Fifteen Hundred Miles An Hour

An interesting fact which we could not fail to observe was the apparently much smaller size of the sun's disc, and a sensible decrease both in the amount of his light and the warmth of his rays.

Life in the Sirius went uniformly on. It seemed ages since we were on earth, or had communion with our fellow-men.

Every day, Graham carefully recorded the distance we had travelled, and made his report to the Doctor. Our machinery still worked with beautiful precision, and required but little scrutiny or attention.

"Well, Doctor," said Temple, one day after work was over, "suppose you give us an idea of our distance from Mars, and our probable date of arrival?"

"What is our distance for the past twenty-four hours, Graham?" asked the Doctor.

"Twenty-eight thousand eight hundred miles," he answered.

"Then we are still travelling at our reduced speed of twelve hundred miles per hour," rejoined the Doctor. "Well, our last computation of the Earth's distance was made on the 7th of April. It is now the 17th of May. One rate of speed has been maintained throughout this interval, so that we are now 33,123,200 miles from Earth, and just 876,800 miles from the planet Mars. That distance we shall cover in a little over thirty days. If all goes well, we shall reach Mars on the 18th of June."

"Your remarks fill me with the strangest sensations," answered Temple.

"Whatever may come to pass," said the Doctor, "let me impress upon you the importance of keeping cool, and as free from excitement as possible. Our next thirty days will be the strangest that mortal man has ever yet experienced!"

CHAPTER VI.

WE NEAR MARS

As the Sirius sped on its journey from day to day, the apparent size of Mars rapidly increased. We began to feel appalled at our nearness to this new world, now gleaming in brilliant splendour below, instead of above us. Our sensations cannot be expressed.

On the 2nd of June we were again alarmed at losing sight of the sun for a short time, and expected another meteoric visitation.

We began now anxiously to discuss the possibilities of finding living creatures on this planet. It would indeed be a disappointment almost beyond human endurance, to find Mars a dead desolate world, after all! But we took heart at its singularly beautiful appearance, and its similarity in many respects to the world we had left.

We began to notice a considerable difference in the density of the atmosphere. Nearer and nearer we came, awe-struck and dumbfounded at our own temerity. Hour by hour, and day by day, we watched this glorious world become larger and larger to our view. Still no sign of life could be traced. Cold and still, and calm as the grave, this new world appeared to us. The Sirius absolutely seemed to creep along, although the good machine was bearing us onward at a speed so enormous, that the fastest express train of Earth was a snail's pace by comparison.

Amid the terrible excitement, and the frightful tension of our nerves which it entailed, the days sped by almost unnoticed, uncounted. But the Doctor, ever cool and collected, through all this trying period, kept a careful record of the distance travelled day by day.

As we approached yet nearer to this magnificent planet, we were able to note most carefully the general distribution of land and water upon its mighty surface.

Daily, nay hourly now, our hopes of finding the planet Mars a peopled world increased.

It was three weeks from the time that the Doctor had last dwelt upon the distance we had travelled, and the size of Mars was becoming appallingly stupendous. On the evening of the 7th of June, we were all seated in the chamber above the engine-room, admiring the glorious splendours of the sunset on this heavenly orb, watching the last rays of the Martial day expire, as we had so often done before. We were too absorbed in the beauties of the scene before us to speak; each was too overcome by the solemn grandeur of our surroundings, and our strange position, to converse with his fellow-man; until the darkness reached us at last, and broke the magic spell of our silence.

Temple was the first to speak. "Well, Doctor, things are rapidly approaching a crisis now. What are your latest views on our position?"

"Briefly these, Temple. At the rate of speed we are still travelling, in one week from to-day we shall reach our destination on that strange world yonder. Roughly speaking, but little more than two hundred thousand miles remain to be crossed, and, as far as I can determine at present, we shall complete the last few thousands of miles under the cover of darkness. This is well for us: it will enable us to descend unnoticed and unseen by any intelligent, and perhaps hostile, beings that may possibly dwell upon the surface of this planet. On the other hand, the darkness may conceal perils we should have been able to avoid, had we descended in daylight. Of the two evils, I strongly counsel us to choose the former; that is, to drop quietly down at night and await the dawn in concealment. Our future movements must be controlled entirely by events."

The following six days were passed without anything unusual occurring. At dawn on the seventh, we were only about 28,000 miles away from Mars, and his vast size inspired our hearts with increasing awe.

Our last day in the Sirius, if all went well, had now arrived.

At five o'clock p.m., the planet began to assume a slightly concave appearance; at six, this became even more pronounced; whilst an hour later still, when we were only about six thousand miles above its surface, the horizon seemed almost level with the Sirius. Mars now looked like a huge deep saucer, into which we were rapidly falling.

At eight in the evening, as near as we in our terrible state of excitement could judge, for not one of us referred to our watches, all doubts respecting the presence of life on Mars were expelled; and to our indescribable joy we noted dark belts of vegetation, in which the glittering mountains and active volcanoes were set. Each minute the scene below us became more grandly beautiful.

At a thousand miles above Mars we found we could dispense with our condensers, and actually sustain life with the atmosphere admitted into the Sirius. This was encouraging, more so than ever we had even dared to hope; Mars already was beginning to supply every requirement of the children of the Earth!

We now deemed it advisable to reduce our speed somewhat. At a quarter to twelve we could not have been much more than a hundred miles above this new world.

We now climbed out on to the balcony, and peering down into the dark depths, it was apparent to us all that the Sirius was over dry land, although a large sheet of water was visible in the distance, shimmering in the moonlight.

In a few minutes more the good air-ship was hovering a thousand feet above the Martial planet, and we began making the few final preparations for our descent upon its surface.

CHAPTER VII.

OUR ARRIVAL AND SAFE DESCENT

As the Sirius gradually descended the last few hundred feet, Sandy was busy getting out the rope ladder; Graham confined his attention to the motors and steering apparatus; whilst on the balcony Temple and the Doctor kept a close watch, the latter on the alert for every possible contingency, and from time to time calling out instructions to Graham for his guidance. We all of us remarked the greater buoyancy of the Sirius in the lower Martial atmosphere than was the case in that of the Earth, and our descent was slow and easy in the extreme. In fact, so buoyant had the Sirius become, that we had great fears of ever reaching ground at all without assistance from below. But eventually the good Sirius settled down through a dense growth of vegetation of some kind, snapping tall tapering stems like straws, crashing through giant reeds like so many grass stalks, and then sinking for a couple of feet into the soft slimy soil of what was evidently a dismal swampy jungle. Here, at last, the Sirius came to rest amidst a forest of mighty stems, whose branches met overhead and formed a gloomy bower above and around it.

We now armed ourselves with our revolvers and hunting-knives before attempting to pass down the ladder, one end of which was already lying on the ground. Each one felt that to Doctor Hermann the honour justly belonged of being the first to set foot on this new world; and, accordingly, he led the way down the steps into the gloom, carrying a powerful electric hand-lamp, followed by Temple and Graham; Sandy, with poor old Rover in his arms, bringing up the rear. The air soon began to have a most remarkable and exhilarating effect upon us all. Each one felt a buoyancy of spirits, a sense of lightness, and an increase of physical strength never known before; these effects we rightly attributed to the specific gravity of Mars, which is so much less than that of Earth. They were intensely exciting moments for us as, one by one, we climbed down the time-and-travel-worn sides of the Sirius, fighting our way through the vegetation which clustered around us, until the bottom rung of the ladder was reached, and we felt the ground of a new world beneath our feet. But the country where we had chanced to descend was sullen and uninviting; even the light from the Martial moons, shining so fairly, high up in the dark blue sky, failed to penetrate the dismal shadows of this swampy wilderness; whilst the lurid reflection in the heavens from a distant crater only intensified the horrible scene of gloom.

But amid the shadows and the vapours of this reeking marsh we could see sufficient with our lamp to tell us that we were surrounded by vegetation totally different from anything we had left behind us on Earth. The reeds were stupendous, with fluted and flattened stems, eighteen inches in width, rising straight as arrows from the stagnant water, their crowns lost to view in the night haze, and mingling together far above the roof of the Sirius.

The malarious vapours rising from the stagnant water and the rotting vegetation were deadly in their subtleness, and in spite of our ever-increasing excitement and curiosity, Doctor Hermann insisted for our health's sake that we should return to the Sirius. A night amidst such poisonous gases might have stricken each one of us down with a fatal fever. It was well that we did so, for before morning dawned the dangers of our position were manifested in various startling ways. Soon, huge banks of black clouds spread across the sky like shrouds, and drops of rain began to patter on the windows.

"My friends," said Doctor Hermann, "the best advice I can give is that we stay inside the Sirius until dawn. Sandy had better prepare us some food; we have not eaten for the past eight hours, and it is of the greatest importance that we take every care of ourselves, for we may have our strength and endurance put to the severest tests in the near future. Besides, this marsh is full of pestilence; we cannot be too careful: and, further, from the closeness of the atmosphere and the look of the heavens, I predict a storm within the next hour or so."

"You are quite right, Doctor," rejoined Temple; whilst Sandy, as became the dutiful servant he was, began to act on the Doctor's wishes, and very soon had spread before us a right royal repast, which bore ample testimony not only to his culinary skill, but to the still ample resources of our larder. A bottle of our best wine was uncorked in honour of the occasion, and we sat down well-prepared to do justice to what Temple called our "triumphal feast."

Convivial and merry was our meal, notwithstanding the dismal surroundings; and so gay and light-hearted did we feel that even the reeking swamp was toasted, for, after all, in spite of its gloom and its pestilential breath, it was the first ground to echo our foot-falls on this new world.

"One more bottle of wine, my comrades," said Temple, as soon as our meal was over, "and let Sandy have a double allowance of whisky to-night. We must inaugurate the termination of our journey in a right festive way."

"What a triumph for Science, for Electricity in particular, we have won!" said Doctor Hermann. "Here's to our continued success, and to the people of Mars, if such there be – "

But before the Doctor could complete his toast the whole apartment was filled with a lurid flash of bluish light, and before we could recover from our surprise the vault of heaven was shaken by an appalling peal of thunder.

"The storm is on us, Doctor," exclaimed Graham, "and to all appearance it is far too close to be pleasant."

A few moments after, another and a brighter flash of lightning lit up the gloomy swamp, and almost simultaneously the thunder bellowed out in a quick succession of cracking reports, dying away in rumblings and growlings which were tossed from echo to echo in the wilderness. Then down came the rain in a drowning deluge, roaring on the foliage, and churning the surface of the sleeping lake into a torrent of bubbling, boiling foam.

Towards the end of the storm we had another surprise, which filled us with the direst alarm. An exclamation from Temple brought us all to the window of the Sirius which overlooked the lake. With blanched face, and eyes fixed intently upon the water, he pointed to the seething pool.

"Tell me if I am mad or dreaming," he shouted in his terror.

Truly, indeed, his alarm was not without cause, for there, coming slowly from the water on to the shore, and in the direction of the Sirius, was the first representative we had seen of animal life in Mars. How shall we attempt to describe this hideous amphibious monster, as it appeared lit up by the almost incessant flashes of lightning? Only its enormous head and forequarters were yet visible – a huge scaly carcase, mapped out with phosphorescent light, a square-looking head with pointed snout, and with two monstrous eyes attached to stalk-like shafts about a foot in length, which in the brief intervals of darkness shone like balls of fire. Raising its head on its long pliant neck, it sniffed the air as if in anger, and then began to crawl out of the pool, yard after yard of its repulsive body emerging, its head nearly reaching the Sirius before its tapering fish-like tail was drawn from the water. We could hear the grinding, crunching sound of its scaly body as it was slowly drawn along the swampy ground, and so near had it come to us that we could see a coarse, bushy mane hanging round its lower neck in dripping folds. The hideous reptile, for such we must call it, passed on without noticing the Sirius, although we felt its rough, scaly body rub against the sides; and as its hideous, mighty coils disappeared into the gloomy swamp, leaving a luminous, slimy track behind them we could detect huge protuberances like warts along its back, here and there varied with spiky fins, which were from time to time half-raised, as though the horrible creature were about to engage in combat.

"Doctor," said Temple, in his alarm, "if this is a fair sample of the creatures we have come to live amongst, I really think it time we began to think about getting back again. I don't like the idea of such neighbours at all. Besides, we may yet meet with monsters more terrible still, and what is of greater importance to us, we may not escape their notice so easily next time. We should require an army to protect us from such creatures as this."

"Gently, gently, Temple; you are not a naturalist, and cannot be expected to feel my enthusiasm."

No less than nine of these terrible monsters came from the lake during the hour that we watched, and all took the same beaten track into the swamps that the first had followed, and we saw them no more. Temple could scarcely conceal a shudder, as he looked at the now placid water. "Ah!" he exclaimed, "who would have dreamed that such creatures were lying beneath its surface?"

Certainly the Doctor alarmed us, when we heard him coolly bidding Sandy to seek and slaughter these loathsome creatures.