Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History A Honeymoon in SpaceThe Project Gutenberg eBook of A Honeymoon in Space This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: A Honeymoon in Space Author: George Chetwynd Griffith Release date: October 5, 2006 [eBook #19476] Most recently updated: January 1, 2021 Language: English Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19476 Credits: E-text prepared by the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/) *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HONEYMOON IN SPACE *** E-text prepared by the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 19476-h.htm or 19476-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/4/7/19476/19476-h/19476-h.htm) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/4/7/19476/19476-h.zip) A HONEYMOON IN SPACE by GEORGE GRIFFITH Author of "Valdar the Oft-Born," "The Virgin of the Sun," "The Rose of Judah," &c., &c. Illustrated by Stanley Wood and Harold Piffard London C. Arthur Pearson Ltd. Henrietta Street 1901 Arno Press A New York Times Company New York--1975 Reprint Edition 1974 by Arno Press Inc. Reprinted from a copy in The Library of the University of California, Riverside A Honeymoon in Space [Illustration: "_The Earth, the Earth--thank God, the Earth!_"] Contents PROLOGUE--The First Cruise of the _Astronef_ Chapter I. Chapter II. Chapter III. Chapter IV. Chapter V. Chapter VI. Chapter VII. Chapter VIII. Chapter IX. Chapter X. Chapter XI. Chapter XII. Chapter XIII. Chapter XIV. Chapter XV. Chapter XVI. Chapter XVII. Chapter XVIII. Chapter XIX. Chapter XX. Epilogue List of Illustrations "THE EARTH, THE EARTH--THANK GOD, THE EARTH!" A HIDEOUS SHAPE ROSE OUT OF THE WATER BEHIND THEM IT TOOK THE STRANGE-WINGED CRAFT AMIDSHIPS SNOW PEAKS AND CLOUD SEAS CAME FORWARD TO MEET THEM WITH BOTH HANDS OUTSTRETCHED WHOLE MOUNTAIN RANGES OF GLOWING LAVA WERE HURLED UP MILES HIGH WITHOUT ANY APPARENT EFFORT HE RAISED HER ABOUT FIVE FEET FROM THE FLOOR THE HUGE PALELY LUMINOUS EYES LOOKED IN UPON THEM PROLOGUE THE FIRST CRUISE OF THE _ASTRONEF_ About eight o'clock on the morning of the 5th of November, 1900, those of the passengers and crew of the American liner _St. Louis_ who happened, whether from causes of duty or of their own pleasure, to be on deck, had a very strange--in fact a quite unprecedented experience. The big ship was ploughing her way through the long, smooth rollers at her average twenty-one knots towards the rising sun, when the officer in charge of the navigating bridge happened to turn his glasses straight ahead. He took them down from his eyes, rubbed the two object-glasses with the cuff of his coat, and looked again. The sun was shining through a haze which so far dimmed the solar disc that it was possible to look straight at it without inconvenience to the eyes. The officer took another long squint, put his glasses down, rubbed his eyes and took another, and murmured, "Well I'm damned!" Just then the Fourth Officer came up on to the bridge to relieve his senior while he went down for a cup of coffee and a biscuit. The Second took him away to the other end of the bridge, out of hearing of the helmsman and the quartermaster standing by, and said almost in a whisper: "Say, Norton, there's something ahead there that I can't make out. Just as the sun got clear above the horizon I saw a black spot go straight across it, right through the upper and lower limbs. I looked again, and it was plumb in the middle of the disc. Look," he went on, speaking louder in his growing excitement, "there it is again! I can see it without the glasses now. See?" The Fourth did not reply at once. He had the glasses close to his eyes, and was moving them slowly about as though he were following some shifting object in the sky. Then he handed them back, and said: "If I didn't believe the thing was impossible I should say that's an air-ship; but, for the present, I guess I'd rather wait till it gets a bit nearer, if it's coming. Still, there _is_ something. Seems to be getting bigger pretty fast, too. Perhaps it would be as well to notify the old man. What do you think?" "Guess we'd better," said the Second. "S'pose you go down. Don't say anything except to him. We don't want any more excitement among the people than we can help." The Fourth nodded and went down the steps, and the Second began walking up and down the bridge, every now and then taking another squint ahead. Again and again the mysterious shape crossed the disc of the sun, always vertically as though, whatever it might be, it was steering a direct course from the sun to the ship, its apparent rising and falling being due really to the dipping of her bows into the swells. "Well, Mr. Charteris, what's the trouble?" said the Skipper as he reached the bridge. "Nothing wrong, I hope? Have you sighted a derelict, or what? Ay, what in hell's that!" His hands went up to his eyes and he stared for a few moments at the pale yellow oblate shape of the sun. At this moment the _St. Louis'_ head dipped again, and the Captain saw something like a black line swiftly drawn across the sun from bottom to top. "That's what I wanted to call your attention to, sir," said the Second in a low tone. "I first noticed it crossing the sun as it rose through the mist. I thought it was a spot of dirt on my glasses, but it has crossed the sun several times since then, and for some minutes seemed to remain dead in the middle of it. Later on it got quite a lot larger, and whatever it is it's approaching us pretty rapidly. You see it's quite plain to the naked eye now." By this time several of the crew and of the early loungers on deck had also caught sight of the strange thing which seemed to be hanging and swinging between the sky and the sea. People dived below for their glasses, knocked at their friends' state-room doors and told them to get up because something was flying towards the ship through the air; and in a very few minutes there were hundreds of passengers on deck in all varieties of early morning costume, and scores of glasses, held to anxious eyes, were being directed ahead. The glasses, however, soon became unnecessary, for the passengers had scarcely got up on deck before the mysterious object to the eastward at length took definite shape, and as it did so mouths were opened as well as eyes, for the owners of the eyes and mouths beheld just then the strangest sight that travellers by sea or land had ever s |