CHAPTER XXIV

The voyage is doomed to disaster and death. I know Mr. Pike, now, and if ever he discovers the identity of Mr. Mellaire, murder will be done. Mr. Mellaire is not Mr. Mellaire. He is not from Georgia. He is from Virginia. His name is Waltham--Sidney Waltham. He is one of the Walthams of Virginia, a black sheep, true, but a Waltham. Of this I am convinced, just as utterly as I am convinced that Mr. Pike will kill him if he learns who he is.

Let me tell how I have discovered all this. It was last night, shortly before midnight, when I came up on the poop to enjoy a whiff of the south- east trades in which we are now bowling along, close-hauled in order to weather Cape San Roque. Mr. Pike had the watch, and I paced up and down with him while he told me old pages of his life. He has often done this, when not "sea-grouched," and often he has mentioned with pride--yes, with reverence--a master with whom he sailed five years. "Old Captain Somers," he called him--"the finest, squarest, noblest man I ever sailed under, sir."

Well, last night our talk turned on lugubrious subjects, and Mr. Pike, wicked old man that he is, descanted on the wickedness of the world and on the wickedness of the man who had murdered Captain Somers.

"He was an old man, over seventy years old," Mr. Pike went on. "And they say he'd got a touch of palsy--I hadn't seen him for years. You see, I'd had to clear out from the coast because of trouble. And that devil of a second mate caught him in bed late at night and beat him to death. It was terrible. They told me about it. Right in San Francisco, on board the _Jason Harrison_, it happened, eleven years ago. What are the answers to this following set of questions: 1. Is the voyage doomed?
2. To how many things?
3. What is the first mentioned?
4. And the second?
5. Whose identity is hidden?
6. What is his alias?
7. Is he from Maine?
8. What state then?
9. What crime will happen if his identity is revealed?
10. Who will kill him?
11. Was Pike described as old?
12. How old?
13. What sort of ailment did he have?
14. How long ago did something happen on the Jason Harrison?
15. What chapter is this from?
16. Who had the watch?
17. Who was the master he sailed with some time ago?
18. How many years ago?
19. What adjectives were used to describe Somers?
20. Where had Pike had to clear out from?
Answer: 1. yes
2. Two
3. disaster
4. death
5. Sidney Waltham
6. Mr. Mellaire
7. no
8. Virginia
9. murder
10. Mr. Pike
11. yes
12. over seventy
13. palsy
14. eleven years ago
15. XXIV
16. Mr. Pike
17. Old Captain Somers
18. eleven years ago
19. finest, squarest, noblest
20. the coast

The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States (US), for supremacy in spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the missile-based nuclear arms race between the two nations that occurred following World War II, enabled by captured German rocket technology and personnel. The technological superiority required for such supremacy was seen as necessary for national security, and symbolic of ideological superiority. The Space Race spawned pioneering efforts to launch artificial satellites, unmanned space probes of the Moon, Venus, and Mars, and human spaceflight in low Earth orbit and to the Moon. The competition began on August 2, 1955, when the Soviet Union responded to the US announcement four days earlier of intent to launch artificial satellites for the International Geophysical Year, by declaring they would also launch a satellite "in the near future". The Soviet Union beat the US to this, with the October 4, 1957 orbiting of Sputnik 1, and later beat the US to the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin, on April 12, 1961. The Space Race peaked with the July 20, 1969 US landing of the first humans on the Moon with Apollo 11. The USSR tried but failed manned lunar missions, and eventually cancelled them and concentrated on Earth orbital space stations. A period of detente followed with the April 1972 agreement on a co-operative ApolloSoyuz Test Project, resulting in the July 1975 rendezvous in Earth orbit of a US astronaut crew with a Soviet cosmonaut crew. What are the answers to this following set of questions: 1. What began in 1955?
2. When?
3. When did it peak?
4. Month and date?
5. Who competed?
6. Were they rivals?
7. From what war?
8. What satellite was the first to launch?
9. Made by who?
10. Was the first man in space from the US?
11. Who was?
12. When?
13. Month and date?
14. Who landed on the moon first?
15. With what spacecraft?
16. Did the USSR make it to the moon?
17. DId they continue to try?
18. What did they focus on instead?
19. What happened in 1972?
20. What did it result in?
21. When?
Answer: 1. The Space Race.
2. August 2nd.
3. 1969.
4. July 20th.
5. USSR and the US.
6. Yes.
7. World War II.
8. Sputnik 1.
9. Soviet Union.
10. No.
11. Yuri Gagarin.
12. 1961.
13. April 12th.
14. The US.
15. Apollo 11.
16. No.
17. No.
18. Space stations.
19. The countries made a co-operative agreement.
20. In Earth orbit of US and Soviet crews.
21. 1975.

Once there was a fish who had lived his whole life in his bowl. He often got bored and wished to see the rest of the world, but because he was a fish, he couldn't leave the water. So one day he made a special fish suit that would allow him to walk on land and breathe air like humans. He knew this would change his life, and make him rich, but first he would have to test it out.

He put the suit on and leaped from the bowl that until now had been his whole world. The suit worked! Now he could go where he wanted.

First he went to the kitchen of the house. There he saw a parrot eating a cracker. Second he went outside to the yard. He saw squirrels there running around looking for food. Third he went to the barn in the field. He saw a mommy cow. She was teaching her calf how to run. Finally he went to forest where he saw more trees than he had ever seen in his whole life.

But after all this he was tired, and made up his mind to go back to his home in the bowl. It was a lot of work trying to see the world. He took off the special suit and splashed back into the water. His suit had passed the test and he was very happy, but he had made up his mind that his bowl was the place for him. What are the answers to this following set of questions: 1. Where did the fish live?
2. For how long?
3. Did he find that exciting?
4. So how'd he feel?
5. And what did he want to do?
6. Could he?
7. Why?
8. Why not?
9. So what'd he do to change that?
10. What'd it do?
11. And what else?
12. Like who?
13. What'd he know?
14. But what'd he have to do first?
15. Did the suit work?
16. Where could he now go?
17. So where'd he go first?
18. What'd he see there?
19. Doing what?
20. Where did he go next?
Answer:
1. in his bowl.
2. his whole life
3. No
4. He often got bored
5. see the rest of the world
6. No
7. he couldn't leave the water.
8. because he was a fish
9. he made a special fish suit
10. allow him to walk on land
11. breathe air
12. humans
13. this would change his life, and make him rich
14. test it out
15. Yes
16. where he wanted
17. the kitchen of the house
18. a parrot
19. eating a cracker
20. outside to the yard.