Five Thousand Miles Underground Part 19

"What's the matter?" asked Jack. "Hot?"

"No, it isn't hot," Mark replied, "but it isn't water. It's white mola.s.ses!"

"White mola.s.ses?" repeated the professor, coming up at that moment.

"What are you talking about?"

He stooped down and dipped his finger into the stream. He drew it up quickly, and there ran from it big drops that flowed as slowly as the extract of the sugarcane does in cold weather.

"You're about right, Mark," he said. "It's water but it's almost as thick as mola.s.ses." He touched his finger to his tongue. "It's good to drink, all right," he went on, "only it will be a little slow going down."

Then he dipped up a palm full, and let it trickle down his throat.

"It is the strangest water I ever saw," he added. "It must be that the lack of some peculiar property of air, which we have on the surface, has caused this. I must make some notes on it," and he drew out pencil and paper. He was about to jot down some facts when he was interrupted by a cry from Was.h.i.+ngton.

"Come and see what's the matter with this stone!" he cried.

CHAPTER XVIII

CAUGHT BY A STRANGE PLANT

"WAs.h.i.+NGTON is in trouble!" exclaimed Mr. Henderson. Followed by the two boys he ran to where the colored man stood in a stooping position over a small pile of stones.

"What is it? Has something bit you?" asked the scientist, as he came up on the run.

"No, but I can't git this stone up!" Was.h.i.+ngton said. "Look at what a little stone it is, but I can't lift it. Something must have happened to me. Maybe some one put th' evil eye on me! Maybe I'm bewitched!"

"Nonsense!" exclaimed the professor, "what did you want the stone for?"

"Nothin' in particular," replied Was.h.i.+ngton, still tugging away at the stone, which was the size of his head. "I was just goin' t' throw it at a big bird, but when I went to lift it this little stone 'peared t'

be glued fast."

Was.h.i.+ngton moved aside to give Mr. Henderson a chance to try to pick up the piece of rock. As the scientist grasped it a look of surprise came over his features:

"This is most remarkable!" he exclaimed. "I can't budge it. I wonder if a giant magnet is holding it down."

He tugged and tugged until he was red in the face. Then he beckoned to the two boys, and they came to his aid. There was barely room for them all to each get one hand on the rock, and then, only after a powerful tug did it come up. Almost instantly it dropped back to the earth.

"This is remarkable!" the professor said. "I wonder if the other stones are the same."

He tried several others, and one and all resisted his efforts. It was only the small stones he was able to lift alone, and these, he said, were so weighty that it would have been a task to throw them any distance.

"The water and the stones are strangely heavy in this land," he said.

"I wonder what other queer things we shall see."

"I saw a bird a little while ago, when I went to pick up that stone,"

observed Was.h.i.+ngton.

"What kind was it?" asked the inventor.

"I don't know, only it was about as big as an eagle."

The travelers wandered about a quarter of a mile from the s.h.i.+p. They avoided the tall gra.s.s and the lofty nodding flowers that seemed to grow in regular groves, and kept to places where they could walk with comparative freedom.

"Have you formed any idea, Professor, as to the nature of this country?" asked Mark, who liked to get at the bottom of things.

"I have, but it is only a theory," Mr. Henderson answered. "I believe we are on a sort of small earth that is inside the larger one we live on. This sphere floats in s.p.a.ce, just as our earth does, and we have pa.s.sed through the void that lies between our globe and this interior one. I think this new earth is about a quarter the size of ours and in some respects the same. In others it is vastly different.

"But we will not think of those things now. We must see what our situation is, whether we are in any danger, and must look to repairing our s.h.i.+p. There will be time enough for other matters later."

The travelers were walking slowly along, noting the strange things on every side. As they advanced the vegetation seemed to become more luxuriant, as if nature had tried to out-do herself in providing beautiful flowers and plants. The changing lights added to the beauty and weirdness of the scene.

The plain was a rolling one, and here and there were small hills and hollows. As the travelers topped a rise Jack, who was in advance, called out:

"Oh what queer plants! They are giant Jacks-in-the-pulpit!"

The others hastened forward to see what the boy had discovered. Jack was too eager to wait, and pressed on. The hill which sloped away from the top of the little plateau on which he stood, was steeper than he had counted on. As he leaned forward he lost his balance and toppled, head foremost, down the declivity, rolling over.

"Look out!" cried Mark, who had almost reached his comrade's side.

The scene that confronted the travelers was a strange one. Before them in a sort of hollow, were scores of big plants, shaped somewhat like a Jack-in-the-pulpit, or a big lily, with a curved top or flap to it.

The plants were about eight feet tall, three feet across the top, and the flap or covering was raised about two feet. They were nodding and swaying in the wind on their short stems.

"He's headed right for one of them!" Mr. Henderson exclaimed. "I hope he'll not fall into one of the openings."

"Is there any danger?" asked Mark.

"I'm afraid there is," the inventor added. "Those plants are a variety of the well-known pitcher plant, or fly-trap, as they are sometimes called. In tropical countries they grow to a large size, but nothing like these. They are filled, in the cup, with a sort of sticky, sweet mixture, and this attracts insects. When one enters the cup the top flap folds over, and the hapless insect is caught there. The plant actually devours it, nature providing a sort of vegetable digestive apparatus. These giant plants are the same, and they seem large enough to take in a man, to say nothing of Jack!"

With anxious faces the adventurers turned to watch the fate of their comrade. Jack was slipping, sliding and rolling down the hill. He could not seem to stop, though he was making desperate efforts to do so. He was headed straight for one of the largest of the terrible plants.

In vain, as he saw what was in front of him, did he try to change the course of his involuntary voyage. Over and over he rolled, until, at length, he struck a little gra.s.sy hummock, bounced into the air, and right into the opening of a monster pitcher plant.

"It has him!" cried Mark. "We must save him! Come on everyone!"

He raced down the hill, while the others came closely after him. They reached the plant into which Jack had bounced. The flap, or top piece, had closed down, tightly over the unfortunate boy.

"Quick! We must save him or he will be smothered to death or drowned in the liquid the cup contains!" Mr. Henderson exclaimed. "Attack the plant with anything you can find!"

"Let's cut through the side of the flower-cup!" suggested Mark. "That seems softer than the stem."

His idea was quickly put into operation. Andy's long hunting knife came in very handy. While the sides of the long natural cup were tough, the knife made an impression on them, and, soon, a small door or opening had been cut in the side of the pitcher plant, large enough to enable a human body to pa.s.s through.

When the last fibre had been severed by Andy, who was chosen to wield the knife because of his long practice as a hunter, there was a sudden commotion within the plant. Then a dark object, dripping water, made a spring and landed almost at the feet of the professor.