It was soon after this that we gave up observing the Earth as a planet, put on our darkened lens, and proceeded to hold her as a spot in the Sun a little to the left of his centre. The Moon remained a tiny spot of light outside for a few days; but finally she entered the Sun also, and was seen as a faint spot travelling toward the Earth-spot.
Although the dazzling quality of the light, into which we had emerged after the second day, was finally beginning to wane and pale a little, Mars was still invisible. In fact, no stars or planets were visible; only the gleaming Sun with the Earth-spot upon it. Our thermometer was poorly placed in the glare of the Sun at the rear; but it showed the heat was decreasing, and from a temperature of thirty-five degrees, observed at the end of the second day, it had now fallen to twelve, and was diminishing regularly about two degrees daily as nearly as we could reckon.
Our appetites were steadily failing, and for two very good reasons: the unsuitable foods and the impossibility of getting any exercise. There was no such thing as getting any healthy actions of the body. Nothing had any weight, and such a thing as physical labour was impossible on the face of it. I attempted to go through regular courses of gymnastics at frequent intervals; but as my body and its members weighed nothing, my muscles found nothing whatever to expend their force upon. I thought myself worse than Prometheus bound upon his rock, for he could at least struggle with the birds of prey and pull upon his chains! I might as well have been utterly paralyzed, and I actually began to fear that I should lose all my strength, and that my muscles would forget their cunning.
And our foods could not have been more unsuitable. The light vegetable diet which this lack of exercise called for was impossible. We had never had any fresh vegetables or fruits, and our tinned and canned supplies of these had been rapidly exhausted. We had plenty of solid, meaty foods and beef essences; but our systems did not require these, and at last absolutely refused to have them. I lived for days at a time upon beer and biscuits, and looked longingly at my cigars. I believed I could have existed comfortably and luxuriously upon smoke alone. My dreams were filled with visions of ripe, luscious fruits and fresh, crisp vegetables. When I awoke, I loathed the only foods we had.
I believe I should finally have given up eating, had I not hit upon a method of exercise at last. It was a sort of rowing or pulling machine, which I rigged up by running a bar through one end of the doctor's spring scales, and fastening the other end to the foot of my bed. I pulled vigorously against this spring for hours at a time, and was delighted to find that my strength had not left me, and that I could easily lift as much as these scales had been made to weigh. I remember the returned appetite with which I enjoyed potted meat and a tinned pudding, after the first hour of as vigorous exercise as our rarefied air would permit.
The Moon-spot had disappeared and gone to her eclipse behind the Earth, when an incident occurred to vary the monotony of our existence a little, and to suggest to me a diversion that had been hitherto forbidden. Our supply of water in the outer tank had long ago boiled away, and I had lighted the gas to heat water for the doctor's coffee. I had taken the cup up to him and remained chatting with him, when presently I smelled something burning from the compartment below. I descended quickly, and saw that my light bedclothes, which now weighed less than a feather, and often floated from their place, had been drawn into the flame by the draft of the burning gas. They were floating about the compartment now, all aflame and threatening to set fire to everything. We had not a drop of water to spare; but for once I thought of the right thing to do without hesitation. I pushed out the ventilating cylinder, hurried back to the doctor's compartment and thrust in the bulkhead. Within two minutes all the air had escaped from my room, and the fire had died for lack of oxygen. I waited a few minutes longer for the smoke to escape, and then we admitted condensed air, but only to the remarkably low pressure of eighteen. Within five minutes the compartment was ready again, and there was not a trace of smoke or smell of fire to be perceived.
"I congratulate you on your quick perception and prompt action," said the doctor when it was over.
"Quick rubbish!" I exclaimed. "I have been a dundering fool for four weeks by the Moon! I might just as well have been smoking ever since I contrived this self-ventilating arrangement. The compartment becomes a perfectly clean vacuum at each operation, yet I had to wait for this bed clothing to catch fire before I could think of so simple a thing!"
It was at the meal time just preceding the next changing of air that I opened the last tin of canned peas, as a sort of treat for the doctor to offset my expected revel in fragrant tobacco. I prepared half the quantity for him, but left my portion in the tin until I should be hungrier. With the prospects of a good smoke before me, I had no appetite for food. I put in the bulkhead to prevent the smoke from entering his compartment and lighted my Havana. Then I took Two-spot on my lap and stretched myself for a reverie. On Earth, smoking time had been my period for reflection. And far back on that distant planet, what were they doing now? In that one busy corner that had known me, they had probably wondered at my disappearance for a day or two; but after the month that had passed I was certainly forgotten. There were few back there whom I cared for, and not many had much reason to remember me. My interests, my desires, my hopes were all ahead of me on a new planet. And what was waiting for me on Mars? Discovery, riches perhaps, and a measure of fame when I returned. Then I thought of the numberless problems that the next few weeks must solve for us. Would there be intelligent inhabitants on Mars? Would they be in the forms of men or beasts? Would they be civilized or savage? Would they speak a language, and how could we learn to communicate with them? Would they have foods suitable to us; indeed, would the very air they breathed be fit to sustain our lives? Should we find them peaceable, or, if warlike, should we be able to cope with them?
These thoughts were interrupted by the doctor, who called feebly to me to come up. "Don't eat any of the peas," he said weakly. "There was a queer taste about them, and they have made me deathly sick."