Chapter X: When the Rain Mist Lifted

The Professor had just rubbed his eyes in the first moments of waking consciousness, when he heard a yell resound through the machine, but of an unmistakably earthly type. The next moment he had sprung to his feet, thrust on an overcoat, and was up the stairs into the dining-room. Carysfort and the others had emerged with equal speed; Jackson, indeed, with more zeal than conventionality, appeared in his night-shirt.

Abercromby was standing, ghastly pale, his hair erect, every muscle and limb shaking, and pointing to the window. A huge, man-like creature, with reeking jaws, porcupine-like bristles, and one enormous eye in the middle of his forehead, had clambered up the stairway and was tearing at the smooth surface of the glass with claw-like hands. With a cry of horror Carysfort rushed to fetch his gun, but, finding the way to the stair-ladder barred, he stopped and hesitated. As if to make matters worse, two other creatures, equally hideous and furious, flung out their arms and sought to clasp the Asteroid in their foul clutches. Carmichael at once made for the conning-tower and started the machine in an upward flight. The irons tore and creaked, but of course gave way after a minute, while the Asteroid rose over the tree tops, a hundred feet from the ground. With a hideous yell the gorilla creatures let go and were hurled downwards, not to the ground but into the waters of the river. They evidently had no idea of swimming, for, after a brief struggle, they were swept away by the current.

“A pretty appetiser we have had for breakfast,” grumbled Frank Abercromby. “Darwin’s missing link was not in it.”

“How on earth did the monsters first appear?” asked Carysfort.

“My friend, you must say in future ‘How on Venus,’” replied Abercromby. “Well, I had better cry ‘peccavi,’ as the Indian governor did when he wrote ‘I have Scinde.’ I was just going to fall asleep at my post, when that strange and most attractive Johnnie came and looked reproachfully at me. But I wonder I did not go stark staring mad on the spot.”

“Where are we to venture the machine now?” asked Radcliffe, who looked very white though he had said nothing.

“We will keep this side of the river at all events,” said the Professor. They chose another less restricted camping-place, the anchors were made fast, and the party alighted to be quite certain the coast was clear. Radcliffe declared that he heard certain gobblings and chucklings emanating from the thickets hard by, and the others, after attentively listening, believed he was right. They resolved, therefore, to make but a very short stay, in fact, only just sufficient to take their meal. Even Abercromby disclaimed the thought of an out-of-door picnic, and therefore they had breakfast in the dining-room and drew in the stair-ladder as a precaution.

“What concerns me is the thought that those creatures are the real inhabitants of Venus,” remarked Carysfort.

“God forbid!” said Radcliffe fervently. “I cannot and will not think so until I am obliged.”

“If _that_ is evolution illustrated,” remarked Abercromby, “it would have made Darwin himself orthodox.”

“I am by no means disposed to reject evolution,” replied Radcliffe, “because the Creator could work in and through evolution, even if man be descended from a protoplasm as well as from a monkey. All I ask for is that God’s hand should guide the process all through the countless ages. Not that I consider Darwin’s theory proved. I only say that if it ever comes to be, it would not shake my faith.”

“Don’t be too liberal and concessive, my dear fellow,” said the Professor, “though the advice may sound queer as coming from me. Evolution is _a_ theory, not _the_ theory. To make it account for all the facts of creation is to take up one of those short and easy cuts which are as great a nuisance to true science as to anything else. I regard evolution as one of the helpful working forces of the universe. I believe that the original types of animal life were fewer than the existing types. But when I have said that, I no more believe that all life came from a jelly-fish than I believe that every species was distinctly and separately created. People always think that nature is uniform in its ways, while we shall have to learn that it is not. As to the inhabitants of Venus being represented by those creatures, my mind turns sick at the very thought. However, we must face facts, but we will not rush at facts.”

“No, I did not rush at the monster, I waited for fresh light on the situation, and you brought it me, Professor,” said Abercromby. “I should never be eating this breakfast had I taken a short and easy road to knowledge by going out and shaking hands with him.”

“Well, I think we will start,” said the Professor, “when you have done eating, Abercromby.”

“Yes; we will have a good day’s aerial exploration to blow the nightmare off,” remarked the engineer.

They travelled at least a hundred miles over the fair and diversified land before they had accomplished more than half the distance to the southern mountains. Once Radcliffe declared that there were some houses perched upon an eminence to the west, but a careful survey proved that they were only high rocks of white colour shining in the sun’s rays above the forest land. As some doubt was still felt, they shaped their course towards them, for it did not take them many miles out of their way.

It proved to be a tableland of grey-white rocks, several hundred feet above the plain. Here the Asteroid alighted and it was resolved to rest for the night, for the place appeared fairly inaccessible to wild beasts, and if any such were to appear, they could be easily seen before they touched the Asteroid. But there were no traces of wild beasts, though some richly plumed birds made the air melodious with their song for a few minutes. Jackson was preparing the supper, and all except Radcliffe were within. Radcliffe was out on the plateau, wrapped in his thoughts, as Abercromby told them, as well as in his greatcoat.

“Well, I wish the dear fellow would not express them in that everlasting tune,” said the engineer; “he has been well on for a quarter of an hour, and it rather gets on my nerves.”

“It is one of the melodies those fiddlers were playing at Cullercoats,” remarked the Professor, “‘Love launched a fairy boat,’ I believe.”

“The prettiest song I ever heard, that, and ‘All in the hush of twilight,’” said Abercromby; “but alas and alack! there is no maiden to sing with me, though we are in the Love planet itself.”

“No! that is quite true,” replied the Professor dryly.

Radcliffe came in, happily unconscious of the late topic of criticism.

They took their places at the supper-table, when one of the most startling interruptions that had ever yet tried their nerves broke in upon the meal.

Overhead they heard a loud noise followed by a wailing cry. It seemed to come from the north, to attain to a piercing intensity, and then to die away southwards into tremulous silence.

“What the deuce is that?” shouted Abercromby; and, before the others could stop him, he had opened the door, and, regardless of the absence of the steps, had bounded out upon the plateau. There they saw him throwing his arms to and fro, and wildly gesticulating to them the other side of the windows. They could see he was in no danger, but mad with eagerness and excitement.

The whole party sprang to their feet and were by his side in two minutes. They looked in the direction in which he was wildly pointing, and saw a huge greyish thing, with outspread fans, whirling away to the mountain heights and then vanishing behind them.

The Professor, after a moment’s dead silence, said: “This is very serious; let us come within.”

“Why very serious?” asked the engineer, when they were again at the supper-table.

“Because it means one of two things, either of which will greatly affect us. It is either a huge primeval monster, or a flying machine like our own, in so far as it is an airship.”

“And why are either of these things so grave after all?” said Abercromby. “If that affair yonder were an airship, your heart ought to be glad, Professor; if a monster, it has the right to be sorry, your heart I mean; but why alarmed?”

“If it be a monster, Abercromby, we have come to Venus too soon to find intelligent human life. Such creatures could hardly co-exist with man in a world which, for practical purposes, has but so little accommodation. If it be an airship, then we are going to meet a race incapable of being either terrified by us, or even much astonished by us, who can meet us on equal terms, man to man, but may be armed millions against armed units. Now you understand what I fear, and why I fear it.”

“Take it easy, Professor, we may astonish the niggers after all; but I _must_ say I want to see them, even if it be only possible for them to astonish _me_. We will sing them a song or two before we die, Professor.”

* * * * *

The night was far from being a restful one under such circumstances. Two were placed on guard, to relieve each other every three hours. On the next day they found it impossible to start, as a thin, penetrating rain descended, the first they had experienced upon Venus. It continued, without cessation, for several hours, while the whole valley lay enwrapped in a silvery mist. The Asteroid afforded them a secure asylum, but, in their state of eager excitement, the time passed very slowly.

At last, soon after they had had their lunch, the mist began to disperse and the sun shone out in splendour. The air was much fresher and cooler; had they not been so naturally impatient to push on, they would have taken a walk, at least along the ridge of the plateau. But they were in no mood to do this--they were hunting for niggers, as Abercromby elegantly phrased it, and as nobody else overheard him, it did not much matter.

The Professor ordered the start at about 3 p.m. by their watches. The Asteroid was set at fairly high speed, and soon reached the slopes of the mountains. A few miles to the west they saw a huge gap or defile, and towards this they steered. A great wall of precipitous rock shelved downwards in the direction in which they had come, but, to the south, a pass extended of varying breadth, sometimes almost too narrow for the whole of them to walk abreast.

The Asteroid was therefore in a rather awkward position; they could descend if they liked and make the journey on foot, but, in such a place, it seemed too hazardous to deprive themselves of the aid of their machine. They decided therefore to rise higher, and to follow the course of the pass, but at a safe elevation above it. In a few minutes the pass ended, they came out over a grassy upland height, but, unfortunately, the rain mist had now taken up its position to the south of them, and though there was evidently a grand landscape prospect, it was, for the present, completely wiped out.

A clump of lofty trees reared their heads a few hundred yards away, and to these they steered, coming to an anchorage beneath them. The party gladly took shelter in the dining-room, for they began to be positively chilly, doubtless owing to the peculiar state of the atmosphere, perhaps, even, to their restless nerves.

Neither cold nor rain could deter Clarence Radcliffe from venturing to the end of the clump of trees where the ground sloped suddenly downwards. He saw the mist begin to uncoil and lift itself; slowly the outlines grew clearer and more distinct. Feature after feature of a country, rich in its loveliness, disclosed themselves. High hills were interspersed with park-like glades; a lake of superb dimensions appeared, glittering in the sunshine, into which two majestic rivers poured their rapid waters. In the midst was a large island, and in the centre rose an object that sent the blood tingling through his veins--a colossal palace fortress or temple, with four graceful pinnacles each glittering with a different hue of colour--while beyond the lake was a greater sight still, at which, after a glance of fascinated admiration, he turned away, his eyes dim with tears. “O that one had been here to see it with me, but it was not to be. Her eyes behold a landscape with which even this cannot compare. If I could but know she was looking at me now, I should be more brave to do what perhaps lies before me. But I know she would wish me to do it, and I _will_.”

Then he turned and went back to the Asteroid. They were all in the dining-room making preparations to start for a walk, as the weather was clearing. But all stood petrified at the expression on his face.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I have chanced to see what you should all have seen with me. I owe you an apology. Come at once.”

They rushed out to the edge of the great precipice and stopped, absolutely incapable for the moment either of speech or action. The vast plain was dotted with houses and palaces, each standing in its grove and garden, while up the sides of the two southern hills that sloped towards the lake shore stretched the outlines of a great city, its domes, towers, and pinnacles shining in the light of a sun more splendid than the sun of India, yet tempered in its rays by the white-robed circle of the sky.

The object of the expedition was accomplished; before them lay the life, the civilisation, and the glory of the planet Venus.