A second later the rooster scrambled out, scratching vigorously. Grains of corn were scattered about. The motor started up again, and the projectile resumed its onward way.
"The rooster stopped it!" cried Jack. "He went under it to get some corn, and he must have deranged one of the levers. Oh, you old Shanghai, you nearly gave us all heart disease!"
And the rooster crowed louder than before, while his colored owner "shooed" him out of the engine room. The trouble was over speedily, and the _Annihilator_ was once more speeding toward the moon.
"Well, for a trouble-maker, give me a rooster every time," spoke Jack, as, after an examination of the machinery, it was found that nothing was out of order. "How do you think it happened, Professor Henderson?"
"It never could have happened except in just that way," was the reply of Mr. Roumann. "Underneath the motor, where they are supposed to be out of all reach, are several self-adjusting levers. They control the speed, and also, by being moved in a certain direction, they will shut down the apparatus. The rooster crawled beneath the machine, an act that I never figured on, for I knew it was too small for any of us to reach with our hands or arms, even had we so desired. But the Shanghai's feathers must have brushed against the levers, and that stopped the action of the Cardite motor. However, I'm glad it was no worse."
"Yes, let's finish dinner now, if everything is all right," proposed Mark.
"How did the rooster get in here?" asked Jack.
"I 'spects dat's my fault," answered Washington. "I took him out ob his coop fo' a little exercise dis mawnin', an' he run in heah."
"That explains it, I think," said Mr. Roumann. "Well, Washington, don't let it happen again. We don't want to be dashed downward through space all on account of a rooster."
"No, indeedy; I'll lock him up good an' tight arter dis," promised the colored man.
They resumed the interrupted dinner, discussing the possibility of what might have happened, and congratulating themselves that it did not take place.
"It certainly seems like old times to be eating while travelling along like a cannon-ball," remarked Jack. "I declare, it gives me an appetite!"
"You didn't need any," retorted his chum. "But say! maybe things don't taste good to me, after what I got while that fellow Axtell had me a prisoner! Jack, I'll have a little more of that cocoanut pie, if you don't mind."
