“No, it isn’t hot,” Mark replied, “but it isn’t water. It’s white molasses!”
“White molasses?” repeated the professor, coming up at that moment. “What are you talking about?”
He stooped down and dipped his finger into the stream. He drew it up quickly, and there ran from it big drops that flowed as slowly as the extract of the sugarcane does in cold weather.
“You’re about right, Mark,” he said. “It’s water but it’s almost as thick as molasses.” He touched his finger to his tongue. “It’s good to drink, all right,” he went on, “only it will be a little slow going down.”
Then he dipped up a palm full, and let it trickle down his throat.
“It is the strangest water I ever saw,” he added. “It must be that the lack of some peculiar property of air, which we have on the surface, has caused this. I must make some notes on it,” and he drew out pencil and paper. He was about to jot down some facts when he was interrupted by a cry from Washington.
“Come and see what’s the matter with this stone!” he cried.
CHAPTER XVIII
CAUGHT BY A STRANGE PLANT
“Washington is in trouble!” exclaimed Mr. Henderson. Followed by the two boys he ran to where the colored man stood in a stooping position over a small pile of stones.
“What is it? Has something bit you?” asked the scientist, as he came up on the run.