ey seem to me to comprise a course, both going and
returning. But the calculations are very intricate, especially in the
_time_ dimension. I've nearly reached the last row now. Then, we shall
have arrived, or--we sha'n't."

Jim and Lucille sat down again. There was nothing that they could do.
But somehow their hopes of reaching Long Island in the year of grace
1930 had grown exceedingly slim. Everything depended upon whether or
not Tode had meant those figures to represent the course back to the
starting point or not.

A desperate hope--that was all that remained to them. They watched
Parrish as his eyes wandered along the rows of figures, while his
fingers moved the micrometer screws. And then he looked up.

"We're reaching the end of our course," he said. "We're going to land
somewhere. God knows where it will be. We must hope--that's all that's
left us."

His hands dropped from the dials. He pressed a lever. The blur of
nights and days began to slow. A column of vivid violet light shot
from the funnel.

"Grip tight!" shouted Parrish.

Thump, thump! The Atom Smasher was vibrating violently. A jar threw
Jim against Lucille. It was coming to a standstill. Trees appeared.
Jim uttered a shout. He stepped across to Parrish and wrung his hand.
He put his arms about Lucille and kissed her.

They were back at the Vanishing Place, and all their sufferings seemed
to be of the past....

CHAPTER VIII

_A Fruitless Journey_

"Why don't you stop the boat, Parrish?"

"I'm trying to, lad!"

The Atom Smasher was still vibrating, even more violently than before.
A column of violet light was pouring from her funnel. The pool, the
mud, the walls of heaped up water were discernible, but all quivering
and reproduced, line after line, to infinity. It was like looking into
the rear-view mirror of a car that is vibrating rapidly. It was like
one of those Cubist paintings of a woman descending the stairs, where
one had to puzzle out which is the woman and which is the stairs.

A dreadful thought shot through Jim's mind. He remembered what he had
said to Tode: "You can't hold the boat still in four-dimensional
space."

This was not quite the same. By stopping the infernal mechanism, one
re-entered three-dimensional space, and landed. Certainly the Atom
Smasher could land. They were not like the motorcyclist who got on a
machine for the first time, and rode to the admiration of all who saw
him, except that he couldn't find