A Journey in Other Worlds: A Romance of the Future

by John Jacob Astor

  CHAPTER III.

  DOUBTS AND PHILOSOPHY.

  On reaching it, they climbed the ladder leading to thesecond-story opening, and entering through this, they closed thedoor, screwing it tightly in place.

  "Now," said Cortlandt, "we can see what changes, if any, thiswonderful gust will effect."

  "He made no strictures on our senses, such as they are," saidBearwarden, "but implied that evolution would be carried muchfurther in us, from which I suppose we may infer that it has notyet gone far. I wish we had recorked those brandy peaches, fornow they will be filled with poisonous germs. I wonder if ourshady friend could not tell us of an antiseptic with which theymight be treated?"

  "Those fellows," thought Ayrault, who had climbed to the dome,from which he had an extended view, "would jeer at an angel,while the deference they showed the spirit seems, as usual, tohave been merely superficial."

  "Let us note," said Cortlandt, "that the spirit thermometeroutside has fallen several degrees since we entered, though, fromthe time taken, I should not say that the sudden change would beone of temperature."

  Just then they saw a number of birds, which had been resting in aclump of trees, take flight suddenly; but they fell to the groundbefore they had risen far, and were dashed to pieces. In anothermoment the trees began to bend and sway before the storm; and asthey gazed, the colour of the leaves turned from green and purpleto orange and red. The wind blew off many of these, and theywere carried along by the gusts, or fluttered to the ground,which was soon strewed with them. It was a typical autumnalscene. Presently the wind shifted, and this was followed by acold shower of rain.

  "I think the worst is over," said Bearwarden. "The Sailor'sGuide says:

  'When the rain's before the wind, Halliards, sheets, and braces mind; When the wind's before the rain, Soon you can make sail again.'

  Doubtless that will hold good here."

  This proved to be correct; and, after a repetition of theprecautions they had taken on their arrival on the planet inregard to the inhalability of the air, they again sallied forth.They left their magazine shot-guns, taking instead thedouble-barrelled kind, on account of the rapidity with which thisenabled them to fire the second barrel after the first, and threwaway the water that had collected in the bucket, out of respectto the spirit's warning. They noticed a pungent odour, anddecided to remain on high ground, since they had observed thatthe birds, in their effort to escape, had flown almost verticallyinto the air. On reaching the grove in which they had seen thestorm, they found their table and everything on it exactly asthey had left it. Bearwarden threw out the brandy peaches on theground, exclaiming that it was a shame to lose such goodpreserves, and they proceeded on their walk. They passedhundreds of dead birds, and on reaching the edge of the toadstoolvalley were not a little surprised to find that every toadstoolhad disappeared.

  "I wonder," said the doctor, "if there can be any connectionbetween the phenomenon of the disappearance of those toadstoolsand the death of the birds? We could easily discover it if theyhad eaten them, or if in any other way the plants could haveentered their bodies; but I see no way in which that can havehappened."

  Resolving to investigate carefully any other fungi they mightsee, they resumed their march. The cold, distant-looking sun,apparently about the size of an orange, was near the horizon.Saturn's rotation on its axis occupying only ten hours andfourteen minutes, being but a few minutes longer than Jupiter's,they knew it would soon be night. Finding a place on a range ofhills sheltered by rocks and a clump of trees of the evergreenspecies, they arranged themselves as comfortably as possible, atesome of the sandwiches they had brought, lighted their pipes, andwatched the dying day. Here were no fire-flies to light thedarkening minutes, nor singing flowers to lull them to sleep withtheir song but six of the eight moons, each at a different phase,and with varied brightness, bathed the landscape in their pale,cold rays; while far above them, like a huge rainbow, stretchedthe great rings in effulgent sheets, reaching thousands of milesinto space, and flooded everything with their silvery light.

  "How poor a place compared with this," they thought tothemselves, "is our world!" and Ayrault wished that his soul wasalready free; while the dead leaves rustling in the gentlebreeze, and the nightwinds, sighing among the trees, seemed toecho his thought. Far above their heads, and in the vastness ofspace, the well-known stars and constellations, notwithstandingthe enormous distance they had now come, looked absolutelyunchanged, and seemed to them emblematic of tranquillity andeternal repose. The days were changed by their shortness, and bythe apparent loss of power in the sun; and the nights, as if incompensation, were magnificently illuminated by the numerousmoons and splendid rings, though neither rings nor satellitesshone with as strong a light as the terrestrial moon. But innothing outside of the solar system was there any change; andcould AEneas's Palinurus, or one of Philip of Macedon'sshepherds, be brought to life here, he would see exactly the samestars in the same positions; and, did he not know of his owndeath or of the lapse of time, he might suppose, so far as theheavens were affected, that he had but fallen asleep, or had justclosed his eyes.

  "I have always regretted," said Cortlandt, "that I was not born athousand years later."

  "Were it not," added Ayrault, "that our earth is the vestibule tospace, and for the opportunities it opens, I should rather neverhave lived, for life in itself is unsatisfying."

  "You fellows are too indefinite and abstract for me," saidBearwarden. "I like something tangible and concrete. Theutilitarianism of the twentieth century, by which I live,paradoxical though it may seem, would be out of place in space,unless we can colonize the other planets, and improve theirarrangements and axes."

  Mixed with Ayrault's philosophical and metaphysical thoughts werethe memories of his sweetheart at Vassar, and he longed, morethan his companions, for the spirit's return, that he might askhim if perchance he could tell him aught of her, and whether herthoughts were then of him.

  Finally, worn out by the fatigue and excitement of the day, theyset the protection-wires, more from force of habit than becausethey feared molestation and, rolling themselves in theirblankets--for the night was cold--were soon fast asleep;Ayrault's last thought having been of his fiancee, Cortlandt's ofthe question he wished to ask the spirit, and Bearwarden's of theprogress of his Company in the work of straightening theterrestrial axis. Thus they slept seven hundred and ninetymillion miles beyond their earth's orbit, and more than eighthundred million from the place where the earth was then. Whilethey lay unconscious, the clouds above them froze, and beforemorning there was a fall of snow that covered the ground and themas they lay upon it. Soon three white mounds were all thatmarked their presence, and the cranes and eagles, rising fromtheir roosts in response to the coming day, looked unconcernedlyat all that was human that they had ever seen. Finally, wakenedby the resounding cries of these birds, Bearwarden and Cortlandtarose, and meeting Ayrault, who had already risen, mistook thesnowy form before them for the spirit, and thinking the deadbishop had revisited them, they were preparing to welcome him,and to propound the questions they had formulated, when Ayrault'sfamiliar voice showed them their mistake.

  "Seeing your white figures," said he, "rise apparently inresponse to those loud calls, reminded me of what the spirit toldus of the last day, and of the awakening and resurrection of thedead."

  The scene was indeed weird. The east, already streaked with therays of the rising far-away sun, and the pale moons nearing thehorizon in the west, seemed connected by the huge bow of light.The snow on the dark evergreens produced a contrast of colour,while the other trees raised their almost bare and whitenedbranches against the sky, as though in supplication to themysterious rings, which cast their light upon them and on theground. As they gazed, however, the rings became grey, the moonsdisappeared, and another day began. Feeling sure the snow musthave cleared the air of any deleterious substanc
es it containedthe day before, they descended into the neighbouring valley,which, having a southerly exposure, was warm in comparison withthe hills. As they walked they disturbed a number of smallrodents, which quickly ran away and disappeared in their holes.

  "Though we have seen none of the huge creatures here," saidCortlandt, "that were so plentiful on Jupiter, these burrowersbelong to a distinctly higher scale than those we found there,from which I take it we may infer that the evolution of theanimal kingdom has advanced further on this planet than onJupiter, which is just what we have a right to expect; forSaturn, in addition to being the smaller and therefore morematured of the two, has doubtless had a longer individualexistence, being the farther from the sun."

  Notwithstanding the cold of the night, the flowers, especiallythe lilies, were as beautiful as ever, which surprised them not alittle, until, on examining them closely, they found that thestems and veins in the leaves were fluted, and therefore elastic,so that, should the sap freeze, it could expand without burstingthe cells, thereby enabling the flowers to withstand a shortfrost. They noticed that many of the curiously shaped birds theysaw at a distance from time to time were able to move with greatrapidity along the ground, and had about concluded that they musthave four legs, being similar to winged squirrels, when a long,low quadruped, about twenty-five feet from nostrils to tail,which they were endeavouring to stalk, suddenly spread two pairsof wings, flapping the four at once, and then soared off at greatspeed.

  "I hope we can get one of those, or at least his photograph,"said Cortlandt.

  "If they go in pairs," said Bearwarden, "we may find thecompanion near."

  At that moment another great winged lizard, considerably largerthan the first, rose with a snort, not twenty yards on theirleft. Cortlandt, who was a good shot with a gun at short range,immediately raised his twelve-bore and fired both barrels at themonster; but the double-B shots had no more disabling effect thanif they had been number eights. They, however, excited thecreature's ire; for, sweeping around quickly, it made straightfor Cortlandt, breathing at him when near, and almostoverpowering the three men with the malodorous, poisonous cloudit exhaled. Instantly Bearwarden fired several revolver bulletsdown its throat, while Ayrault pulled both barrels almostsimultaneously, with the muzzles but a few inches from its side.In this case the initial velocity of the heavy buckshot was sogreat, and they were still so close together, that theypenetrated the leathery hide, tearing a large hole. With a roarthe wounded monster beat a retreat, first almost prostrating themwith another blast of its awful breath.

  "It would take a stronger light than we get here," saidBearwarden, "to impress a negative through that haze. I think,"he continued, "I know a trick that will do the business, if wesee any more of these dragons." Saying which, he withdrew thecartridges from his gun, and with his hunting-knife cut the toughpaper shell nearly through between the wads separating the powderfrom the shot, drawing his knife entirely around.

  "Now," said he, "when I fire those, the entire forward end of thecartridge will go out, keeping the fifteen buckshot together likea slug, and with such penetration that it will go through atwo-inch plank. It is a trick I learned from hunters, and,unless your guns are choke-bore, in which case it might burst thebarrel, I advise you to follow suit."

  Finding they had brought straight-bored guns, they arranged theircartridges similarly, and set out in the direction in which thewinged lizards or dragons had gone.

  CHAPTER IV.

  A PROVIDENTIAL INTERVENTION.

  The valley narrowed as they advanced, the banks rising gently onboth sides. Both dragons had flown straight to a grove of tall,spreading trees. On coming near to this, they noticed a faintsmell like that of the dragon, and also like the trace they foundin the air on leaving the Callisto the day before, after they hadsought safety within it. Soon it almost knocked them down.

  "We must get to windward," said Cortlandt. "I already feelfaint, and believe those dragons could kill a man by breathing onhim."

  Accordingly, they skirted around the grove, and having made aquarter circle--for they did not wish the dragons to windthem--again drew nearer. Tree after tree was passed, and finallythey saw an open space twelve or fifteen acres in area at thecentre of the grove, when they were arrested by a curious soundof munching. Peering among the trunks of the huge trees, theyadvanced cautiously, but stopped aghast. In the opening were atleast a hundred dragons devouring the toadstools with which theground was covered. Many of them were thirty to forty feet long,with huge and terribly long, sharp claws, and jaws armed withgleaming batteries of teeth. Though they had evidently lungs,and the claws and mouth of an animal, they reminded the observersin many respects of insects enormously exaggerated, for theirwings, composed of a sort of transparent scale, were small, andmoved, as they had already seen, at far greater speed than thoseof a bird. Their projecting eyes were also set rigidly in theirheads instead of turning, and consisted of a number of flatsurfaces or facets, like a fly's eye, so that they could seebackward and all around, each facet seeing anything the rays fromwhich came at right angles to its surface. This beautiful grovewas doubtless their feeding-ground, and, as such, was likely tobe visited by many more. Concluding it would be wise to lettheir wounded game escape, the three men were about to retreat,having found it difficult to breathe the air even at thatdistance from the monsters, when the wounded dragon that they hadobserved moving about in a very restless manner, and evidentlysuffering a good deal from the effect of its wounds, espied them,and, with a roar that made the echoes ring, started towards themslowly along the ground, followed by the entire herd, the nearerof which now also saw them. Seeing that their lives were indanger, the hunters quickly regained the open, and then stretchedtheir legs against the wind. The dragons came through the treeson the ground, and then, raising themselves by their wings, thewhole swarm, snorting, and darkening the air with their deadlybreath, made straight for the men, who by comparison looked likeLilliputians. With the slug from his right barrel Bearwardenended the wounded dragon's career by shooting him through thehead, and with his left laid low the one following. Ayrault alsokilled two huge monsters, and Cortlandt killed one and woundedanother. Their supply of prepared cartridges was then exhausted,and they fell back on their revolvers and ineffective spreadingshot. Resolved to sell their lives dearly, they retreated,keeping their backs to the wind, with the poisonous dragons infront. But the breeze was very slight, and they were beingrapidly blinded and asphyxiated by the loathsome fumes, anddeafened by the hideous roaring and snapping of the dragons'jaws. Realizing that they could not much longer reply to thediabolical host with lead, they believed their last hour hadcome, when the ground on which they were making their last standshook, there was a rending of rocks and a rush of imprisonedsteam that drowned even the dragons' roar, and they wereseparated from them by a long fissure and a wall of smoke andvapour. Struggling back from the edge of the chasm, they fellupon the ground, and then for the first time fully realized thatthe earthquake had saved them, for the dragons could not comeacross the opening, and would not venture to fly through thesmoke and steam. When they recovered somewhat from the shock,they cut a number of cartridges in the same way that they hadprepared those that had done them such good service, and kept onebarrel of each gun loaded with that kind.

  "We may thank Providence," said Bearwarden, "for that escape. Ihope we shall have no more such close calls."

  With a parting glance at the chasm that had saved their lives,and from which a cloud still arose, they turned slightly to theright of their former course and climbed the gently rising bank.When near the top, being tired of their exciting experiences,they sat down to rest. The ground all about them was coveredwith mushrooms, white on top and pink underneath.

  "This is a wonderful place for fungi," said Ayrault. "Here,doubtless, we shall be safe from the dragons, for they seemed toprefer the toadstools." As he lay on the ground he watched oneparticular mushr
oom that seemed to grow before his eyes.Suddenly, as he looked, it vanished. Dumfounded at thisunmistakable manifestation of the phenomenon they thought theyhad seen on landing, he called his companions, and, choosinganother mushroom, the three watched it closely. Presently,without the least noise or commotion, that also disappeared,leaving no trace, and the same fate befell a number of others.At a certain point of their development they vanished ascompletely as a bubble of air coming to the surface of water,except that they caused no ripple, leaving merely a smalldepression where they had stood.

  "Well," said Bearwarden, "in all my travels I never have seenanything like this. If I were at a sleight-of-hand performance,and the prestidigitateur, after doing that, asked for my theory,I should say, 'I give it up.' How is it with you, doctor?" heasked, addressing Cortlandt.

  "There must be an explanation," replied Cortlandt, "only we donot know the natural law to which the phenomenon is subject,having had no experience with it on earth. We know that allsubstances can be converted into gases, and that all gases can bereduced to liquids, and even solids, by the application ofpressure and cold. If there is any way by which the visiblesubstance of these fungi can be converted into its invisiblegases, as water into oxygen and hydrogen, what we have seen canbe logically explained. Perhaps, favoured by some affinity ofthe atmosphere, its constituent parts are broken up and becomegases at this barometric pressure and temperature. We must askthe spirit, if he visits us again."

  "I wish he would," said Ayrault; "there are lots of things Ishould like to ask him."

  "Presidents of corporations and other chairmen," said Bearwarden,"are not usually superstitious, and I, of course, take no stockin the supernatural; but somehow I have a well-formed idea thatour friend the bishop, with the great power of his mind overmatter, had a hand in that earthquake. He seems to have anexalted idea of our importance, and may be exerting himself tomake things pleasant."

  At this point the sun sank below the horizon, and they foundthemselves confronted with night.

  "Dear, dear!" said Bearwarden, "and we haven't a crumb to eat.I'll stand the drinks and the pipes," he continued, passingaround his ubiquitous flask and tobacco-pouch.

  "If I played such pranks with my interior on earth," saidCortlandt, helping himself to both, "as I do on this planet, itwould give me no end of trouble, but here I seem to have thedigestion of an ostrich."

  So they sat and smoked for an hour, till the stars twinkled andthe rings shone in their glory.

  "Well," said Ayrault, finally, "since we have nothing butmotions to lay on the table, I move we adjourn."

  "The only motion I shall make," said Cortlandt, who was alreadyundressed, "will be that of getting into bed," saying which, herolled himself in his blanket and soon was fast asleep.

  Having decided that, on account of the proximity of the dragons,a man must in any event be on the watch, they did not set theprotection-wires. From the shortness of the nights, they dividedthem into only two watches of from two hours to two and a halfeach, so that, even when constant watch duty was necessary, eachman had one full night's sleep in three. On this occasionAyrault and Cortlandt were the watchers, Cortlandt having themorning and Ayrault the evening watch. Many curious quadrupedbirds, about the size of large bears, and similar in shape,having bear-shaped heads, and several creatures that looked likethe dragons, flew about them in the moonlight; but neitherwatcher fired a shot, as the creatures showed no desire to makean attack. All these species seemed to belong to the owl or battribe, for they roamed abroad at night.