*CHAPTER XIX.*
*BACK TO EARTH.*
I have heard some one say that life is only a dream, and that when weawaken in the other country we shall find it so. Far be it from me todispute this or affirm it, yet I know, of my own experience, that ourwaking moments furnish events that seem as illusory as the stuff thatdreams are made of.
Of all our strange adventures, the flight from Njambai has been the onethat I recall with most vividness, and, at the same time, as seeming themost unreal. The tension of my nerves at the moment may account forthis.
As I stated somewhere close to the beginning of this narrative, what Iset out to write was a description of the planet Mercury in so far as mylimited abilities for observation enabled me to gather knowledge. Inlooking back over my manuscript, I find I have made it more of anadventurous tale than I intended.
Now, when near the close, I can hold more closely to my text and dealonly generally with our return trip to Terra. It is needless to dwellupon the way we missed and mourned the professor. At every turn somewant developed which he could easily have satisfied had he been with us.
However, his wisdom had started us correctly, and we had perforce tomake shift and get along without him as best we could. As captain ofthe car, the weight of a great responsibility rested on me. I wasalmost constantly at the telescope, and I kept Gilhooly--in whom I hadthe most confidence--about as constantly at the switch board.
We were menaced by frequent dangers during the trip, our course beingliterally strewn with meteoroids which it required much deft maneuvringto evade; but we came safely out of these perils, and, as if tocompensate us for them, we formed a most happy juncture with the Earth'sorbit at a time when that planet was approaching and nearly upon us.
With Gilhooly at the lever, and myself at the telescope, we accomplisheda very successful landing. So evenly balanced did the car hang betweenthe cubes and the drawing power of gravity that the last thousand feetof our descent was merely a floating earthward, and we alighted with soslight a shock that none of us experienced a particle of inconvenience.
The land that claimed us was a deserted island in mid-Pacific, where weremained for two weeks, living off our food supply and keeping a sharplookout for a sail.
We had not been more than a day on the island before I remembered thedocument Professor Quinn had given me. I had been directed to open itwhile on our way through the great void, but I had been so burdened withresponsibilities during that time that I had not once thought of thepacket.
With my four companions as auditors, I read aloud one of the papersinclosed in the packet, which was addressed to all of us jointly.
"MY DEAR FRIENDS: When you read this, I trust that the plans of myself and Mr. Munn will have proved so far successful that an impassable gulf will stretch between you and the undersigned--and I write this out of a desire to have you speeding on your return to our native planet, not because I would willingly separate myself from you were circumstances here different from what we have found them.
"As long as I live, I shall stand between King Gaddbai and any monstrous plan he may form, and attempt to carry out, looking to the subjugating of the world we know and love so well. I am convinced that the king has resources of which we know nothing, and it shall be my aim to fathom the resources of Njambai and assist in their development along other and more peaceable lines. This is to be my work, and I enter upon it with a tranquil soul.
"No doubt I took what you gentlemen may think was an unwarranted liberty in luring four of your number to my castle and casting it adrift in the unknown. As for myself, I believe I had ample warrant for doing what I did; I will not dwell on that motive, as it is already familiar to you.
"The experience each of you has had on Njambai has been most salutary. You have undergone a change of heart, and reform has wrought its great work. Had I not been assured of this, none of you would ever have left this sphere for that other one which has been the cradle of your pet schemes in speculation.
"You are not the same men you were. As reformers, you will do your share to preserve our noble country from dire calamities that threaten it. That is your mission, and see to it that you fail not in its performance.
"It is my prayerful hope that you will reach your destination in safety, and with Mr. Munn at the helm I am prone to think that this result will be achieved. If a civilized country claims you, immediately upon landing it is my wish that you give full power to the anti-gravity cubes and send the car into space; it is my wish that none of you give a record of his experiences to the papers, either wholly or in part, until five years have passed, and then that this duty devolve upon Mr. Munn; and it is my final wish that Mr. Munn accept the enclosed deed to my Harlem lot, and the enclosed check making payable to him all the funds I have in bank. I would have him return to the other four of you an equivalent for the funds and valuables stolen the night we left Earth in the car.
"My second wish, as to the revelations you gentlemen could make, is born of a desire to save the earth dwellers any unnecessary fear on the score of King Gaddbai and his undertakings. If he has not invaded Terra with his terrifying zetbais by the time five years have elapsed, it is my conviction that the danger will be done away with forever.
"Gentlemen, adieu. As you read this, I give you hail from Njambai. QUINN."
A fortnight after the reading of the above document, we sighted a sailon the horizon, and, by means of a rope reaching from the switch boardthrough a window, the lever was pulled and Professor Quinn's castle shotinto the clouds and vanished for all time. Three hours later we werepicked up by a whale boat, conveyed to the tramp steamer _Mollie O.,_and in a month sailed through the Golden Gate into San Francisco harbor.
* * * * *
The five years have passed, and I have set my hand to the foregoing.Gilhooly and Meigs have crossed to the great majority, but the strenuouswork they did in the interests of the people is an imperishable monumentto their memory. Popham and Markham are still laboring for the good ofthe cause.
The return to home and friends of these four, long given up for dead,caused a sensation throughout the country. True to the expressed wishof Professor Quinn, none of them has breathed a whisper of the marvelousthings he saw, or of the weird experiences that fell to his lot whilejourneying to and from Njambai, and while sojourning upon that planet.
So far as I am concerned, my life since my return to Earth has been asspotless as a thorough reformation could make it. As far as I could, Ihave reimbursed those from whom I took what was not rightfully mine, Ihave pleaded the cause of the poor man, and helped him liberally out ofthe generous fortune bestowed upon me by Professor Quinn, and I intendto pursue this line of action until the last day of my life.
Could a reformed burglar have a more suitable occupation?
THE END.
* * * * * * * *
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