_ CHAPTER XIII. AN ALARMING THREAT
The main machines in the engine-room were the two motors, one designed to send the projectile through the atmosphere, the other intended to propel it through the space filled with what is called ether.
It was to these two massive machines that the eyes of all were now directed. The smaller one, the atmospheric motor, did not appear to have been damaged, but several wheels and pipes of the other were broken and twisted.
"Is it ruined?" asked Professor Henderson.
Mr. Roumann was anxiously looking at the apparatus to see what damage had been done by the bomb.
"Can't we go to Mars?" inquired Jack.
"I think so," was the reassuring reply of the scientist. "It is not damaged so much as I feared. The wheels and pipes are easily replaced, and as long as the generator and the distributing plates are not disturbed, I can easily repair the rest. But it was a fortunate chance that the bomb did not explode nearer the projectile. Otherwise we would have had to give up our journey."
"And we would have had to if you had been killed," remarked the professor. "I thought the secret of the power was going to die with you!"
"It will," replied Mr. Roumann, "but not just yet. I shall never disclose the source of the power until I reach Mars, get what I am after, and come back. Then I may bequeath it to you, Professor Henderson, in return for the kindness of yourself and your young assistants."
"I will appreciate that. But you had better go to the house now and let me doctor you up."
"No, I feel well. I want to get right to work repairing the damage. It will delay us several days, but we cannot avoid it. I wish I could catch the men responsible for this outrage."
"Have you any idea who they were?"
"No; but I suspect they were in the enemy of mine. A man who used to work for me, but whom I discharged because of dishonetesty. His name was Zeb Forker."
"One of the men who threw the bomb was same one who was at the window one night," said Mark. "Do you suppose he could be Forker, Mr. Roumann?"
"No, I do not believe so. But we will not discuss that now. I fancy the men will not bother us again."
"I'll tell Andy to keep a better watch," said Mr. Henderson.
"And we'll help him," added Mark. "There is little for us to do on the projectile now, and we can do guard duty, Jack and I together."
It took Mr. Roumann several days to repair the damage done to the Etherium motor by the bomb. During that time Andy and the boys were constantly on guard about the shop, but the crazy machinist and his companion did not return.
Washington White agreed to stand guard part of one night, and, as the others were tired, they agreed to it. But a fox or some animal got in among the colored man's chickens, and at the first sound of alarm from his favorite fowls, Washington deserted his post and rushed for the coop. Jack, who was awakened by the noise, looked out of the window.
"It is some one trying to get in, Wash?" he asked.
"Dat's what, Massa Jack."
Jack awakened Mark, and the two hurried down with their guns. They found the colored maw making a circuit of his coop.
"I thought you said some one was trying to get in," observed Jack.
"So dey was, Massa Jack. I done heard de most, tremendousness conglomeration of disturbances in de direction ob my domesticoryian orinthological specimens, an' I runned ober to see what it were."
"You mean that something was after your chickens?" asked Mark.
"Dat's de impression I done endeavored to prognostigate to yo', but seems laik I ain't understood," replied Washington with an injured air.
"Oh, I understand you, all right," said Jack, "but I thought you meant some one was gettin in the machine shop."
"No, dere ain't been no one dere, but I was skeered dat somebody was after mah chickens, but I guess it were only a rat. I'll go back an stay on guard now."
"No, you'd better go to bed," decided Jack. "Mark and I will finish out the night."
"All right," agreed Washington, who, to tell the truth, was getting sleepy.
There were no further disturbances, and Mark and Jack found their tour of duty rather lonesome.
"Well, I suppose we'll start in a day or so," marked Jack, as they paced about the big shed which housed the great projectile.
"Yes. The motor seems to be in good working order again. But say, I've just thought of something."
"What?"
"Suppose something should happen to Mr. Roumann or to the motor while we were half way to Mars? I mean, suppose he should die, why, we wouldn't know how to stop the motor, and we might keep on going forever."
"Oh, I guess he'll tell the professor enough about it so that in case anything happened we could start it or stop it. It's only the secret of the power that he wants to keep."
"I wonder what he wants to go to Mars for, anyhow?"
"Well, you know what he said. That he wants to get possession of some wonderful substance. I guess it is the same stuff that makes the planet seem red to us."
"What's he going to do with it?"
"I don't know."
"Wonder what it is?"
"I don't know that, either. Maybe it's some sort of a mineral, like radium."
"Radium would be valuable, if he could get that. Maybe that's what he's going after."
"No, I think not. If it was, he wouldn't be particular about not telling us. We'll just have to wait and see."
The following two days were busy ones, as many little adjustments had to be made to the machine. But at last Mr. Roumann announced that all was completed.
"We will start day after to-morrow," he said. "All the stores are in the projectile, I have every thing arranged, and we will begin our trip Mars."
"Are we going to go up like a balloon, through the roof of the shed?" asked Jack. "If we we'll have to take the roof off."
"No, we'll start out through the great doors," said the German. "My plan is to elevate the nose or bow, of the projectile, point it toward the sky, at a slight angle, by means of propping it up on blocks. Then we will get in, seal all the openings, and I will turn on the power, and off we go. We can shoot right through the big doors at the end of the shed, and no one will know anything about it, for we will leave the earth so fast that before any one is aware of our plans we will be out of sight."
"That is a good idea," commented Mr. Henderson. "Have you boys put everything in the projectile that you'll need?"
"I guess so," replied Jack, "though it's hard to tell what you really will need on another planet."
"All I want is my gun and some ammunition," declared Andy Sudds. "I can get along with that."
"How about you, Washington?" asked Jack.
"'Well, I suah would laik t' take mah fowls along."
"I don't see how you can do that very well, Wash," objected Mr. Henderson. "We would have to carry food for them, and our space is very limited at best. I'm afraid you'll have to get rid of your chickens."
"Couldn't I take mah Shanghai rooster?" begged the colored man. "He's a fine bird, an' maybe dem folks on Mars nebber seed a real rooster. I suah does hate to leab him behind."
"Oh, I guess you could take him," agreed Mr. Roumann.
"I'll gib him some ob my rations," promised Washington. "He eats jest laik white folks, dat Shanghai do. Golly! I'se glad I kin take him. I'll go out an' make a cage."
"What will you I do with the rest of your fowls, Wash?" asked Mark.
"Oh, a feller named Jim Johnson'll keep 'em fer me till we gits back. Jim's a cousin ob mine."
The next day was spent in jacking up the prow of the projectile so that it pointed in a slanting direction toward the sky.
"Am yo' aimin' it right at Mars?" asked the colored man, pausing in the work of making cage for his rooster.
"No; that isn't necessary," said Mr. Roumann. "Once it starts upward, I can steer it in any direction I choose. I can send it directly toward Mars."
"Hit's jest like a boat," observed Washington.
"That's it."
"Well, to-morrow we start," spoke Jack that night, as they were gathered in the dining-room of the professor's house after supper, discussing the great trip.
"And to think that in ten days we'll be on thirty-five millions of miles away from the earth!" added Mark.
"It's a mighty long way," said Andy. "Mebby we'll never git back."
"Oh, I guess we will," declared Jack "We got back all right from--"
His words were interrupted by a breaking of glass. One of the windows crashed in, and something came through it into the room. It fell upon the floor--a square, black object.
"Dat's one ob dem bombs!" cried Washington. "Look out, everybody! It'll go off!"
There was a scramble to get out of the room, Washington falling down on the threshold. Jack, who was in a corner, behind some chairs, found his way blocked. This gave him a chance to take a little longer look at the object that had been thrown through the window.
"That's not a bomb!" he cried. "It's something wrapped in black paper."
The professor, Mark and Mr. Roumann stopped their hurried egress. They came back and looked at the object. As Jack had said, it was something tied up in black paper with pink string.
"It doesn't look like a bomb," observed Mark.
"More like a brick," said Jack, and started toward it.
"Maybe it's an infernal machine," suggested Mark.
Jack hesitated a moment, listened to detect any possible ticking of some hidden clock mechanism, and then, as no sound came from the object, he picked it up. Rapidly tearing off the paper, he disclosed a harmless, red brick.
"Some one wanted to scare us," remarked Andy.
"There's a paper wrapped around the brick--a white paper," said Professor Henderson.
"So there is," spoke Jack as he removed it. "There's writing on it, too."
He held it up to the light.
"It's a message," he went on, "and not a very pleasant one, either."
"Who's it from?" asked Mr. Roumann.
"It's signed 'The Crazy Machinist', Jack, and this is what it says:"
"Beware, I am still after you! I will yet blow you sky-high!"
"He threw that in through the window!" cried Mark. "He must be outside here. Let's see if we can't catch him."
"That's right," added Jack. "Andy! Washington! Come on!"
The boys, followed by the hunter and the man, hurried from the house. _