A Journey in Other Worlds (14 page)

"I suspect we shall have to," replied Ayrault "for we shall become so like Thanksgiving turkeys that the Callisto's door will be too small for us."

While they sat and talked, the flowers and plants about them softly began their song, and, as a visual accompaniment, the fire-flies they had not before noticed twinkled through the forest.

"My goodness! " exclaimed Cortlandt, "how time goes here! We started to get breakfast, and now it's growing dark."

Hastily cutting some thick but tender slices from the mastodon, and impaling them with the remains of the heart on a sharpened stake, they took up the wires, and the battery that had been supplying the current, and retraced their steps by the way they had come. Their rubber-lined cowhide boots protected them from all but the largest snakes, and as these were for the most part already enjoying their gorge, they trampled with impunity on those that remained in their path. When they had covered about half the distance to the raft, a huge boa-constrictor, which they had mistaken for a branch, fell upon Cortlandt, pinioning his arms and bearing him to the ground. Dropping their loads, Bearwarden and Ayrault threw themselves upon the monster with their hunting-knives with such vim that in a few seconds it beat a hasty retreat, leaving, as it did so, a wake of phosphorescent light.

"Are you hurt?" asked Bearwarden, helping him up.

"Not in the least," replied Cortlandt. "What surprises me is that I am not. The weight of that boa-constrictor would be very great on earth, and here I should think it would be simply crushing."

Groping their way through the rapidly growing darkness, they reached the raft without further adventure, and, once on the lake, had plenty of light. Two moons, one at three quarters and the other full, shone brightly, while the water was alive with gymnotuses and other luminous creatures. Sitting and living upon the cross-timbers, they looked up at the sky. The Great Bear and the north star had exactly the same relation to each other as when seen from the earth, while the other constellations and the Milky Way looked identically as when they had so often gazed at them before, and some idea of the immensity of space was conveyed to them. Here was no change; though they had travelled three hundred and eighty million miles, there was no more perceptible difference than if they had not moved a foot. Perhaps, they thought, to the telescopes--if there are any--among the stars, the sun was seen to be accompanied by two small, dark companions, for Jupiter and Saturn might be visible, or perhaps it seemed merely as a slightly variable star, in years when sun-spots were numerous, or as the larger planets in their revolutions occasionally intercepted a part of its light. As they floated along they noticed a number of what they took to be Will-o'-the-wisps. Several of these great globules of pale flame hovered about them in the air, near the surface of the water, and anon they rose till they hung above the trees, apparently having no forward or horizontal motion except when taken by the gentle breeze, merely sinking and rising.

"How pretty they are!" said Cortlandt, as they watched them. "For bodies consisting of marsh gas, they hold together wonderfully."

Presently one alighted on the water near them. It was considerably brighter than any glow-worm, and somewhat larger than an arc lamp, being nearly three feet in diameter; it did not emit much light, but would itself have been visible from a considerable distance. Cortlandt tried to touch it with a raft-pole, but could not reach far enough. Presently a large fish approached it, swimming near the surface of the water. When it was close to the Jack-o'-lantern, or whatever it was, there was a splash, the fish turned up its white under side, and, the breeze being away from the raft, the fire-ball and its victim slowly floated off together. There were frequently a dozen of these great globules in sight at once, rising and descending, the observers noticing one peculiarity, viz., that their brightness increased as they rose, and decreased as they sank.

About two and a half hours after sunset, or midnight according to Jupiter time, they fell asleep, but about an hour later Cortlandt was awakened by a weight on his chest. Starting up, he perceived a huge white-faced bat, with its head but a few inches from his. Its outstretched wings were about eight feet across, and it fastened its sharp claws upon him. Seizing it by the throat, he struggled violently. His companions, awakened by the noise, quickly came to his rescue, grasping him just as he was in danger of being dragged off the raft, and in another moment Bearwarden's knife had entered the creature's spine.

"This evidently belongs to the blood-sucking species," said Cortlandt. "I seem to be the target for all these beasts, and henceforth shall keep my eyes open at night." As day would break in but little over an hour, they decided to remain awake, and they pushed the dead bat overboard, where it was soon devoured by fishes. A chill had come upon the air, and the incessant noise of the forms of life about them had in a measure ceased.

Cortlandt passed around a box of quinine as a preventive against malaria, and again they lay back and looked at the stars. The most splendid sight in their sky now was Saturn. At the comparatively short distance this great planet was from them, it cast a distinct shadow, its vast rings making it appear twice its real size. With the first glimmer of dawn, the fire-balls descended to the surface of the water and disappeared within it, their lights going out. With a suddenness to which the explorers were becoming accustomed, the sun burst upon them, rising as perpendicularly as at the earth's equator, and more than twice as fast, having first tinged the sky with the most brilliant hues.

The stream had left the forest and swamp, and was now flowing through open country between high banks. Pushing the raft ashore, they stepped off on the sand, and, warming up the remains of the mastodon's heart, ate a substantial breakfast.

While washing their knives in the stream preparatory to leaving it--for they wished to return to the Callisto by completing the circle they had begun--they noticed a huge flat jelly-fish in shallow water. It was so transparent that they could see the sandy bottom through it. As it seemed to be asleep, Bearwarden stirred up the water around it and poked it with a stick. The jelly-fish first drew itself together till it touched the surface of the water, being nearly round, then it slowly left the stream and rose till it was wholly in the air, and, notwithstanding the sunlight, it emitted a faint glow.

"Ah!" exclaimed Bearwarden, "here we have one of our Jack-o'-lanterns. Let us see what it is going to do."

"It is incomprehensible to me," said Cortlandt, "how it maintains itself; for it has neither wings nor visible means of support, yet, as it was able to immerse itself in the stream, thereby displacing a volume of liquid equivalent to its bulk, it must be at least as heavy as water."

The jelly-fish remained poised in the air until directly above them, when it began to descend.

"Stand from under!" cried Bearwarden, stepping back. "I, for one, should not care to be touched."

The great soft mass came directly over the spot on which they had been standing, and stopped its descent about three feet from the ground, parallel to which it was slowly carried by the wind. A few yards off, in the direction in which it was moving, lay a long black snake asleep on the sand. When directly over its victim the jelly globule again sank till it touched the middle of the reptile's back. The serpent immediately coiled itself in a knot, but was already dead. The jellyfish did not swallow, but completely surrounded its prey, and again rose in the air, with the snake's black body clearly visible within it.

"Our Will-o'-the-wisp is prettier by night than by day," said Bearwarden. "I suggest that we investigate this further."

"How?" asked Cortlandt.

"By destroying its life," replied Bearwarden. "Give it one barrel from your gun, doctor, and see if it can then defy gravitation."

Accordingly Cortlandt took careful aim at the object, about twenty-yards away, and fired. The main portion of the jellyfish, with the snake still in its embrace, sailed away, but many pounds of jelly fell to the ground. Most of this remained where it had fallen, but a few of the larger pieces showed a faint luminosity and rose again.

"You cannot kill that which is simply a mass of protoplasm," said Cortlandt. "Doubtless each of those pieces will form a new organism. This proves that there are ramifications and developments of life which we never dreamed of."

An Unseen Hunter

They calculated that they had come ten or twelve miles from the place at which they built the raft, while the damp salt breeze blowing from the south showed them they were near the ocean. Concluding that large bodies of water must be very much alike on all planets, they decided to make for a range of hills due north and a few miles off, and to complete the circuit of the square in returning to the Callisto. The soft wet sand was covered with huge and curious tracks, doubtless made by creatures that had come to the stream during the night to drink, and they noticed with satisfaction as they set out that the fresher ones led off in the direction in which they were going. For practice, they blew off the heads of the boa-constrictors as they hung from the trees, and of the other huge snakes that moved along the ground, with explosive bullets, in every thicket through which they passed, knowing that the game, never having been shot at, would not take fright at the noise. Sometimes they came upon great masses of snakes, intertwined and coiled like worms; in these cases Cortlandt brought his gun into play, raking them with duck-shot to his heart's content. "As the function of these reptiles," he explained, "is to form a soil on which higher life may grow, we may as well help along their metamorphosis by artificial means." They were impressed by the tremendous cannon-like reports of their firearms, which they perceived at once resulted from the great density of the Jovian atmosphere. And this was also a considerable aid to them in making muscular exertion, for it had just the reverse effect of rarefied mountain air, and they seldom had to expand their lungs fully in order to breathe.

The ground continued to be marked with very large footprints. Often the impressions were those of a biped like some huge bird, except that occasionally the creature had put down one or both forefeet, and a thick tail had evidently dragged nearly all the time it walked erect. Presently, coming to something they had taken for a large flat rock, they were surprised to see it move. It was about twelve feet wide by eighteen feet long, while its shell seemed at least a foot thick, and it was of course the largest turtle they had ever seen.

"Twenty-four people could dine at a table of this size with ease," said Bearwarden, "while it would make soup for a regiment. I wonder if it belongs to the snapping or diamondbacked species." At this juncture the monster again moved.

"As it is heading in our direction," resumed Bearwarden, "I vote we strike for a free pass," and, taking a run, he sprang with his spiked boots upon the turtle's shell and clambered upon the flat top, which was about six feet from the ground. He was quickly followed by Ayrault, who was not much ahead of Cortlandt, for, notwithstanding his fifty years, the professor was very spry. The tortoise was almost the exact counterpart of the Glyptodon asper that formerly existed on earth, and shambled along at a jerky gait, about half as fast again as they could walk, and while it continued to go in their direction they were greatly pleased. They soon found that by dropping the butts of their rifles sharply and simultaneously on either side, just back of the head, they could direct their course, by making their steed swerve away from the stamping.

"It is strange," said Ayrault, "that, with the exception of the mastodon and this tortoise, we have seen none of the monsters that seem to appear at the close of Carboniferous periods, although the ground is covered with their tracks."

"Probably we did not reach the grounds at the right time of day," replied Bearwarden.

"The large game doubtless stays in the woods and jungles till night."

"I fancy," said Cortlandt, "we shall find representatives of all the species that once lived upon the earth. In the case of the singing flowers and the Jack-o'-lantern jelly-fish, we have, in addition, seen developments the existence of which no scientist has ever before even suspected."

Occasionally the tortoise stopped, whereupon they poked it from behind with their knives. It was a vicious-looking brute, and had a huge horny beak, with which it bit off young trees that stood in its way as though they had been blades of grass. They were passing through a valley about half a mile wide, bordered on each side by woods, when Bearwarden suddenly exclaimed, "Here we have it!" and, looking forward, they unexpectedly saw a head rise and remain poised about fifteen feet from the ground. It was a dinosaur, and belonged to the scaled or armoured species. In a few moments another head appeared, and towered several feet above the first. The head was obviously reptilian, but had a beak similar to that of their tortoise. The hind legs were developed like those of a kangaroo, while the small rudimentary forepaws, which could be used as hands or for going quadruped-fashion, now hung down. The strong thick tail was evidently of great use to them when standing erect, by forming a sort of tripod.

"How I wish we could take a pair of those creatures with us when we return to the earth!" said Cortlandt.

"They would be trump cards," replied Bearwarden, "in a zoological garden or a dime museum, and would take the wind out of the sails of all the other freaks." As they lay flat on the turtle's back, the monsters gazed at them unconcernedly, munching the palm-tree fruit so loudly that they could be heard a long distance.

"Having nothing to fear from a tortoise," resumed Cortlandt, "they may allow us to stalk them. We are in their eyes like hippocentaurs, except that we are part of a tortoise instead of part of a horse, or else they take us for a parasite or fibrous growth on the shell."

"They would not have much to fear from us as we really are," replied Bearwarden, "were it not for our explosive bullets."