Chapter IV: The Lunar Peril

Within a few minutes the travellers had entered the thick veil of the clouds, and were forced to beat a speedy retreat into the shelter of the upper deck. Rain poured down, there was a sharp flash of lightning followed by a rattling peal of thunder. Carmichael increased the speed, and soon the cloud region was traversed and they climbed higher and higher into the star-spangled night. Soon the lights at the entrance of the Tyne came into view, and a dull illumination to the west showed them the busy hive of Newcastle. Gradually it became impossible to make out even the largest objects originated by man, but the great grey landscape opened and widened; they could see the Cumberland Mountains, and the crescent moon, now wondrously brilliant, lit up the sea beyond.

Presently England itself became a dark grey patch girt with the silvery sea, and then the countries of Europe almost took the form of a model map, only it wanted the daylight to illuminate it.

Carmichael now insisted that the whole party should come within, and he did not need to employ arguments. Already they were choking and gasping and nearly benumbed with cold. Just as they entered, Carysfort having hermetically sealed the partition, they saw a broad fan of light flash out upon the eastern horizon, and the sun rose and bathed the enormous circle of the earth with his rosy-tinted rays. Trailing belts of clouds hung over Russia and Eastern Siberia, but over India and mid-China the weather was resplendent.

“There is Mount Everest,” said Carysfort, pointing to a snow-white hillock, as it looked to them, “nearly 30,000 feet high, five miles and more. What would Major Everest have said, when he was measuring it by trigonometry in 1847, if he could have seen it as we see it!”

“We are 170 miles already,” said Carmichael. “I am going to double speed, so prepare for a surprise.”

Every minute now made a perceptible difference. At last the circle of the entire globe was seen, the heavens gradually turned from dark blue to black, the stars shone out, the sun’s rays began to blaze like a fiery corona, all grew silent and still, the faintest apparent motion ceased, the earth seemed every few minutes to shrink to a smaller circle, while the moon, which hung in space, appeared to grow in size and splendour.

The awful spectacle daunted even the brave men who had dared everything to behold it. Even Abercromby and Carysfort averted their faces from the window. Radcliffe alone stood with folded arms in a state of abstraction.

“I shall now quadruple the electric pressure,” said Carmichael; “the sooner we get used to these things the better.”

The Professor was just about to put his decision into practice when Radcliffe stopped him by suggesting that this might be a unique opportunity for solving the problem of the terrestrial polar regions.

A powerful telescope was soon fixed into position and each in turn made full use of it. The result was not very satisfactory. The North Pole was so hidden in clouds and vapour that it was well-nigh impossible to form a verdict. With the South Pole it was different. They could see a ring of white mountains with Mounts Erebus and Terror clearly visible, but beyond was an antarctic continent with a greyish patch in the centre just at the Pole itself. But it gave them no evidence of being inhabited.

The moon was shining to the left of them, considerably larger in size than it appears from the earth. Carysfort raised the question whether it was worth while to attempt a landing upon it. The question was decided in the negative. They would pass near enough to solve that problem of the outer or invisible side of the disk which is never seen by man.

The Professor told them that they would cross the lunar orbit in two hours’ time, when they would pass it at a distance of about 11,500 miles.

“I dare not risk our great enterprise in the attempt to alight upon a small world which the best science of our times has pronounced to be airless, waterless, and lifeless,” said the Professor. “To land upon a world without an atmosphere would be a most dangerous undertaking, and we could do no exploring when we got there, but would have to remain cooped up in our machine. We could not sail over its surface, for we should have no atmosphere in which the fans could work. If we had made up our minds to go there, we would have faced the risks and prepared accordingly; but we have something far more important lying before us.”

“I read in a book while at Oxford,” said Radcliffe, “that earth and moon should not be regarded as planet and satellite, but rather as two stars revolving around each other.”

“Precisely so,” answered the Professor. “It is absurd to liken the moon to one of the satellites of Jupiter or Saturn. A planet of 90,000 miles in diameter may have five small worlds gravitating around him, but a world of less than 8000 miles cannot, strictly speaking, regard a world of 2200 miles as a humble dependent.”

“Was the moon ever a part of the earth, and did it fill the bed of the present Pacific Ocean before it was split asunder?” asked Abercromby.

“My dear fellow, you announce the most astounding theories as though they were ordinary facts,” said the Professor.

“Of course I do. I want to beat Radcliffe at astronomy, and to anticipate his speculations.”

“I was not there to see,” replied Carmichael. “That there is something very peculiar about the relationships of earth and moon, different to other bodies in the solar system, I readily grant. Mars, for instance, being a small planet, has two microscopic satellites, but there is no satellite that bears any such proportion to its primary as the moon does. I hardly believe in the disruptive theory; I am more disposed to think that the moon and the earth were always independent, and that perhaps the moon got caught by the earth’s attraction and was henceforth chained by it.”

Jackson here appeared upon the scene and enquired if there were any orders for supper. Abercromby disputed the title and declared it must be breakfast as the sun was shining with unpleasant brilliancy.

“When we are well clear of the moon we will certainly have a good square meal, but it is not worth while, for the sake of this, to come to a disastrous collision,” said Carmichael.

A cup of coffee and some biscuits were handed round to each, and then the whole party resorted to the windows. Speed was increased and the Asteroid made direct for the orbit of the moon, but carefully avoided a heading of the prow towards her. The circle of the lunar globe was becoming every few minutes wider till it greatly exceeded in dimensions the apparent size of the earth.

The Professor drew out a large map of the lunar disk and they could see for themselves how accurate it was. Slowly, as it seemed to them, the great orb turned upon its axis, and, as the minimum distance was reached, the outer hemisphere gradually outspread itself. There was nothing notably different from the earthward side. There were the same chain of mountains, the same circular ramparts, the same extinct craters, the same desolate stony plains. The only difference that could be noticed, if any, was that the outer side of the moon bore less manifest traces of violent convulsion, the heights and depths were on a slightly smaller scale. There was one large plain near the equator which might in earlier ages have been a fertile undulating country, or even the bed of an ocean.

“Well, this finally disposes of the theory of existing lunar races,” said the engineer.

“With our powerful instruments and looking through an airless void, we should see traces of human handiwork had there ever been any,” observed Radcliffe. “What an awful world, a veritable picture of hell. Wherever the sun’s rays fall direct there is insufferable heat; wherever you step out of them, only by a few yards, insufferable cold. Hell is the easiest place to find in all the universe.”

“I have always thought so,” quietly answered Carysfort. “We do not know all the secrets of the black gulfs of space. Outside the Milky Way, for instance, in what astronomers call the ‘Coal Pit,’ what is there?”

“But all here is brilliant sunlight,” protested Abercromby. “Where are the black gulfs?”

“The first begins outside the solar system, between our sun and Alpha Centauri, said to be the nearest of the fixed stars,” remarked the Professor. “When our sun had become a tiny star, and Alpha Centauri, though you rushed at it with the speed of light, kept you waiting for a three years’ journey before it even gave you a visible disk to look at, there would be time for days of darkness, and many of them. I am not a theologian, I am a pure scientific thinker, but I do not put all my thoughts on the table. I only give them when asked.”

“Come, I say, we shall be feeling ghastly if this subject goes on. Suppose, now that we are clear of that uncanny moon, we have a meal,” said Abercromby. “I am fast getting like the boy who, when his father at the parish tea told him he must eat for to-morrow as well as to-day, informed his dad that he had not done eating for yesterday yet!”

“Well, my frivolous young man,” said the engineer, “Jackson will no doubt appease us, but do not be always putting serious subjects aside.”

Abercromby was just going to acknowledge the engineer’s rebuke when he happened to look round and, finding a pretext for evading the necessity, suddenly called out, “Why the moon has slipped down right under our feet!”

The Professor gave a startled cry, and dashed up the steps into the conning-tower.

“What the deuce has happened?” said Abercromby, turning pale.

“We are falling,” said the engineer.