach up to the wall on which I crouched. And even as Marlin made that last leap, even as he shot across the cell's width and up toward the wall on which I crouched, I realized with a thrill of horror that he had leaped short!
In that moment, as Marlin shot across the cell's width toward me with hands outstretched, I saw his white, strained face and knew that even as I did he realized the shortness of the leap that he had made with his last strength, realized that his outstretched hands would miss the wall's top by feet. That moment in which he shot across the cell, as his own hands struck the smooth wall of length, yet as he shot toward me it was more by instinct than by conscious thought that I acted. Swiftly hooking my knees over the wall's top upon which I crouched, I hung with head and body downward into the cell, reached downward with hands open, and as Marlin shot across the cell, as his own hands struck the smooth wall of it many feet below the top, I reached and grasped them tightly. A moment thus we hung there, he held by my own down-swinging body, and then holding his own hand by one of mine I reached upward with the other, drew myself slowly and with an infinite effort upward. In another moment I had drawn myself and Marlin on to the wall's top, and there crouched with him again in a silence of exhaustion for the moment. Only his and my own lessened weight, on Triton, had made it possible for me thus to save him.