The voice of the hissing s's—that was Istafiev. Short, stocky, black-haired, he was a direct contrast to the tall figure next him of one whose pointed black beard gave elegance to sharp, thin features. He carried a gun at his waist, and he identified himself as Kashtanov by saying languidly:
"Better strap him in. He'll fall, otherwise. Get some cord; I'll lift him."
The other man, by the dynamo, apparently a subordinate mechanic, dull-faced, drew a loop of cord from a box nearby, while Kashtanov went through actions that seemed fantastic. He stooped, groped along the floor, and then gripped what looked like thin air with his fingers and lifted upwards. But it wasn't air, Chris knew; it was the invisible body of a man—the man who had destroyed the ZX-2, the man whom he had shot at in the cubby of the ZX-1—whose invisibility was now to be stripped from him.
By what? Carefully Chris swivelled his gaze around until it caught on an object which dwarfed Istafiev, now waiting by its side with one hand on the small panel of a switchboard.
A strange thing, truly, to find in a little hut on Azuero Peninsula! Row upon row of slender curved tubes, describing a three-quarter ovoid so that there was an opening for entrance in front, rose to a height of some eight feet, the whole topped by a curious glassy dome which was filled with creamy substance. There was room inside the layers of tubes for a man's body to stand upright—and a man's body was upright in it now, held by cords strapped to his unseen arms.
Invisibility! The dream of scientists for years! Here created, here taken away—by the simple manipulation of two levers on the control panel.
Intently Chris watched Istafiev pull down the right-side lever.
As it came down, the creamy liquid in the dome above the cage began to swirl slowly, then to froth and boil and whip round and round, while thick, dropsical bubbles slid up from its heaving surface and burst, discharging a kind of grayish mist, under which the white substance sank, until there was nothing left in the dome but drab-colored vapor. On the completion of this stage, the layers of tubes below warmed into life. They glowed with a soft vari-colored brightness that filled the cage with a golden splendor and seemed to rim each one of the watching men with fire.
"See you, Kashtanov," came Istafiev's voice. "The refractive index, lowered to that of air to produce invisibility, iss being raised again—all through a simple adaptation of Roentgen's theories! The substance above, mark, in the dome, which this morning you saw affect Zenalishin's blood and the pigment of his hair so that the vibrations would render his colorless tissues transparent, iss now reversing. Soon—see!—already he becomes visible!"