"Why—good Lord—!" I gasped.
I dashed into the dim corridor. There was nothing; and then I heard a distant outer door close. The intruder had escaped from the house. And then, from the laboratory, came Dr. Livingston's gasp: "John, look—"
I swung back to him. In the moonlight at the laboratory window a face showed behind the filmy curtains—a man's face peering in at us. It was just an instant glimpse.... Staring, wild, red-rimmed eyes—the face wearing a bluish stubble of beard. By no chance could it have been the person who had escaped me in the corridor.
In that second, I dashed for the window. The face had gone. I got there only in time to see a dark blob scurrying away into the shadows of the moonlit woods.
II
"All ready, Dr. Livingston," I said.
"Eh? Oh, yes. Well, that's fine, John. We'll start at once."
"I checked the ventilators," Duroh said.
The big, beetle-browed Peter Duroh—dark-haired, handsome young giant who had been working for us nearly a year—stood beside me. It was the great night—our time of departure at last had arrived, with the little Planeteer glistening and ready.