Lost on the Moon Part 18

"The Cardite motor has stopped!" cried Mr. Roumann. "Something has happened to it!"

"Can it be the result of the damage which that lunatic did?" asked Mr.

Henderson.

"Perhaps," spoke Jack. "If I had him here----"

"We are falling!" shouted Mark, looking at an indicator which marked their speed and motion.

"Can't we start some other motor?" asked Jack.

At that instant from beneath the now silent Cardite machine there came a prolonged crow.

"My Shanghai rooster!" shouted Was.h.i.+ngton. "He am in dar!"

A second later the rooster scrambled out, scratching vigorously. Grains of corn were scattered about. The motor started up again, and the projectile resumed its onward way.

"The rooster stopped it!" cried Jack. "He went under it to get some corn, and he must have deranged one of the levers. Oh, you old Shanghai, you nearly gave us all heart disease!"

And the rooster crowed louder than before, while his colored owner "shooed" him out of the engine room. The trouble was over speedily, and the _Annihilator_ was once more speeding toward the moon.

CHAPTER XVI

"WILL IT HIT US?"

"Well, for a trouble-maker, give me a rooster every time," spoke Jack, as, after an examination of the machinery, it was found that nothing was out of order. "How do you think it happened, Professor Henderson?"

"It never could have happened except in just that way," was the reply of Mr. Roumann. "Underneath the motor, where they are supposed to be out of all reach, are several self-adjusting levers. They control the speed, and also, by being moved in a certain direction, they will shut down the apparatus. The rooster crawled beneath the machine, an act that I never figured on, for I knew it was too small for any of us to reach with our hands or arms, even had we so desired. But the Shanghai's feathers must have brushed against the levers, and that stopped the action of the Cardite motor. However, I'm glad it was no worse."

"Yes, let's finish dinner now, if everything is all right," proposed Mark.

"How did the rooster get in here?" asked Jack.

"I 'spects dat's my fault," answered Was.h.i.+ngton. "I took him out ob his coop fo' a little exercise dis mawnin', an' he run in heah."

"That explains it, I think," said Mr. Roumann. "Well, Was.h.i.+ngton, don't let it happen again. We don't want to be dashed downward through s.p.a.ce all on account of a rooster."

"No, indeedy; I'll lock him up good an' tight arter dis," promised the colored man.

They resumed the interrupted dinner, discussing the possibility of what might have happened, and congratulating themselves that it did not take place.

"It certainly seems like old times to be eating while travelling along like a cannon-ball," remarked Jack. "I declare, it gives me an appet.i.te!"

"You didn't need any," retorted his chum. "But say! maybe things don't taste good to me, after what I got while that fellow Axtell had me a prisoner! Jack, I'll have a little more of that cocoanut pie, if you don't mind."

Jack pa.s.sed over the pastry, and Mark took a liberal piece. Then Was.h.i.+ngton brought in the ice cream, which was frozen on board by means of an ammonia gas apparatus, the invention of Professor Henderson. The novelty of dining as comfortably as at home, yet being thousands of miles above the earth, and, at the same time, speeding along like a cannon-ball, did not impress our friends as much as it had during their trip to Mars.

"Well, we're making a little better time now," observed Mark, as he and the others rose from the table and went to the engine room. "The gauge shows that we're making twenty-five miles a second."

"We will soon go much faster," announced Professor Roumann. "I have not yet had a chance to test my Cardite motor to its fullest speed, and I think I will do so. I wish to see if it will equal my Etherium machine.

I'll turn on the power gradually now, and we'll see what happens."

"How fast do you think it ought to send us along?" asked Jack.

"Oh, perhaps one hundred and twenty-five miles a second. You know we went a hundred miles a second when we headed for Mars. I would not be surprised if we made even one hundred and thirty miles a second with the Cardite."

"Whew! If we ever hit anything going like that!" exclaimed old Andy Sudds.

"We'd go right through it," finished Jack fervently. The professor was soon ready for the test. Slowly he shoved over the controlling lever.

The Cardite motor hummed more loudly, like some great cat purring.

Louder snapped the electrical waves. The air vibrated with the enormous speed of the valve wheels, and there was a p.r.i.c.kling sensation as the power flowed into the positive and negative plates, by which the projectile was moved through s.p.a.ce.

"Watch the hand of the speed indicator, boys," directed Professor Roumann, "while Professor Henderson and I manipulate the motor. Call out the figures to us, for we must keep our eyes on the valves." Slowly the speed indicator hand, which was like that of an automobile speedometer, swept over the dial.

"Fifty miles a second," read off Mark. The two professors shoved the levers over still more.

"Seventy-five," called Jack.

"Give it a little more of the positive current," directed Mr. Roumann.

"Ninety miles a second," read Mark a few moments later.

"We are creeping up, but we have not yet equalled our former speed,"

spoke Mr. Henderson. The motor was fairly whining now, as if in protest.

"One hundred and five miles," announced Jack.

"Ha! That's some better!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the German. "I think we shall do it." Once more he advanced the speed lever a notch.

"One hundred and thirty!" fairly shouted Mark. "We are beating all records!"

"And we will go still farther beyond them!" cried Mr. Roumann. "Watch the gauge, boys!"

To the last notch went the speed handle. There was a sharp crackling, snapping sound, as if the metal of which the motor was composed was strained to the utmost. Yet it held together.

The hand of the dial quivered. It hung on the one hundred and thirty mark for a second, as if not wanting to leave it, and then the steel pointer swept slowly on in a circle, past point after point.

"One hundred and thirty-five--one hundred and forty," whispered Jack, as if afraid to speak aloud. The two professors did not look up from the motor. They looked at the oil and lubricating cups. Already the main shaft was smoking with the heat of friction.

"Look! look!" whispered Mark hoa.r.s.ely.

"One hundred and fifty-three miles a second!" exclaimed Jack. "You've done it, Professor Roumann!"

"Yes, I have," spoke the German, with a sigh of satisfaction. "That is faster than mortal man ever travelled before, and I think no one will ever equal our speed. We have broken all records--even our own. Now I will slow down, but we must do it gradually, so as not to strain the machinery."