For the space of a breath we hesitated. Was this a trap? Through my mind flashed the words of the man who had guided us to Fraser. "You are two thousand feet above the earth," he had said. Was that true? And if it were, might not Fraser push us over the wall? But instantly logic came to my rescue. Fraser had brought us here, and he could have brought us for but one thing: to question us. Would he be apt to do us harm before those questions were asked? And besides, would Fraser's brilliantly subtle mind stoop so low as to destroy enemies by pushing them over a wall?
"Thank you," we murmured simultaneously. "This whole achievement is of tremendous interest to us," Foulet added.
Fraser chuckled. "It will be of greater interest—later," he said, and his blank, glittering eyes rested on first one of us, then another with a cold, satisfied gleam. Then he lifted his hand and opened a square door in the wall about the size of a port-hole. To my surprise the little door swung back as lightly as a feather and made scarcely a sound as it slammed against the wall itself. Again Fraser answered my unspoken thought.
"It has only substance," he said with his vain smirk. "No weight whatever. This entire platform together with its huts is lighter than air. If I should tear loose this little door it would float out of my hands instantly and go straight up to the stars. The substance—I have called it Fleotite—is not only lighter than air but lighter than ether."
"But we are not floating," said Brice; "we are stationary. Is the lightness of your Fleotite counteracted by the weight of the men and machines?"
Fraser shook his head. "Not entirely," he said. "But first look through this little window. Then I will explain."
Eagerly we pressed forward. Our danger was almost forgotten in our interest. This was amazing—stupendous! Together, shoulder to shoulder, we gazed through the aperture. We were suspended in space! Above us shone the blue-black Arabian night, and beneath us—far, far beneath—lay the sands of the desert looking rosy and warm in that same dull red glare of light that, to a fainter degree, gave us the effect of afterglow. But we were not floating; we were anchored as securely as a ship riding in a calm harbor.
We turned back to Fraser, amazed, awed, bursting with questions. Madman he might be, but he had wrought a miracle.
"I will explain," he said and his eyes gleamed with pride. "Of course you know of my tremendous discoveries connected with the power of light. At any rate, five years ago, the scientific world on earth thought they were tremendous. In reality that was nothing to my amazing strides in the past three years. There is nothing that cannot be done with light! Nothing!" For the first time Fraser's eyes became alive. They were illumined. His whole body seemed to radiate light and fire and genius. We listened, fascinated.