"And what of that, sir?" I asked.
"The anti-gravity cubes lighten the car by five degrees," he answered excitedly. "Thus buoyed, and in its elevated position, I doubt if the car should hold its own against the fury of the storm!"
"You think it has been blown——"
"Aye! Blown to the uttermost parts of Mercury and perhaps wrecked and lost—lost with all our scientific apparatus and other paraphernalia!"
"But——"
"And that is not all," went on the professor. "The lever should have been thrown to zero and then removed to prevent Gilhooly from tampering with it. Who knows what that mad railway magnate may take it into his head to do? Suppose he were to grasp the lever and give the cubes their full power. He would be launched into the void, sir, and we should be marooned on this sun-baked planet, compelled to live out our lives with these one-eyed quadrumana, devastating the country of its food supply—our presence a curse instead of a blessing!"
I had already imagined a possible return to Terra, and from this it, seemed that the professor had not lost sight of that contingency.
"What is to be done?" I asked, catching some of his excitement.
"We must return to the outer shell—we must find the car—we must go back on the oven when they send it up!"
As he finished speaking, Quinn ran frantically to the metal box and leaped to its top. I followed, clumsily upsetting a half dozen Mercurials who chanced to gel in my way.