"Any chance of success, lad?" I asked, searching his eyes.
"A chance, sir," he replied, his glance never wavering. "I can be ready in a few minutes."
"Then, go ahead—on one condition: that you let me come with you."
"Very good, sir; as you wish. Have two other breathing masks ready. I'll be back very soon."
And he left me hastily, taking the steps of the companionway two at a time.
It was nearly an hour before Hendricks returned, bringing with him two of the most amazing pieces of apparatus I have ever seen.
To make each of them, he had taken a flask of compressed air from our emergency stores, and run a flexible tube from it into a cylindrical drinking water container. Another tube, which I recognized as being a part of our fire-extinguishers, and terminating in a metal nozzle, sprouted from the water container. Both tubes were securely sealed into the mouth of the metal cylinder, and lengths of hastily-knotted rope had been bound around each contrivance so that the two heavy containers, the air flask and the small water tank could be slung from the shoulders.
"Here, sir," he said hastily, "get into a breathing mask, and put on these things as you see me do. No time to explain anything now, except this: as soon as you're outside the ship, turn the valve that opens the compressed air flask. Hold this hose, coming from the water container, in your right hand. Don't touch the metal nozzle. Use the hose just as you'd use a portable disintegrator-ray projector."
I nodded, and followed his instructions as swiftly as possible. The two containers were heavy, but I adjusted their ropes across my shoulders so that my left hand had easy access to the valve of the air flask, and the water container was under my right arm where I could have the full use of the hose.