Chapter V: An Innocent Offender

“Mischief that may be helped, is hard to know,
And danger going on still multiplies;
When harm hath many wings, care comes too late.
(+Lord Brooke.+)

“I knew you’d have to send for me, Dennis, old man!” exclaimed Godfrey Spenser, as he flung open the door, threw his coat on a seat close by from which it fell unheeded to the floor, and sat down amongst the three friends, all in a rush; “and here you are only back two days and you’re stuck.”

“Yes, Godfrey, we’re stuck, as you say, and want your assistance,” replied Dennis, smiling. “Can you go back with us?”

“When?”

“As soon as you like. It is now mid-September; can you go in a week?”

“I told you, Dennis, and you too, Ross, you’d never manage that ship alone; with all your theoretical knowledge of electricity, you need a practical hand; I will undertake that and help you out. I never expected to see you again, and when you stuck on the Kidney so long, I told folks it was very doubtful if you would be able to work her back, reversed.”

“It was very good of you, Godfrey,” replied Dennis, laughing, as did the others. “Very good indeed, but I think that between us we can manage the working all right—anyway we have done so far. What we want you for is not that at all.”

“Oh!” ejaculated Godfrey in surprise.

“While we were on Bona,” resumed Dennis, “the folks there told us of a microbe that would stand fire of any degree of heat, and we have been thinking you could help us to cultivate some for a little scheme we have.”

“Microbe? Rubbish!” snapped Godfrey.

“We think it’s a microbe,” said Ross.

“Tell me all you know,” ordered Godfrey, now keenly interested.

“Tell him, Ross,” said Dennis.

“No, you,” said Ross; and Dennis began,—

“You are aware, from our ‘waves,’ that the Bonians supply the solar system with vegetation of all kinds, even that which grows in hot climates and, in some places, on volcanoes, for which purpose they import a microbe from Jupiter, which in some way fertilises the plant, or does something else——”

“That’s extremely lucid,” interrupted Godfrey; “we shall come to something at this rate!”

“This microbe goes through several metamorphoses,” continued Dennis, smiling, “and finally winds itself in a cocoon and then——”

“Microbe, did you say?” asked Godfrey, incredulously.

“Yes, certainly!”

“Why certainly? not grub, for instance?”

“Perhaps; microbe, or grub; they’re the same thing,” answered Dennis, lightly.

“Are they? It’s about time you had a tutor, young man!” said Godfrey, severely.

“Why! what’s the difference?”

“Poor fellow! get on with your story!” said Godfrey, wearily, and Dennis proceeded,—

“Briefly, Godfrey, what we want is this. You are to go with us to Jupiter—not to help us, or do anything at the vessel; you’ll have to promise us that—but to lay in a stock of these microbes, or grubs, or whatever you call them, and feed them up so that they’ll cocoon for us; then you’ll unwind these cocoons or deal with them so as to give us some material to make into fine gauze, or cloth, or net—we shall have to experiment with it to see which form is best, and if things turn out well we will all go to the sun!”

“The sun!” almost shouted Godfrey, in amazement, sitting bolt upright with a jerk. “Are you mad?”

“Not at all,” said Ross, calmly; “and you are coming with us, Godfrey. We can’t do without you.”

“But the heat! You would all be burnt up!”

“If our experiments are successful,” said Gilbert, “we shall not be more than warm. The idea is startling at first, it startled us; but if what the Bonians told us is correct—and we have no reason to doubt it—this cocoon should not admit the passage of heat and flame; and we thought that if the net really would withstand heat and was also sufficiently strong to withstand passage through air, we would envelop the whole ship in it and be proof against any heat, even that of the sun.”

“But you might want millions and millions of grubs and cocoons, which would probably take years,” broke in Godfrey, still incredulous.

“That’s why we want you, Godfrey,” replied Ross; “you see we don’t understand these things.”

“Cela va sans dire!” observed Godfrey, drily.

“You must come with us,” pressed Dennis. “The folk in Jupiter will tell you all about them, and you’ve got to provide us with enough net or gauze to cover the ship. For doing this we’ll take you to the sun as a specially privileged passenger. Now, is that a bargain?”

“If any one else had asked me that question but you two,” returned Godfrey, looking at Dennis and Ross, whom he had known for many years, “I should have said they had gone stark, staring mad. You, sir,” looking at Gilbert, “I only know by repute; I never met you before, so I have no means of gauging your mental balance, but if it is anything like as far gone as theirs, there never was such a foolhardy, crack-brained project as we four idiots will be engaged in.”

“Then you’re going with us?” exclaimed all three excitedly.

“Of course I am! I’ve said so all along,” replied Godfrey, quietly, “and if we come back in an uncremated form I shall be surprised.”

“Of course we shall test the thing severely first,” said Gilbert. “When can you start?”

“Any time. Where’s Jupiter now?”

“I looked it up to-day,” replied Gilbert. “He is due to reach his meridian about midnight, and will be visible all night. As seen from here he will be opposite the sun—that is ‘in opposition’—on the 15th of October, or a month from to-day, and at his best time for approach. As viewed from here he will be moving towards the right in Aquarius, and Luna will pass over him on the fourth and thirtieth of next month, October.”

“And how will that fit in?”

“Excellently, if we start in a week, better still in four days.”

“Right!” said Godfrey. “And is the whole thing to be kept quiet?”

“As the grave!” replied Dennis. “We want to be off without any fuss this time, and have decided to go on a cloudy night, and not show ourselves till well away.”

“Then I’ll be mum,” said Godfrey, “and get off to find some apparatus; we shall want a tidy pile of things. I’ll send them to the shed to-morrow or the next day and be here myself the day following, that is three days from now, and you can start the first cloudy night you like after that. How will that fit in?”

“Splendidly,” they all cried, delighted.

Ten minutes later Godfrey’s airship was waiting outside a wholesale store, the proprietor almost overcome at the magnitude of the orders given.

On the nineteenth of September the night was very black and stormy, with lowering clouds and a strong drizzle of rain. Very few ships were out and none near, for no one suspected the _Regina_ would stay but four or five days after being away three months, so that nobody thought it worth while to commence a systematic watch on the shed so soon, and on such a night those aloft were in their cabins, making themselves as cosy as possible with nothing exposed to the elements except the regulation guard and location-lights.

The four travellers, therefore, reached the shed unseen by any one, and this time very silently, like a silver spirit, the _Regina_ rose in the cold and pitiless rain. Every light in the vessel was concealed, and in the saloon the only lights were a few hooded lamps over the switch-board, at which stood Gilbert, directing the movements of the vessel. Godfrey was standing at the other side of the room, his face pressed close against the window, his nose flattened out like a piece of rubber, quite unconscious of the grotesqueness of his appearance, so absorbed was he, for he had, of course, never been up so high before.

“I say, Ross, she’s a beauty!” he exclaimed, as Ross came and stood beside him. “She travels as sweetly as a swan, and I don’t feel the least motion or vibration in the engines. It was a good thing you joined Dennis, though I’d have found the thing out myself, if he’d asked me. Just fancy such a fine ship being unapproachable for centuries! Great Bona! what is that? She’s struck!” he cried, in horror, as an enormous cloud that they had just cut through burst with an awful simultaneous flash and roar; the same instant the _Regina_ became a mass of living flame which seemed to set fire to the whole heavens, and the clouds around them became one solid sheet of electricity.

“Now, how would you deal with that, Godfrey?” queried Ross, quietly.

“Say my prayers!” replied Godfrey, briefly, decidedly frightened, though somewhat reassured by the general indifference of his companions who, he saw, were paying no attention to the furies outside, so he turned to Ross and inquired, “Is there not danger?”

“Not a bit!” answered Ross. “Every flash that strikes calls out the same, or more, power from the ship to resist it. She has her repulsive force on now, and no matter what force she is passing through, that force is repulsed—unit for unit—and even more, so that it merely amounts to splutter on both sides, and the forces being always equally opposed, the result is nil, for the ship not only takes no hurt, but proceeds in spite of everything.”

“It looks frightening enough, anyway,” observed Godfrey, considerably awed by the sight which so engrossed his attention that he did not notice Dennis letting out a small cup-shaped object which he caused to fall, when it sank some distance on a flexible wire which ran off its roller at enormous speed. All at once he saw it and asked what it was, and its object.

“It’s a floating light,” replied Dennis; “it will fall till it is a quarter of a mile over the shed, when it will meet its equilibrium and remain poised—see, it is slowing up; now it has stopped and there is slack, for its weight sank it too low and it has now risen and is floating in perfect poise. I fire it through this switch on the roller, which at the same time releases the cord by fusing the soft connecting-wire, and you see the cord is rewinding; the shed and a mile round it will be lit up with a red light for thirty hours. That’s our good-bye signal.”

“But they can’t see us, I suppose?” asked Godfrey, looking down and seeing a glow come through the clouds below them like the effulgence of a rising sun.

“No,” answered Dennis, “the clouds are too thick, but all will know by the light that we are here, and Gilbert is ‘waving’ soon, so there’ll be a fine scramble for the disk afterwards.”

“Really!” said Godfrey. “I read of that paper business the last time you went up, but I thought there was nothing in it.”

“You unbelieving sinner! you’re as bad as the rest!” laughed Dennis, and having wound the last of the cord, he attached another soft-wire terminal so that it should be ready for any similar purpose at a moment’s notice, and passed on to another part of the ship, leaving Godfrey examining the wire reel. Whilst he was standing there Gilbert passed on his way to the ‘wave’ apparatus and cautioned Godfrey, “Don’t touch that, old man, or there’ll be trouble!”

“Oh, I know all about these things, Gilbert. I shall come to no harm,” responded Godfrey, smiling confidently, and walking away.

A few minutes later, a blinding flash of light went across the room, accompanied by the peculiar crackle of a powerful short-circuit, immediately followed by a yell of pain and terror from Godfrey.

“You idiot!” shouted Ross, “why can’t you keep your fingers out of mischief? Didn’t you promise us faithfully that you’d touch nothing?”

“I’m awfully sorry, Ross, I am indeed!” said Godfrey, contritely, but whether from the broken promise, or from the pain he felt, only he knew, as he turned away nursing his badly blistered hand. “I only moved that switch on the roller to see what it would do.”

“Well, you’ve seen now! and if you do any more of your monkey tricks we’ll put you in a cabin and keep you prisoner. You don’t know what you’re doing when you move switches here, and you might kill us all. Now don’t let it occur again!” and highly incensed Ross attached another terminal on the wire, and the other two running up gave the culprit a few forcible admonitions; after which Godfrey humbly apologised, saying he would not transgress again, at the same time protesting they were throwing his kindness in his face, when electricity was his forte and he wanted to assist in order to relieve them.

Tranquillity being restored, Godfrey strolled to a window to look out, and very shortly he cried: “Oh! do look here, ‘triad’” (which word he used when referring to the three), calling his friends to the window, where they saw far behind them a great dark mass, getting slowly smaller as they left it in the distance. “What is it? It has a halo of light round it,” he cried, excitedly.

“It’s our Earth,” said Gilbert, quietly.

“That!” vociferated Godfrey. “Do you mean to say that we are now, so soon, outside the Earth’s atmosphere?”

They all laughed at his surprise, and Gilbert went on, “At this moment we are about fifty thousand miles distant from Earth, and what you see is the illumined atmosphere of the further side. If you go to the end window, you will see we are going straight to Jupiter.”

“Why straight?” queried Godfrey, staying where he was.

“Because we always travel in a straight line.”

“But can you not turn aside?”

“Certainly, but after turning, by our own desire or the force of some other body, the original normal position—the straight line—will be resumed and maintained till again altered.”

“Really!” exclaimed Godfrey. “But how about speed? How do you get it?”

“We get our repulsive force from the gravity of a heavy body,” answered Dennis; “and in the old days when the ship was first used, the inventors could not control a greater attractive or repulsive force than the gravity of the object from which they obtained it; but that was long ago, and since then science has made great strides. Adding the science of to-day to the secret of the ship’s power, we can get a force equal to the force of the gravity of any particular source multiplied some thousands of times, which makes the _Regina’s_ power irresistible. For instance, we could exert more than a hundred thousand times the power of Jupiter’s gravity, or the sun’s, and could displace both if we wished.”

“I should just like to see the sun go the other way round,” remarked Godfrey, musingly. “Would it make much difference?” and as the trio laughed, he continued, “Here, Gilbert, you’re the physicist! Give me some particulars about this heat business, so that I can be thinking things over by the time we get to Jupiter, to enable me to recognise this fire-eating grub when I come across him. Give me his life-history if you can; it will save a lot of trouble.”

They all laughed, and Gilbert replied,—“You’ve got to find all that out for yourself, old fellow; we know nothing more than you know already.”

“But what _is_ heat? What temperature has the cocoon to stand, and how and when and all the rest of it? You see, I’m working in the dark. Is it heat as matter it must stand? And what is the effect of heat in non-atmospheric space?”

“That’s a big order,” responded Gilbert. “To begin with, until we get the web we cannot tell how heat will affect it. As for what _is_ heat it is difficult to say. We cannot take touch as a criterion, as we might say a certain substance ‘feels’ hot or cold, such as wool being classed amongst the hot and metal amongst the cold. Some scientists say heat is ‘ponderable’ and others consider it ‘caloric’—a form of ‘matter,’ but to me both are wrong.”

“How do you make that out?” queried Godfrey.

“The fact that it is _im_ponderable is fully proved in that it cannot be weighed, for it is well known that a cold substance does not increase its weight on receiving heat, but remains the same weight as before being heated, and it cannot by any possibility be considered ‘matter’ or its ‘quantity’ would remain unchangeable so far as human means could influence it.”

“How can that be?”

“Because there are innumerable instances in which heat can be and is regularly produced without either flame or combustion, such as raising the temperature by friction, and you know that if several materials of different degrees of heat are placed in the same room they will all become eventually of the same temperature; thus, if a bucketful of iced water is placed in a hot room it will itself be warmed and the air in the room cooled till both are equal. This, therefore, disproves the ‘materiality’ of heat.”

“But the laws of heat are constant, are they not?”

“Not at all,” resumed Gilbert. “In some cases it is governed by certain laws; in others it seems to set the same laws at defiance, giving strange contradictions. Take water, for instance; most substances expand by heat and contract by cold, but in water there are strange anomalies, the scientific causes of which are mere hypotheses, though their utility is well known. Only to a certain degree is water contracted by cold, when a further increase of cold expands it instead of causing a greater contraction; thus water cooled will contract to 40° F., and if further cooled it expands till 32° F. is reached; it then becomes solid, or ice, when it again expands, frequently bursting the pipe or vessel in which it is contained.”

“But that serves a good purpose in the physical economy, I suppose?”

“Certainly; this departure from the general law of nature is wise and providential, for as the water cools below 40° F. it increases in buoyancy and rises, to float on the surface, and when ice forms below it soon comes to the surface, on which it rests, protecting the water under it from freezing and preserving the lives of fishes and insects, for it is obvious that if rivers and seas were frozen to the bottom all life in them would be destroyed. Many of the seas would become nothing less than a constantly changing and unchartable conglomeration of sunken rocks of ice, and would be altogether unnavigable, for all the bergs would sink where no sun could get at them to melt and reduce their bulk.”

“Go on, Gilbert!” said Godfrey, encouragingly, as his friend paused. “I have nothing to do, and this is deeply interesting to me; besides, I have for some time been experimenting in freezing micro-organisms.”

By no means loth to ride his pet hobby, Gilbert proceeded,—“An even more wonderful anomaly lies in the fact that if we take, say, a pound of hot water at, say, 100° and mix it with a pound of cold water at 0°, we get two pounds of water at 50°, the temperature of the hotter being reduced and the colder increased in equal ratio, but if one of them is ice, the temperature of the whole is that of the colder.”

“I am afraid I don’t follow you there.”

“Suppose, then, we take a given quantity of ice and melt it over a fire, it is utterly impossible—no matter what amount of heat is applied—to raise the temperature till all the ice has been melted; thus a pound of ice at 0° and a pound of water at 100° cannot possibly be raised higher than 0°, but will remain two pounds of water at 0° till the ice is melted, irrespective of the heat applied. And if we take the same two pounds of water in experiment further, and bring it to boiling-point, converting it into steam, no amount of heat given to it will raise the temperature of the steam a fraction of a degree till _all_ the water has become steam; but when all of it is steam, we can then, by the application of more heat, get superheated steam, to an explosive point of enormous force. These are but a few of the complete violations of the ordinary laws of nature, and they answer their purpose well in the economy of creation, for you will see that did heat but raise the temperature of the ice in an equal ratio to its addition, the ice would melt in a moment, and thus the first warm day, or the first ray of sunshine, would cause every particle of snow and ice on the hills and in the valleys to melt instantly, and the mighty glaciers and bergs would also become almost instantly liquid, and a general inundation of many parts of the world would be the inevitable result; whilst in the case of steam, if that formed in equal ratio with the heat applied to water, the water would immediately become _all_ steam and would at once be superheated and explosive. The useful and harmless saucepan, kettle, or boiler, would produce such a deadly explosive as to require special apparatus and precautions to manufacture and manipulate steam, or even hot water, and the mere drinking of a harmless cup of any warm beverage, or eating steaming food, would have more disastrous results and blow us to atoms more effectively than drinking ‘corpsogen’ and then falling down.”

“Then what do you consider heat to be?”

“I think it is only possible to consider heat as ‘energy,’ as discovered by the experiments of Rumford and Davy in 1798 and 1799, the latter’s experiments on the melting of ice by friction being too well known to be detailed, and the same Davy, about 1812, discovered that “the immediate cause of the phenomenon of heat is motion, and the laws of its communication are precisely the same as the laws of the communication of motion.” I consider this the only true idea, notwithstanding the modern tendency to discard these old theories for newer. I can only conceive of heat as particles in motion, and it can only be measured satisfactorily by the speed or energy of the disturbed particles, which in many cases causes a distinct vibration in them, and in the case of gases a direct dashing and pressing of the separate particles, not only against each other, but against the sides or walls of the vessel in which they are confined, in their efforts to expand by separation; and bearing all these things in mind, Godfrey, if the idea on which we have embarked and in which we want your help is successful, we can make some gauze, fasten it on the outside of the ship, and instead of it and the ship setting up a fresh series of _their own_ moving particles in the presence of heat—such as we shall encounter when in close proximity to the sun—and becoming destroyed by the energy or the intense vibration of their own particles, this net will so far _itself_ resist this vibration and thus protect itself and the ship within it. This resisting power will be considerably augmented by the _Regina’s_ own repulsive force, which will be incalculable, being obtained from the sun and capable of enormous augmentation, and this will also assist and give great repulsive force to the net, thus more than counterbalancing any tendency to its becoming heated by so much as a degree. If this theory works out, as we feel sure it will, assuming that the cocoon _is_ fireproof, while all around may be molten in the terrific heat, the _Regina_ and all in her will be cool as a cucumber, literally; for if the net acts as we have reason to hope it will, the protecting force will de-atomise and repel anything and everything—heat included—for at least a foot beyond the ship, and covered with our net, we shall still be able to see what the sun really is, go through his atmosphere and photosphere, which even our telescopes have not been able to penetrate, and do excellent work for science, and that whilst we ourselves are in no way inconvenienced.

“And now, Godfrey, you have our whole scheme complete, and whether we are successful or not depends on you and you alone. It may be a wild-goose chase we are on, but we believe the Bonians, and trust you to bring the whole scheme to a successful issue, as we are sure you will. What do you think?”

“Think!” cried Godfrey, enthusiastically, “think! I think it is great—very great—and that you are a triad of very clever—idiots, shall I say, for going to risk a flight to the sun! Never mind, if there is any truth at all in what you have been told about this bug, it shall succeed; I tell you it _shall!_ and we four will test the net on old Sol himself. But I’m going too fast, I’m losing my reason. I must not be carried away with enthusiasm; as yet I’m in my right mind, so I’ll not go further than that, or talk about settling on the sun till we see how my grubs turn out.”

During the whole of this conversation all had been so interested that they had not paid any attention to the vessel, for there was little danger of chance collision, as the great repulsive force would keep any ordinary world or planetoid from her path, and in the case of a more powerful world, any deviation from her straight flight, or any strong attractive force which she might enter, would automatically signal itself, and show the strength on the gravitometer. Also the _Regina_ was, to a certain extent, self-adjusting, and would thus go rounds or away from, any large and powerful object, and after the influence had ceased to be felt, she would resume her original straight course, for it is evident that if the force of A equals the force of B, they are both equal, consequently neither can be drawn to the other, and the nearer they approach the greater will be the repulsion which drives both away, for the gravity and repulsion of both are equal. The _Regina_, therefore, now she had been perfected as far as modern science permitted, could never by any possibility collide with anything, no matter how powerful, for her force would now always equal the opposing force. In the case of landing, this could be effected in two ways: by increasing the _Regina’s_ gravitating force, by converting some of her repulsion into gravitation (or attraction), and thus drawing the other world to her, because of her greater attractive powers; or by retarding her repulsive force, and thus bringing her within the attraction of the world on which she wished to settle. This latter was the usual method of alighting, as the former would most certainly have upset the fixed orbits of the worlds displaced.

Suddenly the needle on the indicator swerved, giving its familiar tinkle, which signified the nearness of approach to a world or object having gravitating force. Ross, who was nearest the observatory door, rushed up and then called Dennis and Gilbert, who ran up the steps and looked out of the dome, which gave them a view in every direction except vertically downwards.

Behind them lay the stars in strange and almost unrecognisable positions, for the various constellations and stars seen on Earth as of fixed shape and position on a dome-shaped setting, were not now on a setting at all, but all in different planes vast distances apart, some viewed ‘end on,’ others at all degrees of angles, and their constellatory shapes no longer distinguishable. Wherever the travellers were, it was plain they were not going to Jupiter, for they were leaving him far away on the left and were heading straight for some strange, dark object which was looming before them in a wild confusion of what seemed to be caverns, craters and mountains, and the gravitometer-needle was slowly moving, already showing forward resistance to the repulsion of the ship, proving the object had gravity at that distance of about 0.10 compared with Earth as 1.

“What is it?” exclaimed Dennis, “and why have we altered our course. Look, there is Jupiter in another direction altogether!”

It was inexplicable. None of them had moved the steering switches since Gilbert had aimed for Jupiter after leaving Earth, and Godfrey was not allowed in those parts of the sanctum and observatory where the controlling switches were fixed, which parts were guarded. They had not heard or read of the ship ever having gone wrong, and their knowledge of the working principle made an accidental swerving seem impossible, yet already the world they were approaching blotted out the whole of the forward heavens in a dense mass of dark shade, save for a halo of light which came from the sunlight on the opposite side, and in its penumbra of diffusion into the deep shadows showed mountains and plains and a dreary waste of country.

“Suppose we pull up and travel with it for a while,” suggested Gilbert, “and then we’ll call up that idiot downstairs; he’ll perhaps tell us something.”

“Certainly,” replied Dennis, who shouted Godfrey, and up came their friend two steps at a time. Gilbert made the necessary alteration and joined the others, as Dennis said, “Have you ever passed this barrier, Godfrey?”

“No, not this one. I went behind that downstairs; I expect they’re the same; they look it,” replied Godfrey, nonchalantly.

“When was that?”

“Just after we left Derwent.”

“Before you burnt your hand?”

“Certainly. You made me promise then on my honour not to touch anything, and I have left all those things severely alone and have not even stepped behind that rail since, which is hard lines on a fellow, considering that electricity is my forte, and you are unnecessarily busy when I could relieve you; but volunteered kindness is never appreciated!” and Godfrey looked very much injured. “Can I help you now?” he asked, brightening up.

Ignoring the question, Dennis asked, “Did you move anything whilst there? Did you touch _anything?_”

“Well,—no ...yes—not to mean anything, though. I just moved a switch off and on and looked round to see which lights it controlled, but nothing happened, so I did not bother any more with it, but came out and tried that reel thing immediately inside the barrier rail in the saloon and burnt my hand, worse luck!”

“Would you mind going downstairs, Godfrey? We’ll be with you in a minute,” said Dennis, politely, and Godfrey descended, surprised at this unusual deference and wondering why they all looked so solemn. When he had gone, Ross exclaimed, “Now what can you make of a fellow like that! He means well and is mad on helping, but if this goes on he’ll kill us all!”

“I don’t think so,” said Dennis; “he has kept his word, and will continue to do so. I don’t think he will give us any further anxiety or transgress again; however, we must not let him off lightly, but so frighten him that he will never step on prohibited ground again. It will not do to let any one go behind the barrier.”

“We will have everything in contact from this moment,” said Gilbert, severely, “and run no risks either of accidents or of any of the secrets leaking out. If any one except ourselves comes up to the rail he will be held there till we come.”

“Yes, that will be best,” said Dennis; “we must, for the sake of our general interests and safety, exercise every care, and from this moment one of us at least must be in charge in turn.”

“The switch he moved must have been the one directing the steering, and the vessel turned accordingly and kept the new course when he brought the switch back to ‘block,’” said Gilbert; “had he understood the mechanism, he would not have used that switch only and then we should have resumed our original line, notwithstanding the deviation. As it is—there is Jupiter! and here, in front is—what?”

“Let’s go down and deal with Godfrey,” proposed Ross, and they all descended to the saloon, where the delinquent was whistling to himself whilst curiously watching the great mass now below them. He turned at their entrance, inquiring, “What is that? Is it Jupiter?”

“No one knows. We are lost!” said Dennis, gloomily, “and it is your doing!” And then the three of them proceeded to frighten the poor microscopist almost out of his wits, with suggestion of the fearful doom they would have met, had not their position been noticed in time to prevent the ship crashing to destruction. They succeeded in instilling into him such consternation as kept him away from the barrier ever after, nor would he come near that part of the saloon or observatory again, though he often begged to be allowed to ‘drive’ the vessel, for he said it only needed a switch moving and she’d go on for ever, which opinion only drew a benign and soothing smile from his friends, which he could not quite understand.

Godfrey disposed of, Dennis turned to Ross and said, “Just test the atmosphere, Ross, will you?” and in a short time he returned saying the atmosphere was variable, and he thought they had better go across the world to get several samples before they thought of landing. Accordingly, the _Regina_ shot ahead till she came into the sunshine forward and then back into the sunshine at the opposite side, about half a dozen bags being filled with atmospheric air at different points easily located. Whilst Gilbert and Ross were testing these samples, Dennis took measurements of distances, gravity on surface, speed travelled, etc. They had come about 245,000 miles, but having altered their course, it was probable that this measurement was in excess of the actual distance of the object from Earth, as measured on a straight line, which is, of course, the shortest distance between two points. The diameter would be, roughly speaking, about 2160 miles, and the total surface was, as near as could be ascertained without going all round, about 14,500,000 square miles or a little over, or O.074 of Earth, and its volume about 5,300,000,000 cubic miles; its density was about 3.57 of Earth-water, or 0.63 of earth, reckoning earth as 1; it was travelling in its orbit with a velocity of 2273 miles per hour, and had an equatorial velocity of rotation of a little over ten miles an hour.

Just as these calculations were complete Gilbert and Ross came in laughing, and asked Dennis, “Where are we, do you think?”

“On the shady side of old Luna,” replied Dennis, “or I’ll eat her!”

“Right!” said Ross; “we can’t be anywhere else. You, Godfrey, have shot us to Luna instead of Jupiter, and now we know where we are, the positions of the other planets can be fixed also.”

“Luna! and after all those elaborate calculations!” exclaimed Godfrey, sarcastically. “What remarkable brain-power there is on board, triad, to discover it at last—but better late than never!”

No one on Earth has ever seen the dark side of the moon, owing to the illuminated or convex edge always being turned towards the sun; there is, therefore, continual light on one side of the moon and constant comparative darkness on the other, the crescent altering in shape by becoming increased or diminished as we on Earth see more or less of the illumined side as the moon changes its position; consequently, the dark side is hidden from Earth in almost every phase except occasionally when, owing to libration, it is possible to see those parts beyond the edge, or border, of the lunar disc, which alternately come into view and are hidden. It was, therefore, perhaps not unprofitable, whilst they were there, to gain, a little information on several points about which the scientists of Earth had been in dispute for centuries.

So the travellers sailed round Luna and once for all set at rest all disputes by actual observation. It was proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that the planet did possess an atmosphere of extreme variableness. On the bright side, towards the edges, or what would be the edges seen from Earth, this atmosphere was extremely transparent, but capable of supporting life as we know it. There were no mists, clouds, or vapour, consequently the sight penetrated through the atmosphere without the softening effect of that delicate and beautiful variety of colour of terrestrial scenery. On the shadow side, the atmosphere was much more dense, and this darker hemisphere was palled in a faint twilight, in which could be seen considerable stretches of morass, peopled by strange beings who became frantically aggressive when the _Regina_ swooped down amongst them in order to land. Gifts were let down from the ship, and every known effort was made to show the inhabitants the friendly spirit of their visitors, but without avail; the self-deluded Lunians worked themselves into rage so violent and impotent as to cause many to become cataleptic. This was repeated at all parts of the surface, so that in kindness to them the _Regina_ sailed round to the sunny side, where she was again seen by the astronomers on Earth, and noted on the bright disc of the full moon, not as a flashing shadow as at her first encircling of the satellite, but this time as a tiny, floating cloud of flittering light and shade and brilliant iridescence, as her bright sides alternately were shaded and then reflected the rays of the sun to Earth in dazzling spots.

Having traversed the whole surface of the moon Luna, they then waved this message to Earth,—

“We are investigating Luna, and while on the spot we can clear up all those points on which Earth information is at present uncertain.

“That surface of Luna which is illumined by the sun is rock, sand, stone and earth, covered in places with rich and beautiful vegetation, both wild and cultivated, but all the trees are small and bush-like, the colour a peculiar russet-brown and gold, which on Earth seems like bare rock or ice; on a few of the highest peaks snow and ice are seen, though not in great quantity. The people on the two sides are entirely different races of beings, but all extremely unfriendly to us, so we are not landing. The atmosphere is exceedingly dry and clear, with no clouds and very little vapour. The ramparts and waterways which we see from Earth are not natural but made by the people, and the quays and locks are now almost generally being constructed and repaired. At present there is little water on the illumined portion, though it seems plentiful on the dark side; there are also many springs, and the people are certainly preparing for a rainy season, or some other source of irrigation; they seem intelligent, and all work proceeds on highly scientific lines.

“With regard to the so-called seas and lakes, the _Mare Crisium_ is a plain of dark vegetation, oval in shape and situated near the edge of a new moon, as seen from Earth. The irregular, dark plain, _Oceanus Procellarum_, is thickly wooded with the small and dark brown trees already mentioned. It has open places of rock, thickly covered, and veined with metals which are exceedingly abundant over the whole of the planet, and can be seen lying on the surface and in rich strata everywhere, as volcanic action has exposed them, so that they reflect the sun’s rays like mirrors and are dazzling to view. We should say these are the cause of the strange, bright lights and flashes often seen through telescopes, for, of course, on the moving moon they are always changing. Luna is exceedingly rich in all kinds of metals, including gold, much of which is on the surface. What we have been accustomed to consider marsh, we found to be grass-land, plentifully spotted with darker grass and earth and some peculiar loose earth containing unknown minerals in fine grains. An old lake bed, as we expected to find it, is now used, apparently, as an amphitheatre for games and sports. The broad white ‘rays’ which have been a mystery to astronomers of all ages, and which diverge from many of the lunar ring-plains, comprise seven distinct systems, each composed of many hundreds of rays. They pass over the surface of the plains and mountains parallel to the configuration of them, thus partaking of their shape and, as seen from Earth, differ from them only in brightness; they vary from eight to fifteen miles in breadth and many are of enormous length. Perhaps the longest are from Tycho, but instead of being two thousand miles, as measured on Earth, we find these, from actual measurement, to be two thousand six hundred and twenty-four miles in extent. These hitherto inexplicable streaks are caused by peculiar effects of refraction.

“Most of the country is highly volcanic, and there are numerous mountains, volcanoes and craters of all sizes. On many of these the greater part of the surface is covered with metallic deposits which throw upwards the strong reflections of the sun’s rays; these reflections are caught by the atmosphere which is in perceptible layers not seen from Earth. These layers maintain the same height above the ground, regular or irregular, the lower being about two miles deep, the next being a shade more dense, unlike the atmosphere of Earth, which is more dense as it approaches the ground. The reflection, therefore, readily penetrates the lighter and more transparent layer and, on striking the more dense, becomes refracted by it and is carried along in enormous streaks at the junction of the two, as from the surface of a mirror or from a silvery cloud, thus forming great rays which follow the curvature of the ground at a height of about two miles, and, partaking of the colour of the sun and being transparent, so colour the ground below them that on Earth there appears little difference except in brightness. We are just now sinking through that proceeding from Tycho, and you will be convinced that this explanation is correct by noticing that we cut off all the rays from beyond us on the shadow side. Now we are in the lower stratum, and you will see the rays proceeding for thousands of miles as before—we see them over our heads like a transparent golden cloud on which is a faint shadow of our vessel, though not sufficiently strong to be distinguishable from Earth. Now we have left the lower plane and are rising again; our dome has just cut through the rays, casting a long shadow like a triangle, the apex of which is our dome, and this shadow may appear to you as a faint line or pencilling of shade. In this place we have also measured the depth of the stratum from the ground and find it is exactly two miles, as elsewhere, so will you correct your present measurements to this. Earth-sighted instruments are in error because they must first penetrate through the fifty miles, or thereabouts, of Earth’s atmosphere, then travel through the thousands of miles of space minus the atmosphere, and have then to penetrate another and altogether different atmosphere, and Earth measurements at best are only comparative. It is impossible for you on Earth to see, measure, and understand as we do here, for you cannot allow for unbounded vacuum and these strange atmospheres without coming into them, especially as Earth measurements _in vacuo_ must necessarily be made through the flask or vessel bounding the vacuum, and consequently are not strictly reliable. We give you only what we verify by actual measurement and experiment made on the spot, and you may rely upon all details being correct.

“We are now leaving Luna without landing and are going straight to Jupiter. Good-bye!”