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- Author: Roy Rockwood
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through space. The adventurers divided their time in looking
after the machinery, taking scientific observations or reading
the books with which the small library was stocked. Occasionally
Jack or Mark would play the electric piano, getting much
enjoyment from the music.
“If folks on earth heard these tunes up in the air, I wonder what
they’d think?” asked Jack.
“Humph! I guess we’re too far off for them to hear anything that
goes on inside this projectile,” said Mark. “Why, we’re nearly
seventeen millions of miles above the earth now.”
“Good land a’ massy! Don’t say dat!” cried Washington, who was
setting the table for dinner.
“Why not? It’s a fact,” declared Mark.
“I knows it is, but don’t keep dwellin’ on it. Jest s’posin’ we
should fall. Mah gracious! Sebenteen million miles! Why, dat’s
a terrible ways to drop—it suah am!”
“You’re right,” assented Jack. “But hurry up dinner, Washington.
I’m hungry.”
The two boys were in the midst of the meal when they felt a
curious sensation. Jack jumped up from the table.
“Do you notice anything queer?” he asked Mark.
“Yes. It seems as if we were falling down!”
“Exactly what I thought. I wonder if anything could have
happened?”
The Annihilator was certainly falling through space, and no
longer shooting forward. This was evident, as the motion was
slower than when the projectile was urged on by the mysterious
force.
“Let’s go tell Mr. Roumann and Professor Henderson,” suggested
Mark.
They started toward the pilot house, but met the two scientists
rushing back toward the engine-room.
“Has anything happened?” asked Jack.
“Yes,” answered the German. “The Etherium motor has stopped
working!”
“And are we falling?” asked Mark.
“Yes, in a sense,” answered Mr. Henderson, as the other inventor
hurried on. “The gravitation of the earth no longer attracts us,
but we are not heading in a straight line for Mars. We may be
falling into some other planet, or the sun.”
Then he, too, went to the engine-room, and the boys followed.
They found the place strangely quiet, since the throbbing and
humming of the main motor had ceased. The dynamos that kept the
light aglow and the air and other pumps were in motion, however.
“What’s the matter?” asked Mr. Henderson.
“There’s been a breakdown,” was the reply of the German. “And it
looks to me as if some one had been tampering with the motor.”
“Tampering with the motor?”
“Yes. Some of the plates have been smashed. I believe there is
some one concealed on board—some enemy of mine—who hopes to
destroy us.”
“What can we do?” asked Jack.
“Nothing, until the motor is repaired,” replied the German
scientist.
“But we are falling—”
“Yes, I know. But we can’t fall with anything like the speed
with which we were traveling, and though we may go downward,
comparatively speaking, for a day or so, we can quickly regain
our former place as soon as the motor is running again.”
“But can you fix it?”
“Yes, I have some spare plates. But I wish you boys would make a
search through the projectile.”
“What for?” asked Mark.
“For the person who smashed the plates. I believe some one is
concealed here who seeks to kill, us. We must find him.”
“And I think I know who it is!” exclaimed Jack.
“Who?” asked Mr. Henderson.
“The crazy machinist. I believe he sneaked here through that
open port leading into the storeroom.”
“That’s it!” cried Mr. Roumann. “He must have done this. See if
you can’t find him.”
“Come on, Mark,” said Jack. “We’ll look for the rascal.”
“And I’ll help,” added old Andy. “I’m pretty good on the trail.
Maybe I can locate him.”
“Do so, then,” advised the German. “The professor and I will
repair the motor.”
A VAIN SEARCH
The boys, with the old hunter, immediately began a search.
Washington was needed to aid the two scientific men, who quickly
prepared to substitute new plates for the smashed ones. The
broken plates looked as if they had been struck with a sledge
hammer.
Once the adventurers got used to the different motion of the
projectile, which was now falling in some unknown direction of
its own weight and not forced onward by the power of the motor,
they did not notice anything strange.
“Let’s begin at the pilot house and work back,” proposed Andy.
“If that crazy machinist did the damage, it would be natural for
him to want to get as far away as he could from the engine-room.
That place would be the pilot house.”
So they searched there, but there was no sign of any one.
Indeed, it would have been a pretty small person who could have
concealed himself in the prow of the projectile, occupied as it
was with all sorts of mechanism.
“Well, he isn’t here, that’s certain,” declared Andy, who had
brought his gun along. “Now for the bunk-room.”
There they had no better luck. They peered under the berths,
above them, and even turned back the sheets and blankets to look
for the intruder. He was not to be found.
Nor was he in the living-room, which was looked over from top to
bottom, and every corner examined.
“If he’s any place, it must be in the storeroom,” declared Jack.
“Unless he’s outside the projectile,” suggested Mark.
“He couldn’t live for a minute in a place without atmosphere,”
was Jack’s opinion. “No, he’s in here somewhere, and we must
find him.”
But it was more easily said than done. The storeroom contained
many things, piled together, and it would have been easy for a
person to conceal himself among them. The boys and the old
hunter looked in every possible place, as they supposed, even
taking down many boxes and barrels to peer behind them, but they
did not find the man they sought.
“I don’t believe he’s here,” said Jack as he paused in the hunt.
“Say, do you know, I have an idea,” said Mark. “Maybe that motor
broke itself.”
“How could it do that?”
“Well, it might have got to going too fast, and the power may
have broken the plates. Anyhow, we didn’t hear any person in the
engine-room, and there doesn’t seem to be any one here.”
“That’s so.”
“I’ll make an affidavit that there ain’t a person on this airship
but ourselves,” declared Andy.
“Let’s ask Mr. Roumann if it’s possible that the motor smashed
itself,” proposed Jack, and, having no further place to search,
they went back to where the two scientists and Washington were
busily engaged.
“Yes,” replied Mr. Roumann, after Jack had stated his question.
“It’s possible for that to have happened, but not very probable.
I think some person is hiding on board here, and that he did it.”
“But we can’t find any one.”
“That may be. He is well concealed. Well you can’t do anything
more. Suppose you two boys turn in and help us?”
Jack and Mark were glad to get busy, and for several hours they
labored in the engine-room, where the two scientists were
toiling. As this rendered it unnecessary for Washington to be
there, the colored man went to his kitchen, while Andy again made
a vain search of the projectile, looking for the crazy man.
Though Mr. Roumann had provided duplicates of the power plates
for the Etherium motor, it was quite a task to take out the
broken pieces and insert the new ones.
“Can’t you run the atmospheric motor while we’re fixing this
one?” asked Jack. “That would prevent us falling, I should
think.”
“No, for the reason that there is no atmosphere for it to work
on,” declared Mr. Roumann. “But don’t worry. We shall soon be
under way again. We will be somewhat delayed in reaching Mars,
that is all.”
They labored hard all the rest of that day and part of what
corresponded to the night, though of course the daylight outside
never ceased. Little of it could penetrate the projectile,
however, for the big car was all sealed up, save for the
observation window in the pilot house and one on the side.
“There,” announced Mr. Roumann, after inserting the last new
plate. “I think we are all right.”
It had been nearly eighteen hours since the motor had so suddenly
stopped.
“Will you start it now?” asked Jack.
“Yes. I wish you and Mark would go to the pilot house and turn
on the power. Do it very slowly. Mr. Henderson and I will stay
here and see how the motor behaves.”
It was an anxious moment when the power was turned on the
repaired machinery, but, to the delight of all, the motor again
began to give out the mysterious force. The projectile ceased to
fall, and once more was hurled onward.
“That’s the stuff!” cried Jack, as he noted the needle of the
indicator moving around, showing that they were again headed for
Mars.
Once more they were shooting through the ether. The wonderful
motor worked even better with the new plates, and Mr. Roumann
said they had increased their speed about twenty-five percent.
“So we will soon make up for what we lost,” he added.
They were all tired that night, for the work of making the
repairs had not been easy, and Andy had gone over the whole
projectile many times, looking for the hidden insane man.
“I don’t believe he can be here,” was Mr. Henderson’s opinion.
“He certainly is,” declared Mr. Roumann, “and we shall have more
trouble from him.”
“I hope not,” ventured Professor Henderson.
It was on the second day after the accident, when the Annihilator
was speeding along, that Jack and Mark, who were in the pilot
house with Mr. Roumann, noticed a peculiar trembling of one of
the needles on a dial designed to indicate the nearness of
heavenly bodies.
“We’re coming close to something,” said Jack.
“We certainly are,” admitted the scientist, with an anxious look
at the instrument.
“Maybe it’s Mars,” suggested Mark.
“No, it can’t be that planet.”
“What is it?” inquired Jack. “Look, the needle went all the way
around that time.”
Mr. Roumann bent over the gauge. Then he consulted some charts of
the sky, and made a few calculations.
“Boys, I am afraid we’re approaching a large comet,” he said
gravely. “And, what is worse, it is attracting us toward itself.
We are in great danger!”
ESCAPING A COMET
The two boys looked at the German scientist. He was gazing, as if
fascinated, at the swiftly moving needle of the gage that had
told of the nearness of the comet.
“How far from it are we?” asked Jack.
“Many thousands of miles,” replied Mr. Roumann. “But that
distance is nothing compared to the rate at which we are
traveling. We are almost certain to crash into it, or the comet
will collide with us.”
“And when it does, what will happen?” inquired Mark quietly.
“That is hard to say,” was the answer of the German. “We know
very little about the composition of comets. They may be
composed merely of flaming gasses, or they may be a train of
burning meteors, held together by attraction. The head may be
some vast, blazing world, as large as our planet. In fact,
comets are very baffling to astronomers.”
“Well, if a comet is nothing but gas, it
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