“She looks more like a submarine than a blimp, professor,” was his first comment as they reached the main compartment.
Indeed, the interior of the Sphere, with its intricate mass of machinery and its bull’s-eye windows, its riveted partitions and curved walls, and the incandescent lamps, did suggest a typical underseas craft.
“She goes up, Henry, not down,” the professor laughed.
“Deal me out, then,” cried Henry. “I am not prepared to go up for keeps yet!”
“Rest easy,” said Robert. “It will be much easier to drop back, if in doubt, than to continue upward.”
Robert proceeded to explain the Sphere’s important features for Henry’s benefit.
“Here is the gage that registers the pull of the disk,” he said, finally, after having explained the rudiments of the Sphere’s operation. He indicated a dial attached to the rod which harnessed the powerful mythonite disk to the core of the Sphere.
He pushed the first of a row of switch buttons on the controller. Poor Henry’s heart fluttered as a faint scraping sound heralded the mere opening of one of the three cameralike platinum shutters over the mythonite disk’s highly magnetic surface. He was already regretting his consent to accompany them on a trial flight. The handle on the dial of the lifting gage suddenly raced from zero and steadied at 605 pounds. The Sphere remained at rest.
All three men were now keyed to the highest pitch of excitement. This was the first time the completed apparatus had been tested, and upon its results depended entirely the success of the Sphere and its remarkable project planned by the professor.
The registered tension on the strong steel arm removed all doubt from the minds of Robert and Professor Palmer regarding the success of mythonite as a practical power of propulsion. A feeling of wild exultation gripped them both.