The young man advanced slowly a few steps toward the intruders. He didn't grin or scowl. He just kept his face straight, ready to meet Kerwin in whatever manner the latter might ask for by his actions or words. Perry did notice the girl in the party, though--briefly. She was walking beside Kerwin. Chestnut curls peeped from beneath an odd little hat. There was a sprinkling of freckles across her tanned, earnest face. Perry knew her slightly. She was Lyssa Arthurs, better known as Troubles, reporter for a paper in the neighboring town of Brenton. Cute, plucky kid, but she seemed a little self-conscious now. And evidently she had strange tastes in company. Perry dismissed her presence with a curt nod that could hardly have been called a greeting. When he spoke, Kerwin didn't allow a lot of room for doubt as to his attitude, in spite of the veiled terms he used. "Hello, Wilcox!" he hailed volubly in a rich voice that was in sharp contrast with his cadaverous appearance. "I thought I'd call, since you and the Professor are always doing such interesting things. What's up? Boring for oil or something?" Perry kept silent, waiting for Kerwin to talk a little more. "You might as well answer my question, Wilcox," the financier urged. "I'll find out anyway, you know." "Maybe they're diggin' a road down to China, Chief," one of Kerwin's bodyguards offered with dry and slightly sinister humor. "Or a nice, deep hole to bury themselves in." Before Perry could speak there was an interruption. The sound of the drill nearby, busy in the dusk, changed abruptly. There was a grating, hollow noise from far underground. Then the whine of machinery racing without resistance. Out of the pipe which ejected the muck and chipped stone and metal shreds brought up from the drilling, there came a gurgling puff, as of air trapped in a subterranean cavern, and under slightly higher pressure than that of the surface, being suddenly released from confinement. Workmen leaped to throw out the clutch of the big diesel. Old Rod Murgatroyd began to swear excitedly, for it was clear what had happened. The drill had broken through the metal at last. It had reached a hollow space down there. A room, a chamber, perhaps, which the shell of lead alloy was meant to protect. Perry Wilcox felt his pulses racing wildly. The presence of Kerwin could not spoil his sense of victory. In the evening air around him there was suddenly a faint, musty odor, like that of an old cellar, but with a distinctive quality all its own. Perry saw the workmen step back from the machinery, as if they didn't know quite what to do or say. And he could tell, too, that the sudden cessation of movement, and that noisome smell, indescribably suggestive of a time that was dead for incredible eons, had had its effect on Lyman Kerwin. Kerwin's lips dangled loosely, and his eyes had lost a lot of their squint. His face was sweaty, and paler than usual.