We labored up the hill with it, and deposited it on the floor in the Cain's living room, gathering over it, wondering how it might be opened. The message from Xenephrene! It had come at last; and abruptly I seemed to feel that this was not remarkable. We had been waiting for it; and here it was, at our feet here, strangely fashioned--mute, but waiting passively to give up its secret. We were all trembling. Freddie had discarded his furs and helmet, but his hands were stiff with the cold. "How do we get into it? They didn't want to open it--I didn't try either. It's the message, Peter." Dan was on the floor beside the cylinder, running his hands over its surface. His father and mother crowded upon him. Old man Cain's jaw was dropped with his awe; Mrs. Cain chattered, "Land sakes! What next! Dan, what is it? Is it from Professor Vanderstuyft? Is he all right? And dear little Hulda? She's all right, isn't she, Dan? That's what this means, doesn't it? My heavens, these queer times that have come to the world--" Dan jumped to his feet. "Yes, mother, that's what we hope it means." He kissed her; pushed her away; firm, but very gentle. "You go to bed, mother. Father, you go too. We'll be working here some hours--in the morning we'll tell you all about it." Freddie, Dan and I were left alone. The double doors and double windows were closed against the cold; a broad coal fire burned in the grate; the room was warm and silent; and blue with the light-tube, which cast its beam down upon the cylinder. Freddie said, with a hush in his voice: "We'd have been afraid to try and open it anyway, in Miami. You--you don't suppose it would explode if we pound at it, do you?" The sweating thing was strangely sinister, for all its friendly inscription. Dan was again bending over it. Freddie added: "It was in a meteorite--some strange rock, or metal. Evidently not natural--artificially made. It was burned, fused and shapeless by the heat of its fall through our atmosphere. You can see where the heat has burned into the cylinder--" "Hush!" said Dan abruptly. "Listen!" With our ears close to the metal a tiny hum was audible. The thing was humming inside. Alive! Vibrant! Humming with that strange, almost gruesome whine which brought to my memory the crimson sound of the Xenephrene invaders when Robinson and Davis had attacked them. It was half an hour before, with the utmost caution, we got the cylinder open. Upon one of its sides we found four slightly raised circles and four small depressions, numbered from one to eight. And the words, crudely scratched on the metal, "Peter, press one, three, five and eight." A lid came off. We had not seen the cracks where it fitted. It stuck, fused by heat; but we carefully forced it, and at length it came away.