“If you’re Winslow,” he called in a steady voice, “you don’t want me to go away; you want to talk with me. There’s a young friend of yours in a bad jam. You are the only one who can help.”
“I haven’t any friends,” said the rasping voice: “I don’t want any! Get out!”
“You had one,” said the captain, “whether you wanted him or not. He believed in you—like the other young chap who went with you to the moon.”
There was an audible gasp of dismay from the window beyond, and the barrel of the rifle made trembling flickerings in the sun.
“You mean the flyer?” asked the voice, and it seemed to have lost its harsher note. “The pleasant young fellow?”
“I mean McGuire, who helped give decent burial to your friend. And now he has been carried off—out into space—and you can help him. If you’ve a spark of decency in you, you will hear what I have to say.”
The rifle vanished within the cabin; a door opened to frame a picture of a tall man. He was stooped; the years, or solitude, perhaps, had borne heavily upon him; his face was a mat of gray beard that was a continuation of the unkempt hair above. The rifle was still in his hand.
But he motioned to the waiting man, and “Come in!” he commanded. “I’ll soon know if you’re telling the truth. God help you if you’re not…. Come in.”
An hour was needed while the bearded man learned the truth. And Blake, too, picked up some facts. He learned to his great surprise that he was talking with an educated man, one who had spent a lifetime in scientific pursuits. And now, as the figure before him seemed more the scientist and less the crazed fabricator of wild fancies, the truth of his claims seemed not so remote.