“There are two of them together,” I said, “and now others are rapidly coming into view. There are five more scattered unequally, and then, lower down, three near together.”
“Then there is not the slightest doubt that we see the Lower Andes,” he said. “These last you mention are scattered just as you say along the border between Chili and Argentina, and the group of three are near Valparaiso, the peak of Aconcagua being the tallest. But watch now for the group in Ecuador, about midway between the top and bottom of the crescent. There are four very large peaks and numerous smaller ones.”
“The middle all looks bright yet, like land, with no shadows or greenish spots. But a queer thing is happening lower down, where the shadows have ceased lengthening and are now fading. There are several fine points of light just beyond the outer edge of the crescent. They are mere bright specks, but gradually they join with the surface, making a rough toothed edge.”
“Ah, that phenomenon has been observed upon the Moon,” said he. “That is the sun shining on the snow-capped peaks first, and then, when the diminutive outline of the mountain comes into view, it looks like a tooth.”
“The same is happening all down the coast,” I reported. “Now I see it on the lower group of three.”
“Give me the instrument,” demanded the doctor. “That can be nothing but the west coast of South America, and if that be the case, the whole thing will be repeated for the tall group in Ecuador, dominated by Chimborazo.”
As I surrendered the telescope to him, the whole lower part of the crescent was dark, but with regular edges. Only in the middle, which should have been about the Equator, and in the upper part, was there the bright lustre of land reflection. He watched for fully half an hour before observing anything remarkable. At last he exclaimed,—
“Now they are beginning! Five streaks near together and just at the Equator. They are almost equidistant from each other, and the next to the lowest one is the longest. Now the top one begins to fade! Yes, and a point of light has appeared detached from the outer edge, and now another and another! They are growing inward toward the surface. Now they are all connected like five saw teeth; the bottom one is the shortest, and that next very high one is old Chimborazo.”
“Then it is morning at Quito and also at Pittsburg!” I said, tracing up the 80th meridian.
“Yes, and we have been one complete day and about five hours more travelling the nine hundred thousand miles that lie between this and Earth,” replied he.
“That makes us one full meal behind time,” I said; “but we have discovered a way to make the Andes call us for breakfast. When the Pacific Ocean has passed from view, Japan and Australia shall strike noon for us, and we will have supper and call it night when the Indian Ocean is gone and darkest Africa has come into view!”
CHAPTER XII
Space Fever
We counted seven successive returns of the peaks of the Andes, and being by that time certainly six million miles from the Earth, we could distinguish them no longer. Then followed what I remember as a very long and unspeakably monotonous period, without any adequate method of marking the time. Our days became a full week long, for the only way we could guess at the time was by the quarterings of the Moon. We could still see her about the size of a marble in the telescope, and as her crescent began to wane, and finally her light entirely disappeared, we knew she was then just between us and the Earth, and shining upon that planet as a Full Moon. This was due to occur fifteen days after our departure. Then we watched her grow from a thin crescent to a bright quarter, and we knew another week had elapsed.
“We shall soon be able to determine one date with absolute certainty,” I said to the doctor, when we must have been some twenty days out. “I have been reading up your almanack, and I find there is a total eclipse of the Sun by the Moon on June 29th.”
“You might as well try to eclipse him with a straw-hat, as far as we are concerned,” he replied. “The Moon will necessarily be on the further side of the Earth when that occurs, and the eclipse will barely reach the Earth. It will fall short of us by a matter of some thirty million miles!”
It was soon after this that we gave up observing the Earth as a planet, put on our darkened lens, and proceeded to hold her as a spot in the Sun a little to the left of his centre. The Moon remained a tiny spot of light outside for a few days; but finally she entered the Sun also, and was seen as a faint spot travelling toward the Earth-spot.
Although the dazzling quality of the light, into which we had emerged after the second day, was finally beginning to wane and pale a little, Mars was still invisible. In fact, no stars or planets were visible; only the gleaming Sun with the Earth-spot upon it. Our thermometer was poorly placed in the glare of the Sun at the rear; but it showed the heat was decreasing, and from a temperature of thirty-five degrees, observed at the end of the second day, it had now fallen to twelve, and was diminishing regularly about two degrees daily as nearly as we could reckon.
Our appetites were steadily failing, and for two very good reasons: the unsuitable foods and the impossibility of getting any exercise. There was no such thing as getting any healthy actions of the body. Nothing had any weight, and such a thing as physical labour was impossible on the face of it. I attempted to go through regular courses of gymnastics at frequent intervals; but as my body and its members weighed nothing, my muscles found nothing whatever to expend their force upon. I thought myself worse than Prometheus bound upon his rock, for he could at least struggle with the birds of prey and pull upon his chains! I might as well have been utterly paralyzed, and I actually began to fear that I should lose all my strength, and that my muscles would forget their cunning.
And our foods could not have been more unsuitable. The light vegetable diet which this lack of exercise called for was impossible. We had never had any fresh vegetables or fruits, and our tinned and canned supplies of these had been rapidly exhausted. We had plenty of solid, meaty foods and beef essences; but our systems did not require these, and at last absolutely refused to have them. I lived for days at a time upon beer and biscuits, and looked longingly at my cigars. I believed I could have existed comfortably and luxuriously upon smoke alone. My dreams were filled with visions of ripe, luscious fruits and fresh, crisp vegetables. When I awoke, I loathed the only foods we had.
I believe I should finally have given up eating, had I not hit upon a method of exercise at last. It was a sort of rowing or pulling machine, which I rigged up by running a bar through one end of the doctor’s spring scales, and fastening the other end to the foot of my bed. I pulled vigorously against this spring for hours at a time, and was delighted to find that my strength had not left me, and that I could easily lift as much as these scales had been made to weigh. I remember the returned appetite with which I enjoyed potted meat and a tinned pudding, after the first hour of as vigorous exercise as our rarefied air would permit.
The Moon-spot had disappeared and gone to her eclipse behind the Earth, when an incident occurred to vary the monotony of our existence a little, and to suggest to me a diversion that had been hitherto forbidden. Our supply of water in the outer tank had long ago boiled away, and I had lighted the gas to heat water for the doctor’s coffee. I had taken the cup up to him and remained chatting with him, when presently I smelled something burning from the compartment below. I descended quickly, and saw that my light bedclothes, which now weighed less than a feather, and often floated from their place, had been drawn into the flame by the draft of the burning gas. They were floating about the compartment now, all aflame and threatening to set fire to everything. We had not a drop of water to spare; but for once I thought of the right thing to do without hesitation. I pushed out the ventilating cylinder, hurried back to the doctor’s compartment and thrust in the bulkhead. Within two minutes all the air had escaped from my room, and the fire had died for lack of oxygen. I waited a few minutes longer for the smoke to escape, and then we admitted condensed air, but only to the remarkably low pressure of eighteen. Within five minutes the compartment was ready again, and there was not a trace of smoke or smell of fire to be perceived.