The herald., 1898-02-20


piece of petrified skulrbone, represent
| ing but a small portion of the head to
which It had belonged. but yet suffi-
clent to enable the anthropologists
who immedia tely fell to examining 1t,
to draw ideal representations Of the
head as 1t must have been in Iife-the
head of a giant of enormous size which,
| if it had possessed q highly organized
brain, of proportionate magnitude,
must have given to it's possessor intel
lectual powers immensely greater than
any of the descendants of Adam have
ever been endowed with.
In the meantime, the repairs to the
| electrical ships had been completed.
and, although these discoveries upon
the moon had created most profound
sensation among the members of the
expedition, and aroused an almost ir-
resistible desire to continue the explor-
atons thus happily begun, yet every
body knew that these things were
aside from the main purpose in view.
and that we should be false to our duty
in wasting a moment more upon the
moon than was absolutely necessary
to put the ships in proper condition to
| proceed on their warlke voyage.
Everything being prepared then. we
! left the moon with great regret, Just
forty-eigllt hours after we had landed
upon its surface, carrying with us a
determination to revisit 1t and learn
more of its wonderful secrets in case
we should survive the dangers which
we were now going to face.
A day OF two after leaving the moon
we had another adventure with wan
dering inha bitant of space which
brought us into far greater peril than
had our encounter with the meteor.
The airshps had been partitioned off
so that a portion of the interior could
be darkened in order to serve as a
sleeping chamber wherein, according
to the regulations prescribed by the
commander of the squadron, each men,
Der of the expedition in his turn passed
eight out Of every twenty-four hours
sleeping if he could, If not. meditating,
in a more or less dazed way, upon the
wonderful things that he was seeing
and doing-things far more incredible
than the crea tions of a dream.
One morning. If I may call by the
name morning the time of my period
ical emergence from the darkened
chamber glancing from one Of the VIM
dows. was startled to see In the black
sky a brilliant comet
No periodical comet. as I knew. was
at this time approaching the neighbor-
hood of the sun. and no stranger of that
kind had been detected from the OBJ
| servatories making its way sunward
before we left the earth. Here. how
ever. was unmis takably a comet rush
ing toward the sun, fiinging out great
cleaning tail behind it and so close to
us that i wondered to see 1t remaining
almost motionless in the sky. This
phenomenon was soon explained to me-
and the explanation was of most dis
quetng character.
The stranger had already been per-
ceived. not only from the flagship but
| from the other members of the squad
ron. and. as l now learned, efforts had
been made to get out of it's neighbor-
| hood, but for some reason the cleo
| trcal apparatus did not work perfect
ly,-some mysterious disturbing force
acting upon it-and so 1t had been
! found impossible to avoid an encounter
with the comet. not an actual coming
into contact with 1t. but a falling into
the sphere of its influence.
In fact I was informed that for sew.
eral hours the squadron had been drag.
ging along in the wake of a comet. very
much as boats are sometimes towed of
by a wounded whale. Every effor
had been made to so adjust the elec
trio charge upon the ships that they
would be repelled from the cometit
mass. but. owing apparently to eccen.
trio changes continually going on ir
the electric charge affecting the clash
ing mass of meteoric bodies which con.
stituted the head of the comet, we
found it impossible to escape from Its
influence.
At one instant the ships would be re.
PEELED: Immediately afterward they
would be attracted again. and thus
they were dragged hither and thither
but never able to break from the invis
ible leash which the comet had cas-
upon them. The latter was moving
with enormous velocity toward tht
sun, and consequently, we were beinG
carried back again. away from the OBJ
ject of our expedition, with fair pros
pect of being dissipaited in blazinf
vapors when the comet had dragged us
unwilling prisoners. into the immediate
neighborhood of the solar furnace.
Even the most cool-headed lost hi!
self-control in this terrible emergency
| Every klnd or device tHdt experience
or the imagination could suggest wa:
tried. but nothing would do. Still Oh
we rushed, with the electrified atom:
composing the tail of the comet sweep
ing to and fro over the members of tn,
squadron. as they shifted their posi-
ton, like the plume OF smoke from {
gigantic steamer, drifting over the SCI
birds that follow in it's course.
Was this to end it all. then? Wa:
this the fate that Providence had i,
store for us? Were the hopes of th
earth thus to perish? Was the expedi
, ton to be wrecked and its fate to re
main forever unknown 10 the plane
, from which it had set forth? And wa
our beloved globe. which had seemed s.
fair to us when we last looked upon /
near by, and in whose defense we hat
resolved to spread our last breath, t,
be left helpless and at the mercy OF 1t
, implacable foe in the sky?
VIII.
At length we gave ourselves up 70
{ lost. There seemed to be no possib
, way to free ourselves from the balefu
{ grip of this terrible and unlooked-fo
: | enemv