"If I wished," said Quinn, "I could increase our speed; traveling at the rate we are, however, something will have to be deducted for the resistance of the earth’s atmosphere. If we drop on a planet it must be a planet with an atmosphere. The moon has none, and consequently is a dead world. Besides, fate might not throw us into its vicinity, or——" "Just a minute, sir," interposed Markham, "for I am a man who likes to understand thoroughly every situation with which he is called upon to deal. You invited us to your castle, not, I am constrained to believe, to have us victimized by Munn, here, nor to have us invest in any of your discoveries, but to snatch us away from the scene of our labors. Is that correct, Professor Quinn?" "Entirely so, Mr. Markham," replied Quinn. "Evidently," proceeded Markham, "your plot has cost you some time and labor. You had first to find your gravity-resisting compound——" "The plot followed as a result of my discovery," smiled the professor. "I did not first evolve the plot and then go searching for means to get you off the earth. When I had made the 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 might have devised means for setting it aside, or for controlling it. Not being a business man myself, I feared to take chances. For that reason the present enterprise appealed to me." "You have planned so well in the smaller details that I wonder you overlooked the main point." "And that is——" "What you are going to do with us, now that your plan has succeeded." The professor tossed his hands deprecatingly as though that was really the most insignificant part of his startling scheme. "We can’t go bobbing around through interstellar space," grumbled Popham. "I don’t relish the idea of being cribbed, cabined and confined in a steel room indefinitely. I should go mad from the very thought." "It’s awful to contemplate," said Meigs, casting a melancholy glance through the iron latticework at one of the windows. The bags of loot were in that vicinity, at the moment, and his glance swerved reproachfully to me. "We shall make a landing, I have no doubt," said the professor soothingly, "somehow and somewhere." "By gad, sir," cried Popham, bringing his fist emphatically down on the table, "I don’t like such a hit-and-miss way of doing things. Whenever I set out to accomplish anything, 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 are going to land anywhere—and you remain firm in your decision not to take us back to our native planet—I demand that you make landfall on some orb that is worth while." "Very good, Popham," approved Meigs. "Unless I am greatly mistaken, that was the very idea Markham had in mind when he began questioning the professor. Eh, Markham?"