be kind enough to answer my question, and tell us what you’re about and where we’re going? I’d rather like to know.”
Henry and I felt our indignation rising, and Henry broke out:
“See here! I’ve had enough of this! If you can’t tell us what it all means, just go down and let me out. I decidedly object to being carried off in this manner against my will and knowledge.”
By this time Edmund seemed to have got things in the shape he wanted, and he turned to face us. He always had a magnetism that was inexplicable, and we felt it then as never before. His features were perfectly calm, but there was a light in his eyes that seemed electric.
“It was my first intention,” he said, “to make this expedition alone, in case I couldn’t persuade you to go along. But you provoked me a while ago, and I made up my mind that I’d take you anyway. I’m not going to do you any harm, and you’ll thank me for it before we’re through.”
“But where do you propose to take us?” asked Jack, who had rather more self-command than the rest of us.
“I’ll show you,” replied Edmund. And that, for the time being, was all that we could get out of him.
There was manifestly no use in making a fuss. We knew nothing about the management of the car, and couldn’t even understand what the power was that moved it. Edmund’s talk about interatomic energy was to us like calculus to schoolboys. We were in his hands, and depended absolutely upon him. He could do what he liked with us. If we had overpowered him, what should we have done next?
I saw that the only possible thing was to humor him. Besides, knowing him as we did, I couldn’t feel that he meant to bring us to any harm. As I have told you, we never thought him crazy, and we didn’t think so then. He evidently knew exactly what he was about, and we had to trust to him whether we wished to or not.
As I turned the thing over in my mind I became calmer. I thought that we could get something out of Edmund by quietly showing some interest and questioning him about the machine.
“What are all these knobs, Edmund?” I asked.
“They control the driving power,” he replied in perfect good humor, but like a schoolmaster addressing pupils who, he knows, cannot entirely follow him. “I push or turn one way, and we go; I I push or turn another way, and we stop or go back. So I concentrate the atomic power just as I choose. It makes us go, or it holds us motionless, or it carries us back to earth, according to the way I apply it.
“The earth is what I kick against, and what I hold fast by. Any other body in space would serve the same purpose. As to the machinery, you’d need an education in such things to understand it. You’d have to study the whole subject from the bottom up, and go over the experiments that I have made. I confess that there are some things the fundamental reason for which I don’t know the real reason for myself. But I know that I have this power in control; and if I had Professor Thomson and Professor Rutherford here, I’d make them open their eyes!
“I sure wish I had been able to kidnap them.”
“So you admit that you’ve kidnaped us,” said Jack; but he said it, I was glad to see, with a smile.
“If you want to put it that way—yes,” Edmund responded, also smiling.
“Well, boys,” said Jack, turning to Henry and me, “we may as well make the best of it, so far as I can see. Edmund has got us in his aerial craft, and we’ll have to complete the voyage, whatever it may be. Perhaps you’ll treat us to a trip to Paris, Edmund. I’d like that immensely.”
“Better than that,” said Edmund. “Paris is small potatoes compared with what you are going to see.”
And so, indeed, it turned out!
A Comfortable Beginning of the Trip
Finally we all got our pipes and tobacco, and began to make ourselves at home. We dropped the subject that had been uppermost in our minds and talked of other things. Jack, always full of reminiscences, entertained us with stories. So hours glided by, till most of us began to feel sleepy.
“I’ll have to keep the first watch,” said Edmund; “and all the others, too, this night.”
“So, then, we’re not going to land to-night?” asked Henry.
“No, not to-night,” Edmund replied. “You may as well turn in. You see, I’ve prepared good bunks.”
He lifted the tops of some of the benches along the walls, and, turning them outward, showed us beds already made up.
“I believe I’ve not forgotten anything that can make us comfortable,” he added. “Arms, instruments, clothing, furs, and lots of good things to eat.”
We looked at one another in surprise, but nobody spoke, though the same thought probably occurred to each—that this promised to be a pretty long trip, judging from the preparations.
Arms! Edmund had said. What in the world should we need of arms? Was he going to take us off to the Rocky Mountains for a bear hunt? And clothing and furs!
But we were really sleepy. Perhaps the motion had something to do with that, although now it had become almost imperceptible. At any rate, it was not long before all three of us had taken Edmund at his word, and, leaving him to manipulate his knobs as he saw fit, we turned in. He considerately drew a shade over the electric light, and then noiselessly opened the shutter covering the window. When I saw him doing that, I was strongly tempted to rise and look out, but I didn’t do it. Instead, I fell asleep.
The Earth Spread Out Like a Map
When I woke, windows were open on both sides of the car, and sunlight was streaming in through one of them. Henry was still asleep, Jack was yawning in his bunk, just preparing to rise, and Edmund stood at one of the windows, staring out. I quickly made my toilet, and then went to Edmund’s side.
“Good morning,” he said, taking my hand. “Look
