towing themselves into the first likely niche that offered—a narrow cubicle behind a flight of metal stairs—they waited, scarcely daring to breathe for fear of being discovered.
Fifteen minutes passed, a half-hour, when suddenly sounded a rasping of doors that told them the rocket was being sealed.
Then came a roar, as of some mighty blast beating down upon the frozen earth, followed by a lifting, rushing sensation—and they were flung violently to the flooring.
The pressure ceased in a moment, however, to be supplanted by a buoyant, exhilarating sense of flight. It increased, and they judged they must be traveling at great speed.
Glancing at the luminous dial of his watch, Professor Prescott saw that it was a quarter to ten.
"Well, we're off!" he whispered. "And where, would you guess, are we headed?"
"I wouldn't guess," Stoddard whispered back. "From the way we're riding, it might be Mars! We must be making hundreds of miles an hour."
"Or thousands! Who knows?"
They crouched there in their cramped niche, scarcely even whispering now, as the tense minutes passed.