Fifteen Hundred Miles An Hour 6
"Graham, your experiences must have been unutterably terrible,"
remarked Temple.
"The mental torture of such a terrible situation must have seemed
beyond human endurance. Try a little more brandy, and finish your story
later on, when you feel stronger," said the Doctor.
"No, thanks, Doctor; I begin to feel myself again, and would like to
relate all while the facts are still fresh in my memory."
"With a desperation," continued Graham, "only born of a wild desire for
life, I commenced my struggle upwards. Swinging from side to side, and
twisting round and round above that gleaming yellow gulf, whose depths
no mortal could sound, I slowly climbed, hand over hand, for a little
way, and then stopped to rest. I soon, alas! realised the fact that
going down was much easier than coming up, and every moment I felt my
arms losing strength. Oh! how horribly smooth and remorseless did the
shining sides of the _Sirius_ seem! Not a projection of any kind to
assist me. Several times I was almost giving up in despair, and ending
my frightful misery by dropping quietly into the yawning void below,
but the natural love for life implanted in every animate creature held
me back, whilst hope whispered encouragement in my ears. I could hear
your voices; the sound of my pulse as it throbbed on in its agony was
startlingly distinct. I heard Sandy call out the hour--I had only been
five minutes in my dreadful position, after all, yet it seemed ages and
ages. Suddenly an idea struck me, and that was if I could manage to
hold on by one hand, with the other I might pass the end of the rope
under my foot and form a loop.
"This I succeeded in doing, and was thus able to rest my arms a little,
at intervals, as I slowly struggled upwards. How heavy the helmet
seemed to be getting! I felt slowly drifting into unconsciousness, and
death. In what seemed to me an eternity, I at last reached the other
end of the rope, which I had left hanging loose. By a great effort I
got this end through the ring and secured it, thus making a loop in
which I was able to stand for a few moments and rest. I cannot tell
you how deliciously sweet those few seconds were; they seemed like a
respite from the very jaws of death. I actually examined the supposed
crack which had been the cause of all my misfortune, and found that
it was not a flaw, but a mere scratch in the outer coating of the
_Sirius_. After this all was comparatively easy. I soon got on to the
balcony, untied the rope, and gave the signal at the door. Then all
was blank; my senses left me. I suppose the mental strain had been
too much, and that the overstrung nerves had collapsed at last. I
remembered nothing more until I found myself under your care, and was
surprised to learn that for three hours I had lain unconscious."
"We all congratulate you on your wonderful escape, Graham," said
Temple. "A bottle of our best port shall be uncorked. It will put new
life into you, man."
"And, Graham," remarked the Doctor, "you will perceive that your
perilous undertaking has brought about good results. The air we are
now breathing is all right again. We have lost but little time, for
the moment we knew you were safe the motors were started again at full
pressure."
"The leakage," rejoined Graham, addressing the Doctor, "was absurdly
trivial, yet it makes one shudder to think what would be the case did
our air escape in any larger quantity."
"It only shows how scrupulously careful we must be, and neglect no
precautions for our safety," said Temple.
"The perils of our position must keep each one of us alert. Unforeseen
terrors may surround us; at any moment we may encounter unknown perils;
we may be rushing into the midst of forces that will require all our
fortitude to contend against them. We are in the midst of danger, and
have to grapple with any difficulty that may present itself, without
having the benefit of any human experience to guide us. But we shall
pull through; we shall pull through, my friends; and think of our
glorious reward!" remarked Doctor Hermann, working himself up into an
enthusiastic state of excitement as he spoke.
"What are the results of your observations and calculations to-day,
Doctor?" said Graham. "I reckon we are now one million two hundred and
fifty thousand miles from home!"
"You were asking me, Graham, about the results I arrived at to-day,"
continued the Doctor. "Briefly, they may be summarised thus. I find
that we are now entirely beyond the attractive forces of the planet,
Earth. We are now, as it were, in a neutral position; not yet close
enough to Mars to come within the influence of his attraction."
Four hours after the Doctor had thus spoken, that is to say at twenty
minutes past two in the afternoon, the transit of Earth commenced.
He had timed the occurrence to a second. Slowly the sphere of Earth
crept into view, and crossed gradually towards the centre of the sun,
and finally passed beyond the disc into space again. No words of
human tongue can adequately express the sensations we experienced as
we watched the planet Earth, now nothing but a small, dark ball in
appearance, travel across the fiery background of the sun. To know
that that mere speck was a universe peopled with millions of living
creatures--to know that that tiny black disc, so far out yonder, was
in reality a vast and mighty world, floating in space, yet so small in
comparison to other orbs around us, impressed upon our minds the grand
sublimity of Nature's works.
For many weeks after the events recorded in this chapter, the _Sirius_
sped on without a single notable occurrence to relieve the monotony of
the journey. Our first Christmas Day was observed with all customary
honours, Sandy providing us with a royal feast; and the evening was
given up to conviviality and amusement. The Doctor and Temple played
chess; Sandy, with his short pipe and unlimited whiskey, now and then
sang us a North-country ballad; Rover lay quietly at his master's
feet; Graham smoked huge Cabanas, told stories, fired off jokes,
and sang many a Yorkshire ditty. All of us felt the magic spell of
Christmas-tide, and the observance of the festal day filled our hearts
with renewed hope, and served to increase and strengthen the bond of
brotherly unity in our little party.
We were now 8,820,000 miles from Earth, or, reducing this vast number
to more comprehensive language, we had accomplished slightly more
than a quarter of our journey. We still continued to find ether
sufficiently dense to be converted into a breathable atmosphere, and
into water--everything promised well for the ultimate success of our
daring enterprise. Alas! for all human hopes and human anticipations;
we little dreamed of what the future was about to bring!
CHAPTER IV.
AWFUL MOMENTS.
Day after day, week after week, and month after month sped the _Sirius_
on its journey, like a meteor across the gulf of space. We had now been
eighteen months away from Earth, and our distance from that planet
we computed to be quite nineteen millions of miles. The Earth was
remarkably small in appearance, and the moon could only be detected
through a glass. On the other hand, Mars had risen in elevation, and
sensibly increased in brilliancy and apparent size. Other heavenly
bodies had also changed considerably in their aspect. Some had got much
larger, others smaller, many had disappeared entirely from our vision,
whilst several new orbs had been discovered. The Doctor was able to
make many observations of the little-known asteroids which travel round
the sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Scores of new ones were
seen.
For a long time Doctor Hermann had been worried by the course which
the _Sirius_ was taking. In spite of the fact that we were apparently
steadily travelling onwards across the vast belt of space between Earth
and Mars, certain of his calculations appeared to demonstrate that we
were being drawn rapidly towards the sun! The quantity of water we
condensed from the atmosphere now became very small, and eventually
failed altogether, so that we had to depend upon our scanty store and
the lozenges.
After an unusually long and tedious day, the Doctor gloomily threw
aside his papers and his instruments, exclaiming to Graham in almost
pathetic tones, "It is as I have long expected; the sun is too much for
us!"
"But, Doctor, you may have erred in your calculations. Do you really
think it wise to take such a pessimistic view of our situation?"
answered Graham, with a hopefulness that he was far from actually
feeling.
"If Temple can spare us a moment, ask him to join us, and I will
endeavour to explain our actual position, and the prospects we have
before us."
"A horrible one! A most horrible one!" the Doctor muttered under his
breath, as Graham walked thoughtfully away.
Temple and Graham joined the Doctor almost immediately.
"Now, Doctor, what have you got to tell us this time? What new
discovery have you made? Nothing unpleasant, I sincerely hope," said
Temple, in his usual cheery way.
"My dear friends," began the Doctor, "I am afraid I have bad news to
communicate--very bad news. But let us look the situation squarely
in the face, and discuss it calmly and philosophically, as becomes
intelligent men."
"Many weeks ago," continued the Doctor, "I explained to Graham and
yourself that our centre of gravity had changed from the Earth to
the sun; instead of earth glimmering at our feet, nineteen millions
of miles below us, we have the fiery sun, as both of you cannot
have failed to observe. This I must hasten to explain, is cause for
no surprise; it is just what I expected would be the case until we
came within the attractive forces of Mars. But my instruments have
demonstrated that our motors are now absolutely of no use. They are
working just as usual, but our speed increases rather than diminishes,
and from this I infer we are influenced by some vast attractive force.
That centre of attraction to which we seem hurrying can only be the
sun! No further words of mine are needed to render more clear the horrible doom which awaits us."
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