A Journey in Other Worlds: A Romance of the Future

by John Jacob Astor

  CHAPTER IX.

  THE HONEY OF DEATH.

  At first nothing seemed to have been disturbed, when theysuddenly perceived that both forelegs were missing. On furtherexamination they found that the ponderous tail, seven feet indiameter, was cut through in two places, the thicker portionhaving disappeared, and that the heavy bones in this extremity ofthe vertebral column had been severed like straws. The cutsurfaces were but little cooler than the interior of the body,showing how recently the mutilation had been effected.

  "By all the gods!" exclaimed Bearwarden, "it is easy to see themethod in this; the hunters have again cut off only those partsthat could be easily rolled. These Jovian fellows must haveweapons compared with which the old scythe chariots would be buttoys, with which they amputate the legs of their victims. Wemust see to it that their scimitars do not come too near to us,and I venture to hope that in our bullets they will find theirmatch. What say you, doctor?"

  "I see no depression such as such heavy bodies would necessarilyhave made had they been rolled along the ground, neither does itseem to me that these curious tracks in the sand are those ofmen."

  The loose earth looked as if the cross-ties of some railroad hadbeen removed, the space formerly occupied having been but partlyfilled, and these depressions were across the probable directionof motion.

  "Whatever was capable of chasing mastodons and carrying suchweights," said Ayrault, "will, I suspect, have little to fearfrom us. Probably nothing short of light artillery would leavemuch effect."

  "I dare say," replied Bearwarden, "we had better give the unknownquantity a wide berth, though I would give a year's salary to seewhat it is like. The absence of other tracks shows that hisconfreres leave 'Scissor- jaw' alone."

  Keeping a sharp lookout in all directions, they resumed theirmarch along the third side of the square which was to bring themback to the Callisto. Their course was parallel to the stream,and on comparatively high ground. Cortlandt's gun did goodservice, bringing down between fifty and sixty birds that usuallyallowed them to get as near as they pleased, and often seemedunwilling to leave their branches. By the time they were readyfor luncheon they saw it would be dark in an hour. As therapidity of the planet's rotation did not give them a chance tobecome tired, they concluded not to pitch their camp, but toresume the march by moonlight, which would be easy in the high,open country they were traversing.

  While in quest of fire-wood, they came upon great heaps of bones,mostly those of birds, and were attracted by the tall,bell-shaped flowers growing luxuriantly in their midst. Theseexhaled a most delicious perfume, and at the centre of eachflower was a viscous liquid, the colour of honey.

  "If this tastes as well as it looks," said Bearwarden, "it willcome in well for dessert"; saying which he thrust his finger intothe recesses of the flower, intending to taste the essence.Quietly, but like a flash, the flower closed, his hand beingnearly caught and badly scratched by the long, sharp thorns thatnow appeared at the edges.

  "Ha!" he exclaimed, "a sensitive and you may almost say aman-eating plant. This doubtless has been the fate of thesebirds, whose bones now lie bleaching at its feet after they havenourished its lips with their lives. No doubt the plant has usefor them still, since their skeletons may serve to fertilize itsroots."

  Wishing to investigate further, Bearwarden placed one of thebirds they had shot within the bell of another flower, whichimmediately contracted with such force that they saw drops ofblood squeezed out. After some minutes the flower opened, asbeautiful as ever, and discharged an oblong ball compressed toabout the size of a hen's egg, though the bird that was placedwithin it had been as large as a small duck. Towards eveningthese flowers sent up their most beautiful song, to hear whichflocks of birds came from far and near, alighting on the trees,and many were lured to death by the siren strains and the honey.

  Before resuming their journey, the travellers paid a partingvisit to the bell-shaped lilies on their pyramids of bones. Theflowers were closed for the night, and the travellers saw by themoonlight that the white mounds were simply alive withdiamond-headed snakes. These coiled themselves, flattened theirheads, and set up such a hissing on the explorers' approach thatthey were glad to retire, and leave this curious contrast ofhideousness and beauty to the fire-flies and the moons. Marchingalong in Indian file, the better to avoid treading on thewrithing serpents that strewed the ground, they kept on for abouttwo hours. They frequently passed huge heaps or mounds of bones,evidently the remains of bears or other large animals. Thecarnivorous plants growing at their centre were often like hollowtrees, and might easily have received the three travellers in oneembrace. But as before, the mounds were alive with serpents thatevidently made them their homes, and raised an angry hisswhenever the men approached.

  "The wonder to me," said Bearwarden, "is, that these snakes donot protect the game, by keeping it from the life-devouringplants. It may be that they do not show themselves by day orwhen the victims are near, or that the quadrupeds on which theseplants live take a pleasure, like deer, in killing them byjumping with all four feet upon their backs or in some other way,and after that are entrapped by the flowers."

  Shortly after midnight they rested for a half hour, but the dawnfound them trudging along steadily, though somewhat wearily, andhaving about completed the third side of their square.Accordingly, they soon made a right-angle turn to the left, andhad been picking their way over the rough ground for nearly twohours, with the sun already high in the sky, when they noticed adiminution of light. Glancing up, they saw that one of the moonswas passing across the sun, and that they were on the eve of atotal eclipse.

  "Since all but the fifth moon," said Cortlandt, "revolve exactlyin the plane of Jupiter's equator, any inhabitants that settlethere will become accustomed to eclipses, for there must be oneof the sun, and also of the moons, at each revolution, or aboutforty-five hundred in every Jovian year. The reason we have seennone before is, because we are not exactly on the equator."

  They had a glimpse of the coronal streamers as the last portionof the sun was covered, and all the other phenomena that attendan eclipse on earth. For a few minutes there was a total returnto night. The twinkling stars and other moons shone tranquillyin the sky, and even the noise of the insects ceased. Presentlythe edge of the sun that had been first obscured reappeared, andthen Nature went through the phenomenon of an accelerated dawn.Without awaiting a full return of light, the travellers proceededon their way, and had gone something over a hundred yards whenAyrault, who was marching second, suddenly grasped Bearwarden,who was in front, and pointed to a jet-black mass straight ahead,and about thirty yards from a pool of warm water, from which acloud of vapour arose. The top of the head was about seven feethigh, and the length of the body exceeded thirty feet. The sixlegs looked as strong as steel cables, and were about a footthrough, while a huge, bony proboscis nine feet in lengthpreceded the body. This was carried horizontally between two andthree feet from the ground. Presently a large ground sloth cameto the pool to drink, lapping up the water at the sides that hadpartly cooled. In an instant the black armored monster rusheddown the slope with the speed of a nineteenth-century locomotive,and seemed about as formidable. The sloth turned in thedirection of the sound, and for a moment seemed paralyzed withfear; it then started to run, but it was too late, for the nextsecond the enormously exaggerated ant--for such it was--overtookit. The huge mandible shears that when closed had formed theproboscis, snapped viciously, taking off the sloth's legs andthen cutting its body to slivers. The execution was finished ina few seconds, and the ponderous insect carried back about halfthe sloth to its hiding-place, where it leisurely devoured it.

  "This reminds me," said Bearwarden, "of the old lady who nevercompleted her preparations for turning in without searching forburglars under the bed. Finally she found one, and exclaimed indelight, 'I've been looking for you fifty years, and at last youare here!' The question is, now that we ha
ve found our burglar,what shall we do with him?"

  "I constantly regret not having a rifle," replied Cortlandt,"though it is doubtful if even that would help us here."

  "Let us sit down and wait," said Ayrault; "there may be anopening soon."

  Anon a woolly rhinoceros, resembling the Rhinoceros tichorhinusthat existed contemporaneously on earth with the mammoth, came todrink the water that had partly cooled. It was itself aformidable-looking beast, but in an instant the monster againrushed from concealment with the same tremendous speed. Therhinoceros turned in the direction of the sound, and, loweringits head, faced the foe. The ant's shears, however, passedbeneath the horn, and, fastening upon the left foreleg, cut itoff with a loud snap.

  "Now is our chance," exclaimed Cortlandt; "we may kill the brutebefore he is through with the rhinoceros."

  "Stop a bit, doctor," said Bearwarden. "We have a good record sofar; let us keep up our reputation for being sports. Wait tillhe can attend to us."

  The encounter was over in less than a minute, three of therhinoceros's legs being taken off, and the head almost severedfrom the body. Taking up the legs in its mandibles, themurderous creature was returning to its lair, when, with the cryof "Now for the fray!" Bearwarden aimed beneath the body andblew off one of the farther armoured legs, from the inside."Shoot off the legs on the same side," he counselled Ayrault,while he himself kept up a rapid fire. Cortlandt tried todisconcert the enemy by raining duck-shot on its scale- protectedeyes, while the two rifles tore off great masses of the horn thatcovered the enormously powerful legs. The men separated as theyretreated, knowing that one slash of the great shears would cuttheir three bodies in halves if they were caught together. Themonster had dropped the remains of the rhinoceros when attacked,and made for the hunters at its top speed, which was somewhatreduced by the loss of one leg. Before it came within cuttingdistance, however, another on the same side was gone, Ayraulthaving landed a bullet on a spot already stripped of armour.After this the men had no difficulty in keeping out of its way,though it still moved with some speed, snipping off young treesin its path like grass. Finally, having blown the scales fromone eye, the travellers sent in a bullet that exploded in thebrain and ended its career.

  "This has been by all odds the most exciting hunt we have had,"said Ayrault, "both on account of the determined nature and greatspeed of the attack, and the almost impossibility of finding avulnerable spot."

  "Anything short of explosive bullets," added Bearwarden, "wouldhave been powerless against this beast, for the armour in manyplaces is nearly a foot thick."

  "This is also the most extraordinary as well as most dangerouscreature with which we have, had to deal," said Cortlandt,"because it is an enormously enlarged insect, with all theinherent ferocity and strength. It is almost the exactcounterpart of an African soldier-ant magnified many hundredthousand times. I wonder," he continued thoughtfully, "if ourlatter-day insects may not be the deteriorated (in point of size)descendants of the monsters of mythology and geology, for nothingcould be a more terrible or ferocious antagonist than many of ourwell-known insects, if sufficiently enlarged. No animal nowalive has more than a small fraction of the strength, inproportion to its size, of the minutest spider or flea. It maybe that through lack of food, difficulties imposed by changingclimate, and the necessity of burrowing in winter, or throughsome other conditions changed from what they were accustomed to,their size has been reduced, and that the fire-flies, huge asthey seemed, are a step in advance of this specimen in the marchof deterioration or involution, which will end by making them asinsignificant as those on earth. These ants have probably comeinto the woods to lay their eggs, for, from the behaviour of theanimals we watched from the turtle, there must have been several;or perhaps a war is in progress between those of a differentcolour, as on earth, in which case the woods may be full of them.Doubtless the reason the turtle seemed so unconcerned at thegeneral uneasiness of the animals was because he knew he couldmake himself invulnerable to the marauder by simply closing hisshell, and we were unmolested because it did not occur to the antthat any soft-shelled creatures could be on the turtle's back."

  "I think," said Bearwarden, "it will be the part of wisdom toreturn to the Callisto, and do the rest of our exploring onJupiter from a safe height; for, though we succeeded in disablingthis beauty, it was largely through luck, and had we not done sowe should probably have provided a bon bouche for our deceasedfriend, instead of standing at his grave."

  Accordingly they proceeded, and were delighted, a few minuteslater, to see the sunlight reflected from the projectile'spolished roof.