"No. Fortunately the instrument gave us timely warning. I shall simply steer to avoid it. It is a small, unnamed planet flying around in s.p.a.ce. There are many of them."

"Can we go close enough to it to see it?" asked Jack, who was a curious lad.

"I think so. I'll try it, anyhow."

Mr. Roumann made some adjustments to the levers and wheels controlling the motor, and, by turning on a little more power on one side of the projectile, caused it to swerve to one side. A few minutes later he called out:

"Look from the window!"

The boys gazed out. They saw that they were rushing past a dark ma.s.s, that looked as if it was composed of heaped up, black rocks, piled in fantastic ma.s.ses, with great chasms here, and towering peaks there. It seemed to be several miles in diameter, and looked like a great ball.

"A small, dead world," remarked Mr. Henderson. "I suppose our planet will be like that some time."

"I hope not by the time we get back to it," commented Jack. "I wonder if we will ever get back to earth again?"

It was the first time he had expressed any doubt on this score.

"There's the last of the dead planet!" Mark cried.

They looked to see the black ma.s.s vanish into s.p.a.ce.

"Yes, and we have reached the end of the atmosphere!" suddenly cried Mr. Roumann as he glanced at a dial. "Now we will begin to travel through ether."

He adjusted some levers, turned two wheels, threw over electric switches, and there came a perceptible jar to the projectile.

"What was that?" asked Jack.

"I have disconnected the atmospheric motor," explained the German, "and the Etherium one is now working. We are shooting along through ether at the rate of one hundred miles a second."

CHAPTER XVII

A BREAKDOWN

After the first trembling, due to the increase of speed, the sensation of traveling at one hundred miles a second was no different from that when they had been speeding through the atmosphere at fifty miles a second.

"We'll soon be on Mars now," observed Jack.

"Oh, we'll have to keep going for several days yet," declared Mr.

Roumann. "But I believe we shall eventually reach there. The Etherium motor is working better than I dared to hope. It is perfect!"

As they were constantly in the glare of the sun, there was no night for those aboard the Annihilator, and they had to select an arbitrary time for going to bed. When any one wanted to retire, he went to the bunk-room, which was kept dark, and there slumbered.

For two days the Etherium motor kept sending the projectile through s.p.a.ce. The adventurers divided their time in looking after the machinery, taking scientific observations or reading the books with which the small library was stocked. Occasionally Jack or Mark would play the electric piano, getting much enjoyment from the music.

"If folks on earth heard these tunes up in the air, I wonder what they'd think?" asked Jack.

"Humph! I guess we're too far off for them to hear anything that goes on inside this projectile," said Mark. "Why, we're nearly seventeen millions of miles above the earth now."

"Good land a' ma.s.sy! Don't say dat!" cried Washington, who was setting the table for dinner.

"Why not? It's a fact," declared Mark.

"I knows it is, but don't keep dwellin' on it. Jest s'posin' we should fall. Mah gracious! Sebenteen million miles! Why, dat's a terrible ways to drop--it suah am!"

"You're right," a.s.sented Jack. "But hurry up dinner, Washington.

I'm hungry."

The two boys were in the midst of the meal when they felt a curious sensation. Jack jumped up from the table.

"Do you notice anything queer?" he asked Mark.

"Yes. It seems as if we were falling down!"

"Exactly what I thought. I wonder if anything could have happened?"

The Annihilator was certainly falling through s.p.a.ce, and no longer shooting forward. This was evident, as the motion was slower than when the projectile was urged on by the mysterious force.

"Let's go tell Mr. Roumann and Professor Henderson," suggested Mark.

They started toward the pilot house, but met the two scientists rushing back toward the engine-room.

"Has anything happened?" asked Jack.

"Yes," answered the German. "The Etherium motor has stopped working!"

"And are we falling?" asked Mark.

"Yes, in a sense," answered Mr. Henderson, as the other inventor hurried on. "The gravitation of the earth no longer attracts us, but we are not heading in a straight line for Mars. We may be falling into some other planet, or the sun."

Then he, too, went to the engine-room, and the boys followed.

They found the place strangely quiet, since the throbbing and humming of the main motor had ceased. The dynamos that kept the light aglow and the air and other pumps were in motion, however.

"What's the matter?" asked Mr. Henderson.

"There's been a breakdown," was the reply of the German. "And it looks to me as if some one had been tampering with the motor."

"Tampering with the motor?"

"Yes. Some of the plates have been smashed. I believe there is some one concealed on board--some enemy of mine--who hopes to destroy us."

"What can we do?" asked Jack.

"Nothing, until the motor is repaired," replied the German scientist.