p to the end of that sending.... But, who the
devil is Winslow?"

Blake shook his head despairingly. "I don't know," he said. "And it
seems as if I should--"

It was hours later, far into the night, when he sprang from out of a
half-conscious doze to find himself in the middle of the floor with the
voice of McGuire ringing clearly in his ears. A buried memory had
returned to the level of his conscious mind. He rushed over to the
colonel's quarters.

"I've got it," he shouted to that officer whose head was projecting from
an upper window. "I remember! McGuire told me about this Winslow--some
hermit that he ran across. He has some invention--some machine--said he
had been to the moon. I always thought Mac half believed him. We'll go
over Mac's things and find the address."

"Do you think--do you suppose--?" began Colonel Boynton doubtfully.

"I don't dare to think," Blake responded. "God only knows if we dare
hope; but Mac--Mac's got a level head; he wouldn't send us unless he
knew! Good Lord, man!" he exclaimed, "Mac radioed us from Venus; is
there anything impossible after that?"

"Wait there," said Colonel Boynton; "I'll be right down--"

CHAPTER XII

Lieutenant McGuire awoke, as he had on other occasions, to the smell of
sickly-sweet fumes and the stifling pressure of a mask held over his
nose and mouth. He struggled to free himself, and the mask was removed.
Another of the man-creatures whom McGuire had not seen before helped him
to sit up.

A group of the attenuated figures, with their blood-and-ashes faces,
regarded him curiously. The one who had helped him arise forced the
others to stand back, and he gave McGuire a drink of yellow fluid from a
crystal goblet. The dazed man gulped it down to feel a following surge
of warmth and life that pulsed through his paralyzed body. The figures
before him came sharply from the haze that had enveloped them. A window
high above admitted a golden light that meant another day, but it
brought no cheer or encouragement to the flyer. McGuire felt crushed and
hopeless in the knowledge that his life must still go on.

If only that sleep could have continued--carried him out to the deeper
sleep of death! What hope for them here? Not a chance! And then he
remembered Sykes; he mustn't desert Sykes. He looked about him to see
the same prison room from which he and Sykes had escaped. The body of
the scientist was motionless on the hammock-bed across the room; an
occasional