"It may be," the operator said, "that what we hear is just an ordinary conversation, 'scrambled' to keep us from understanding it, and 'unscrambled' by the receiver. Such devices have been in use for years."
But there was no conviction in his voice. And certainly, those strange noises sounded to me like the communication of some alien beings. But what might they be?
Later in the day, Bill and I took turns in going up with the Camel-back to keep tab on the movements of the tramp, since the radio calls had ceased. The day passed, and the white sun sank back of the glittering western waves. During the hot, moonless night, the ether was still, and we could do nothing but steam on in the same direction. I went up twice, but the tramp was showing no lights, and I failed to locate her. At midnight Bill came on deck, and I went below to a bunk.
It was just after dawn that the alarm was sounded. I was awakened by the roar of the little ship's forward gun. It was firing steadily as I went on deck, and I heard a confusion of sounds—the siren was blowing, and there was a medley of shouts, orders, and curses, punctuated with the reports of small arms.
I saw that the Camel-back was gone from the deck. Bill was up again.
As I stepped on deck there was a great clanging roar from below. The propellers had been lifted from the water! The engines raced madly for a minute, and then were stopped. I ran to the rail to see what had happened to throw the organization of the crew into such confusion. And indeed it was an amazing sight that met my eyes!
The ship was floating in the air, a hundred feet above the waves! The air was still, the sea was smooth and black.... The eastern sky was lit by the silver curtain of the dawn, with the old moon hanging in it. Before us, and below, two hundred yards away, was a queer luminous hill—a shining cloud of red-purple vapor that rolled spread heavily upon the black water. I saw two similar twisting mounds of gas astern, gleaming with a painful radiance.
And the ship was rising into the air!
It was drifting swiftly up, through the still air, so that a wind seemed to blow down upon us. I saw a rifle hanging in the air ten feet above me, and a steel boat rising a dozen feet over the mast. Suddenly it came to me that something had negated the gravity of the metal parts of the ship. I thought of the story of the gravity-destroying bombs used in the raid of the night before upon the thorium stores.
The forward gun was still firing steadily, though the terrorized men had deserted the others. I saw a man point above us, and looked. A red airplane, with thick fuselage and short wings, was flying silently and swiftly across our bows. As it passed, something fell from it. It was a dark object that fell and exploded just above us, bursting into a thick, roily cloud of shining purple mist. The light of it hurt my eyes. And the ship plunged upward faster.