Argosy, Volume XXIII — Index Page, 1897 — page 189: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A MONTH IN THE MOON, 759 Briet had been very anxious at the beginning of the severe weather about his niece. Keeping his fears to himself, he was more than doubtful whether she would be able to bear the intense cold, and in his solicitude neglected nothing to warm and strengthen her. But, to his extreme surprise, he saw at the end of a few days that she bore it better than any of them. She seemed in fact to be getting stronger. She no longer coughed, and had lost the alarming hectic flush which had caused her father so many anxious, sleepless nights. Never had she appeared in such radiant health as now, and the doctor ventured to hope that the dread malady of consump- tion had been checked. ‘“’The dry climate of the moon must be the very one for consumptive patients !’’ said he. ‘‘ Never did I see so rapid, so extraordinary a cure! Not only has she lost alarming pulmonary symptoms, but her general health is quite restored.’’ Gertrude threw herself with renewed vigor into the work Norbert had intrusted to her and Fatima. ‘They had to collect all the pieces of silk, and sew them together with strong twist, for the purpose of making a large parachute. There were many parachutes in the storerooms ; but Norbert would have one large enough to hold themall. This entailed making a cage thirty yards in diameter, and would certainly have been a task impossible for Gertrude and her little maid to have executed in the limited time at their disposal, had not Virgil obligingly offered his help. He could sew as well asa sail maker, which is saying a great deal. Norbert, with the doctor and Kaddour, concerned himself with repairing his great electric magnet. They had enough to do, for the terrible shock had strained the delicate mechanism. Norbert had to steal hours from his sleep to take the astronomical observa- tions he so prized. He alone, of all the colony, was thoroughly happy, and he would have contentedly borne a much longer night. Never, he said, had it been given him before to be able to take such pre- cise and fresh observations with so little trouble as to the commencement or end of his operations. A year in such surroundings would be productive of greater results to science than a hundred years of study in the terrestrial atmosphere. | What would it have been had he but some of the powerful telescopes of the great observatories! But he must be content with the means at his dis- posal. ‘‘I should be glad,’’ he continued, ‘‘ could I but count on five or six lunar nights of fourteen or fifteen times twenty four hours! Nothing more would be needed to place me in the first rank of astronomers. ’’ ‘‘Let us stay, then, in that case !’’ cried Gertrude. ‘‘ We will willingly make the sacrifice, although it is certainly not inviting.’’ “The intention is gracious, and I thank you for it. But you know well that it could not be. Our time is strictly limited by our provision of breath- able air.’’ ‘“’Then do we start at the dawn of day ?’”’ ‘“ Not exactly at dawn, but about forty eight hours after the return of the Eomichbooks 3) (E(0)