Plates and paddles were also carried by the rest of the advancing Mercurials, their word-boxes chanting a sort of quickstep. The sight of the professor and myself, towering mountain-like over the throng about us, brought the procession to an abrupt halt with a squeak of dismay. The gentleman in the red kirtle went forward and held converse with the gentleman of the gilt torso. Before they got through, their word-boxes were fairly roaring, and stricken groans went up from every talk-machine in the line. The advent of two leviathans like my companion and myself must have had a demoralizing effect, but that seemed as nothing in comparison with the harrowing results of our voracity. The leader raised his baton. Silence fell. The leader then advanced to where we were standing and circled around us, examining us critically with his solitary eye. The survey finished, he tried his word-box on us, the professor answering in all the languages of our home planet, living and dead, of which he was master. But in vain; we could not come to an understanding. The begilded gentleman finally gave over and whirled on the underling in the red kirtle. His fingers flew over the keys of his canteen, and speech of a swift and commanding kind was poured out. A skurrying about of the oven tenders resulted. From somewhere a fresh supply of uncooked food was brought and placed in the huge metal box. While this was going forward, Quinn suddenly seized my arm, a troubled look crossing his face. "What is the matter, professor?" I asked. "Matter enough, Mr. Munn!" he answered. "The lever was left on Number Five!" His thoughts were up with the steel car. I was surprised at this, for it appeared to me that there was more than enough to claim our full attention right in our immediate vicinity. "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.