“Come and see what’s the matter with this stone!” he cried. CHAPTER XVIII CAUGHT BY A STRANGE PLANT “Washington is in trouble!” exclaimed Mr. Henderson. Followed by the two boys he ran to where the colored man stood in a stooping position over a small pile of stones. “What is it? Has something bit you?” asked the scientist, as he came up on the run. “No, but I can’t git this stone up!” Washington said. “Look at what a little stone it is, but I can’t lift it. Something must have happened to me. Maybe some one put th’ evil eye on me! Maybe I’m bewitched!” “Nonsense!” exclaimed the professor, “what did you want the stone for?” “Nothin’ in particular,” replied Washington, still tugging away at the stone, which was the size of his head. “I was just goin’ t’ throw it at a big bird, but when I went to lift it this little stone 'peared t’ be glued fast.” Washington moved aside to give Mr. Henderson a chance to try to pick up the piece of rock. As the scientist grasped it a look of surprise came over his features: “This is most remarkable!” he exclaimed. “I can’t budge it. I wonder if a giant magnet is holding it down.” He tugged and tugged until he was red in the face. Then he beckoned to the two boys, and they came to his aid. There was barely room for them all to each get one hand on the rock, and then, only after a powerful tug did it come up. Almost instantly it dropped back to the earth. “This is remarkable!” the professor said. “I wonder if the other stones are the same.” He tried several others, and one and all resisted his efforts. It was only the small stones he was able to lift alone, and these, he said, were so weighty that it would have been a task to throw them any distance. “The water and the stones are strangely heavy in this land,” he said. “I wonder what other queer things we shall see.” “I saw a bird a little while ago, when I went to pick up that stone,” observed Washington. “What kind was it?” asked the inventor. “I don’t know, only it was about as big as an eagle.” The travelers wandered about a quarter of a mile from the ship. They avoided the tall grass and the lofty nodding flowers that seemed to grow in regular groves, and kept to places where they could walk with comparative freedom. “Have you formed any idea, Professor, as to the nature of this country?” asked Mark, who liked to get at the bottom of things. “I have, but it is only a theory,” Mr. Henderson answered. “I believe we are on a sort of small earth that is inside the larger one we live on. This sphere floats in space, just as our earth does and we have passed through the void that lies between our globe and this interior one. I think this new earth is about a quarter the size of ours and in some respects the same. In others it is vastly different.