Adrift in the Unknown

realization of our awful predicament burst upon

f my poise, but after that I gained the whi

and Markham, had I not rushed to his rescue. I had muscles of iron, and after I had caught Meig

men show mighty poor judgment, it strikes

. "He had no business shooting us

ish. He measured our dilemma in ter

opham. "Look at Gilhooly, and then t

lothing was in wild disorder, his hair was rumpled about his hea

in railroad stocks, completing the huge transact

live," declared Markham. "Where are

sor doesn't? And who knows when we shall arrive there if it is out of his power to tell?

hink?" whimpered Meigs. "A

ck in his seat with a groan. Then

The whole affair is too outrageously

ave a maud

.&Z. stock! That road is the last span in my ne

erings struck sharply at his des

had not been thrown out of balance, his wide knowledge of matters relati

It was an eerie laugh, an

and overthrowing as brilliant a mind as there ever was in Wall Street, you have the hear

can be measured definitely on the earth's surface. A body falling freely from rest acquires a velocity which is equal to the

ned hard looks on me. I appreciated their dilemma and drew from my vest

lve-fiftee

notebook from his pock

than two miles from our nat

cried the three

the power of this infernal machine and let us drop back to where we belong. Two miles is no

ot if I could. You did not hear me out. The law of velocity, recited

urmured

attain a speed of twenty and thirty miles to the second. In building this car, I equipped it with an anti-gravity block geared up t

"we are sailing skyward at a rate of-o

w York at about eleven-fifteen, it follow

and eighty thousand miles

was impeded by the atmospheric envelope of the earth, but I think we may call our dis

ain. In that flight through space we were confronting immensities well

supply of cubes and insulating compound which I can c

enough," said Meigs, leaning back

ded Quinn. "I will tell you how Mr. Munn here save

Markham bitterly. "Of what value

inn caustically. "But I did not exile you into planetar

am severely. "That is what this harum-scaru

ntinued Quinn, "nor how I shall do so in the future, yet I will tell you so t

e of what he had done. He may have been laboring under terri

which fortifies animate or inanimate bodies against heat and cold, our rush through the atmosphere of the earth would have incin

s taken thought of. My respect for him was growing into something like awe

we might come into collision. I have a good telescope at the observatory window upstairs, and while I cannot guide this car, I

re on the look-out?" queried

est in his personal safety

n we have plunged farther into the interstellar void, it wi

some other planet, Mars, for instanc

own in his friend's face. "They have been signaling from Ma

hook hi

he. "We may drop into some port, but what that

so far off," s

and forty thousand

s from the time of starting," remarked Me

o be deducted for the resistance of the earth's atmosphere. If we drop on a planet it must be a planet with an atmos

lled upon to deal. You invited us to your castle, not, I am constrained to believe, to have us victimized by Munn, here, nor to

Mr. Markham,"

as cost you some time and labor. You had fir

discovery, it remained for me to give it to the world-or to better the world by taking you four gentlemen away from it. Had I given the public the benefit, you shrewd men of affairs

e smaller details that I wonder

that

do with us, now that yo

gly as though that was really the most in

ham. "I don't relish the idea of being cribbed, cabined and confined

casting a melancholy glance through the

cinity, at the moment, and his g

no doubt," said the professor soo

nything, the goal is always clear in my mind; yet, here I am, through no desire of my own, afloat in the great void, without a single aim or a remote prospect. If we ar

ly mistaken, that was the very idea Markham had in mind

le situation. Now, there are worlds larger than the one we have recently left. Personally, I am predisposed in favor of a large pla

pham began to glow and expand. Meigs,

ur field of operations!" cried Poph

rn?" ech

ne?" put

to space before they forget the business interests, the friends and the environment they are leaving behind and begin planning the commercial conquest of the stars!" He shook his head forebodingly. "Your regeneration," he added

ar as the limits of the steel structure would allow, they put their heads together and held

ed. "And yet there are people who fi

urney I am fain to believe that all of you will have a different out

rofessor. His manner was truculent-probably just such a manner as

id he sharply, "then we shall stand upon our rights. We are unalterab

happened. The car ducked sideways, thr

to slide across the floor to the lowest point. By a quick mov

nt up from Markham

oly?" shouted

by a wild yell

cried Quinn. "Follow me w

e stairway and I made after