Mark peered into the house, and uttered a cry of alarm. "There's a petrified man in there!" he gasped. Jack and Andy looked in at the open window. They saw, sitting at a table, which was also of rock, a man, evidently a soldier, or rather he had been, for he was nothing but stone now, like the hut in which he dwelt. The wanderers looked at each other with fear on their faces. What dreadful mystery were they about to penetrate? "Let's cross the bridge," suggested Jack, in a low voice. "Maybe this marks the end of desolation. Perhaps we may find life and food across the crater." "But--but the petrified man!" gasped Mark. "What of it? He won't hurt us. Maybe there are live men, who will take care of us, beyond there," and Jack pointed across the bridge of stone. There was nothing to keep them where they were--in the land of desolation. They could not live much longer there, with no food and water. To pass on over the crater seemed the only thing to do. "Come ahead," called Jack boldly. They followed him. They kept in the middle of the road, for to approach the edge, where there was a sheer descent of so many feet that it made them dizzy to think of it, filled them with terror. On they hurried until, in a short time, they had crossed the great chasm. The road over the crater came to an end between two peaks, similar to those at the beginning. Jack was the first to pass them, and as he emerged he once more uttered a cry--a cry of fear and wonder. And well he might, for in a valley below the wanderers there was a city. A great city, with wonderful buildings, with wide streets well laid out--a city in which figures of many men and women could be seen--little children too! A fair city, teeming with life, it seemed! But then, as they looked again, struck by the curious quiet that prevailed, they knew that they were gazing down on a city of the dead--a city where the inhabitants had been turned to stone, even as had the soldier on guard in his lonely hut. They had come upon a petrified city of the moon! CHAPTER XXVI SEEKING FOOD "Well, if this isn't the limit!" burst out Jack, when he had stood and contemplated the silent city for several moments, which also his companions did. "After all our wanderings and troubles, when we do find a place, it isn't any good to us. I don't suppose there is a square meal in the whole town! Isn't it wonderful, though--every person turned to stone!" "Wonderful!" gasped old Andy. "I never saw anything like it in all my life! What do you reckon did it, boys?" "The same thing that turned the man in the hut, and the one Washington thought was a ghost, into stone," answered Mark. "There was a rain of some lime-water, or a liquid charged with similar chemicals, and the people were turned to rocks."