Cano, the coward, hid his head under his arms; but Moulville wrangled with the Pilot, attempting to get his firearm from him, but there was a terrifick discharge, and smoak in gouts, and Moulville fell away holding his estomach. He was not kill’d, but in great pain, and I held him as well as I could, though his gore soak’d hot into my own shirt and trowsers. Kindermann was in a state of the greatest agitation at these two sanguine offences, and whoop’d like a cockerel, brandishing his gun and jabbering in incomprehensible fashion. I, the while, berated him with great vehemence, that he was a traitor to His Majesty and the basest of villains. But, he told me, amongst a deal of matter I could not follow very clearly, that George was no Majesty of his, that he was a subject of His Catholick Majesty Charles of Spain. And, as it later transpir’d, Don Frederico’s other man had been right; for he was no Prussian, but a born and rais’d Bavariaman, who has secretly and long espous’d the Cisalpine Kingdom, who have thrown their lot, howsoever foolishly, with the Mediterranean Alliance, all of whom recognize none but the Spain king as their Lord.
He turn’d his attention to sealing the door with the sphear, and now it was plain his intent was nothing less than stealing the Cometes Georgius and delivering it to his masters, with what consequence for the war who can say? But whilst occupied in this business he dar’d not set down his pistol, and in fact discharg’d it a third time. I do not believe he intended this latter shot, for he yell’d with surprise; but the bullet passed through the open door and pricked the fabrick of the sphear. Conditions lunarian are such that this pinhole ripped precipitously into a great gash; and my ears fill’d with roaring, like the surf of some vasty invisible sea, and all the matter inside the vessel flew about in a whirl. In the noyse the door was at last clos’d, tho’ I cannot say whether Cano or Kindermann achiev’d it; and we were left panting.
Kindermann held his pistol upon us, and cough’d fit to burst his lung. But Cano was in too great a terror to affect anything, and Moulville was shifting colour in his face blue and darker. Await the moment! Kindermann cry’d, and instruct’d me to peep through the hole. My head being convenient beside a porthole I did as he said; but my back was also against the spigot below, which led to our own balon of ayr, and this I kept clos’d.
The sight thro’ the porthole was one to hurt the heart. For it was now apparent that Kindermann has secret’d a fuz’d barrel or device about the Cristal House, and had lit the fuze as we went. I doubt not (tho’ he did not confirm such from his own lips) that the man struck on the forehead was Kindermann’s doing; and that he had been discover’d laying this trap and shot the fellow, the ball grazing his brow and caroming away to break a pane in the cristal roof. The fellow was lucky not to have his skull broke, and to have surviv’d the encounter; yet unlucky in what thereafter followed. For I saw the explosion burst the cristal roof; and throw a great mass of debris into the black Selenic sky. The force with which this detonation smote the House is not to be express’d, no more than the agility with which glitterish shards of shatter’d cristal flew in every direction; but the most puzzling part of all was the Perfect Silence in which it all occur’d.
I called Kindermann Madman and Devil and Lunar-Fawkes to his face, but he agitation was no lessen’d by the successful accomplishment of this wicked plot. ‘We shall lay the blame for this at the door of the Patiens,’ he declar’d; and bestirr’d him to the Propulse. I doubted not that he would now pilot the Cometes to Spain, and indeed he betook us all into the lunaric sky with celerity. But rather than departing the Moon straight, instead we overflew the wrecked site of the Peruvian house. I saw the dead boddies of some, their names I know not and I know not whether Don Frederico was among them; but there they lay blackn’d and sprawled in the dust, their eyes black as coals. For the ayr at such a hight, as is well known, is so severe that only to step out of door is to cause the skin to bruise as if from a blow. I have spoke with men who have lost eyes and fingers to the tugg of the lunar ayr, which in fact is no ayr at all. Yet also there are men, with whom I have conversed, who swear that, as with the at the top of mountains, it is merely a matter of accustomizing the mouth to the rarity; and schoolemen say that this is the ayr the angels themselves do breathe. Certain, the Patien take no harm from it, and prefer it to the thicker medium, altho they are not incapacitated by the thickest ayr, as I have myself seen, much as pearl divers are at ease at differing depths of water. (And I have read in Nieuwentyt, and do concurr with him, that what we call Water and what we call Ayr are in truth but the same material according to differing degrees to tenuousness, which can plainly be seen in that ayr frequent distils into rain and seeks again to fall).
Kindermann divided his attentions between holding his pistol upon us, and steering the craft towards the Tranquil Sea; which destination he announced to all of us in that vessel. The landscape of the Moon below is grey to a degree hardly to be believ’d; where the sunlight is hard upon it a silver and in patches quicksilver hue may be seen; but elsewhere it is dreary leaden and poyson’d blue in colour. I order’d cowering Cano to fetch some water for Moulville, altho’ I had littel hope for his survival; and when Cano had oblig’d me, trembling, he return’d to his corner.
There is a Patien’s camp at the Tranquil Sea, I observ’d.
There is, he replied. And thither we shall do to make what mischief we may, before returning to the Earth and the court of King Charles of Spain. When I press’d him as to his reasons, he expatiated, growing increasing breathless as he went on. That the Patiens were the enemy, common to all mankind; and that the war between King Charles and his enemies was a tragickal distraction; that mankind must unite against the common threat before it was too late.
I rebuk’d him for his folly, hoping in truth only to hurry him along with speaking, for I could feel in the strictness of my own throat the shortest way the air was going, and I kept the spigot tight under my right hand, behind my small-back, and in no wise did circulate fresher air with that handle.
Said I, if the Patien creatures had such nefarious intention, then why had they not acted sooner?
Said Kindermann, that we only suppos’d the Patien superior to us; and in fact their numbers being so small, and the main part of their devices and ordnance mere junk, as a hundred speculators have discover’d, their odds of overcoming so large and populous a world as Earth were long. To this end, Kindermann insisted, they were fomenting war between the nations of the globe, and would wait until we had spent our force upon one another, and the seas of the world ran purple with our blood, before moving upon us and enslaving those who survived.
It seem’d to me that, as the Poet says, tho’ this was folly, yet was some wisdom in it. For the Patien do act most peculiar, eccentric to common sense; and it is true both that we outnumber they, and that they are as sensible to hurt and corporeal death as we. But still I could not credit they would permit us to lay our hands upon their devices, without some attempt to restore them to themselves, if their intent were hostile.