re, however, the
flood was only knee deep, owing to the repulsion still being exercised
by the violet light, which was glimmering feebly. Jim found his feet
and leaped into the craft. He grasped Lucille in his arms.

* * * * *

He turned to confront Tode, who had just dragged old Parrish over the
side. The three men confronted one another.

"Turn that tube on me, and I'll jump into your damn machinery and bust
it!" Jim shouted.

An ironical expression came on Tode's face. It was clear that he still
considered himself master of the situation. "At the immediate moment,
Dent, the lives of all of us depend upon your keeping absolutely
still," he answered. "Take my advice and sit down!"

Jim saw Lucille's face, ghastly in the faint violet light that played
about it. The girl had fainted. She was lying unconscious, her feet
against the circular metal plate that protected the machinery, her
head upon the rail that ran around the boat's upper edge. Tode,
without waiting for Jim's answer, stepped over the plate and took his
seat at a sort of instrument board with control levers and thumb
screws that apparently controlled the needles on four dials. He
touched a button, and instantly the violet light disappeared.

With its vanishing, the waves came surging forward, and lapped
violently against the hull, as if about to overwhelm the vessel,
which, however, seemed immovable. It simply rose higher in the water.

Jim understood the cause of this. Those gyroscopes would retain the
hull in the same position against anything but a mechanical force
strong enough to ruin it. He watched Tode as he sat at the instrument
board, which was illuminated by two tiny lights of what looked like
mercury-vapor. His face, handsome and cruel as ever, was tense as he
manipulated the thumb screws. Beside him lay Parrish, faintly
whimpering. The old man had evidently abandoned all hope of effecting
his escape, or of rescuing his daughter.

It was unbearable to have to sit there, knowing that the three of
them were absolutely at Tode's mercy, and yet there was nothing else
to do.

* * * * *

Tode looked up with a saturnine smile. "It's a delicate operation to
blur the present without shooting out a hundred years or so in time,"
he said, "but my micrometer's pretty accurate, Dent. Don't move, I
caution you!" He smiled again. "Yes, Dent, time is something like the
fourth dimension of s