Some of it was recognizable. A massive radio-telephone set, by which, he judged, all communications between the fleets in the Pacific were overheard; a squat dynamo; a set of huge cylinders, from which, probably, had come the highly expansive gas that had snuffed out the crews of the two dirigibles. But there were other things--strange, monstrous. One of them, the tapered tube of metal that angled up to the hut's ceiling, its base a mass of wheels and dials and tubing, was evidently the weapon of the ray that had struck the scout down. There were three men visible in the room, and Chris switched his attention now to them. Two were standing by a table in the center of the room, directly under a shaft of light from a powerful electric bulb. The shorter of them was saying to a third man, who knelt in front of the dynamo: "On full." Then, as a full-throated drone pulsed from it: "Zenalishin iss there? Yess. Put him in." The voice of the hissing s's--that was Istafiev. Short, stocky, black-haired, he was a direct contrast to the tall figure next him of one whose pointed black beard gave elegance to sharp, thin features. He carried a gun at his waist, and he identified himself as Kashtanov by saying languidly: "Better strap him in. He'll fall, otherwise. Get some cord; I'll lift him." The other man, by the dynamo, apparently a subordinate mechanic, dull-faced, drew a loop of cord from a box nearby, while Kashtanov went through actions that seemed fantastic. He stooped, groped along the floor, and then gripped what looked like thin air with his fingers and lifted upwards. But it wasn't air, Chris knew; it was the invisible body of a man--the man who had destroyed the ZX-2, the man whom he had shot at in the cubby of the ZX-1--whose invisibility was now to be stripped from him. By what? Carefully Chris swivelled his gaze around until it caught on an object which dwarfed Istafiev, now waiting by its side with one hand on the small panel of a switchboard. * * * * * A strange thing, truly, to find in a little hut on Azuero Peninsula! Row upon row of slender curved tubes, describing a three-quarter ovoid so that there was an opening for entrance in front, rose to a height of some eight feet, the whole topped by a curious glassy dome which was filled with creamy substance. There was room inside the layers of tubes for a man's body to stand upright--and a man's body was upright in it now, held by cords strapped to his unseen arms. Invisibility! The dream of scientists for years! Here created, here taken away--by the simple manipulation of two levers on the control panel. Intently Chris watched Istafiev pull down the right-side lever.