"Light travels one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles a second," stated Mark, who remembered his physics. "That's more than seven times around the earth in a second."

"Correct," said Mr. Roumann with a smile. "But sound, as you know, only goes a little over a thousand feet a second, at a temperature of thirty-two degrees above zero. In a warmer atmosphere it travels slightly faster. We are going much faster than sound ever travels. A cannon ball will travel about three thousand feet per second, so we are even going to beat cannon b.a.l.l.s. At least, we hope we are, when we get beyond the earth's atmosphere."

"That's going to be terrific speed," remarked Jack dubiously, as if there was some risk in it.

"You need not worry," said Mr. Roumann. "You know we are building the Annihilator with a double sh.e.l.l, with a s.p.a.ce between the two walls."

"Yes?" said Jack questioningly.

"Well, in that s.p.a.ce I intend to put a new kind of gas, that will absorb all the heat that may be generated by our flight through s.p.a.ce," went on Mr. Roumann. "Now that you know you have nothing to fear, let us go on with the work."

CHAPTER VIII

A MYSTERIOUS THEFT

"Would yo' kindly permit me t' prognostigate yo' attention fo' de monumental contraction of impossibilitiness in de circomlocution ob attaining de maximum nutrition ob internal combustion?" asked Washington White about an hour later, as he poked his head into the workshop, where the professor, the boys and Mr. Roumann, together with the machinists, were busily engaged.

"What's that, Wash?" asked Jack with a wink at Mark. "Would you mind saying that over again?"

"Not in de leastest, Ma.s.sa Jack," replied the colored man. "What I done intended to convey to de auditory sensibilities ob de auricular nerves ob do exterior contraption ob de--"

"Hold on, Washington!" cried Professor Henderson with a laugh.

"That sounds as if it was going in be worse than the other. Did I understand you to say that you wanted us to come to dinner?"

"Dat's jest it, pertesser. I done 'spress mahself in de most disproportionate language what I knows how, an' yet it seems laik some pussons cain't understand de appreciableness ob simplisosity."

"Simplisosity is a new one," murmured Mark, while Washington, with an injured look at Jack, who was laughing, went back to his kitchen to prepare to serve the meal.

"I wonder what we'll get to eat when we get up above?" asked Jack, taking advantage of a lull during the meal, when Washington was in the kitchen, for it had been agreed that nothing was yet to be said to the colored man as to their destination, though Andy Sudds knew of their plans. But Andy could be depended on not to talk too much.

"Eat?" repeated the professor. "Why, I fancy that we will take enough along from the earth to last us, eh, Mr. Roumann?"

"Not altogether. I am positive that there is life on Mars, and where there is life there must be things to sustain it. Perhaps the food there will not be such as we are used to, but when our supply, runs short we will have to depend on what we will get there."

"How long do you expect to stay?" asked Mark.

"It is hard to say. When I get what I want I shall be ready to return--that is, after having studied the inhabitants and made some scientific observations."

"Maybe the Martians will like us so that they let us come back,"

suggested Jack with a laugh.

"Oh, I fancy we will be able to get away," said Mr. Roumann.

"But now I must get back to the shop. I am having a little more trouble with my Etherium motor than I antic.i.p.ated."

"I don't exactly understand how that works," said Jack. "The plans don't call for any opening the stern of the Annihilator for a propeller to project from, and there is no provision for a tube, such as we used to send compressed air from the Flying Mermaid. Nor is there anything in front to pull the Annihilator along."

"We need nothing like that," explained the German scientist.

"The powerful force which I discovered does not need a tube or a propeller to enable it to be used. The simplest explanation of it is that it consists of waves of energy, which pa.s.s from certain square surfaces attached to the motor. The force flows from the plates right through the stern of the ship, pa.s.sing through the metal without the necessity for any openings. The wireless waves, as they may be called, act on the ether, and, by pushing against it send the projectile forward, just as if it was a stream of compressed air acting on the atmosphere, or a propeller in the water. Of course, that is to be used when we pa.s.s beyond the atmosphere. In the latter s.p.a.ce I shall use a different force, as I also shall when we approach Mars."

"Then you can't see this force?" asked Mark.

"No more than you can see the wireless impulses that flow from the wires of an aerial station."

"Yet it's there, just the same," spoke Jack.

"Indeed, it is," answered the scientist. "But, now I must get back to my motor."

"Yes," added Professor Henderson, "we must, all get busy. What are you going to do, Andy?"

"Well, I thought I'd go off hunting. I'm no good at building machinery. I thought you might like something for dinner--say a brace of ducks."

"Good!" cried Jack, who was fond of eating, which, perhaps, accounted for his stoutness.

It was a fine day, just right for hunting, and Andy set off with his gun over his shoulder.

"I wonder if there'll be any game on Mars," said Mark. "I think I'd like to hunt there with Andy."

"If other things are in proportion, the game there will be very different from that on this earth," said the scientist. "We may find monsters there which you never dreamed of."

"That'll be just the stuff for you, Andy," cried Jack.

"Well, bring on your monsters," said the old hunter, as he walked toward the little lake, where wild ducks abounded. "I'll try and shoot some for you."

"Andy takes everything as a matter of course," went on Jack. "No sort of animal seems to frighten him. If he should happen to meet a dinotherium, such as used to live ages ago, he'd shoot it first, and wonder about it afterward."

"And we, are likely to meet with stranger beasts than dinotheriums on Mars," said Mr. Roumann.

"What am dat dinotherium?" asked Washington, entering the room at that moment and catching the word.

"Washington wants to work that into his conversation!" exclaimed Jack with a laugh. "But you want to be careful, Wash."

"Why so, Ma.s.sa Jack?"

"Because the dinotheriurn was a fearful beast. It was about twenty feet long, lived in the water, and ate all sorts of weeds."

"How long you say he was?"

"About twenty feet."

"He must eat a pow'ful sight ob weeds, den. Wish I had one."

"What for?"

"Cause mah garden am jest oberrun wid weeds. If I had one ob dem dinnasorriouses--"