Her eyes took in a large warehouse-like room full of boxes and supplies piled from the floor to the ceiling, and extending three hundred feet toward the rear of the airship. Her mental comment was to the effect that it was a mammoth apartment, and that it held supplies enough to care for an army for several months.
But the most interesting part of the room that confronted her were the men who were loading the airship. There were only three people in the warehouse department, and two of them were Julian Epworth and Billy Sand. They were being herded around by a single guard who talked to them amiably and in a friendly manner.
Fortunately as she looked through the opening they passed very near, and the guard lagged.
“Julian! Billy!” she whispered softly. “I have been locked up in this place. Can’t you get me out?”
Epworth heard her but for some time he could not locate her. When he did, the guard was hurrying them away. Joan saw them disappear behind some boxes, and imagining that they had not heard her, allowed despair to fill her soul. With a deep moan she sank on a couch near by and buried her face in her hands, leaving the panel open slightly but held firm by the spring. She thought that she was deserted, and her eyes filled with tears.
Epworth, however, had no idea of deserting her. The second he heard her voice he knew that she was entrapped on the airship and that he must devise some scheme to save her. With this end in view, he dragged slowly back of the guard. Billy, noticing this, fell behind to talk to him.
“Where do you suppose this ship is going?” Billy asked indolently as he lowered his last burden to the floor. “She seems to be loading up for a trip around the world.”
“Worse than that,” the guard called out in an undertone. “That mighty scientist, Herman Toplinsky, is going to try to go to the moon, and, unfortunately, I have been detailed to go with the crew.”
“Say, sonny,” Billy exclaimed enthusiastically, “that sounds good to me. I don’t care if he never gets back. Snap up, Epworth. We may find a chance to break away while he is speeding along the interplanetary ways.”
“I’m thinking of going with him,” Epworth whispered. “He is kidnaping Joan, and taking her with him.”