There was a faintly muttered response as McGruder retired to a safer distance.
"Where's Eli?" again demanded Marlin.
"He left us here," DuChane replied, "saying he was going down to the control room. Wonder if he has any way of lighting this—Oh, hello!"
A sudden radiance engulfed them. Blinking, they stared at each other—at their surroundings.
The tilted surface on which they stood was apparently nothing more than a scaffolding in the unfinished portion of the sphere. The boxes and crates they had loaded were distributed around the closed entrance-hole. Peering upward, they looked into a network of girders, bracing the huge expanse, weirdly lighted here and there with single bulbs—evidently a temporary lighting arrangement for the workmen.
Below the level of their vision, also on a slant, was a partly enclosed portion of three or four levels, resembling a ship's superstructure. The humming noise of a dynamo accompanied the establishment of light service. Thornboldt emerged from a doorway and stood with head tilted back, surveying the bleak interior.
"Close the opening," he called out, catching sight of the group on the platform.
An involuntary laugh greeted the order.
Annoyed at the failure of his command to produce activity, the scientist worked his way up to the platform, emerging between the end-shafts of a ladder. At the point in the hull where the pipe had penetrated, a bulging mass of the lava-like substance was slowly hardening.