ly an inch, two inches!

"That's enough!" I cried, thrusting the rope under, and she settled back
gently. Having made my knot, I went out to the other end of the rope,
about thirty feet distant. Forgetting the doctor's injunction about not
hanging on, I wrapped the rope around my body, worked my feet firmly
into the sand, and finally cried out, "All ready!"

There was a faint creaking of the car again, and soon the doctor said,
"Pull away!" I threw all my force into the effort and gave a tremendous
heave, and tumbled over backwards. Had I not done so, the projectile
must have hit me as it glided rapidly from the car, sinking very slowly
to the sand about fifty feet away. I scrambled to my feet, went in front
again, and easily dragged it along on the sand to an open place just
beyond the trees. There the doctor allowed it to settle. It sank into
the loose sand about eight inches, remaining steady in this position.

"She works beautifully!" I cried. "How I would like to see her turned
loose for a real flight!"

"That will come to-morrow night," said the doctor, crawling out of the
port-hole. "But if you will help me remove these boxes from the
experimental model, you shall see it lost in the sky." We uncovered and
dragged out a small steel thing, about the same shape as the projectile,
but less than a foot thick and four feet long. It had a lid opening into
its batteries from the top. The doctor entered his compartment to
secure some chemicals.

"If you have no further use for this model," I suggested, "why not
create a very strong current and let it sail off into indefinite space?"

"Very well; I don't wish to leave it behind me for some one to discover,
and I can't take it along. We will send it off for a long trip, and if
it falls back it will be into the lake."

"Wait a moment, then! Let's put a good-bye message in it;" and so saying
I took an old envelope from my pocket and wrote on the back of it with a
pencil in a bold hand: "Farewell to Earth for ever!" Laughing, I put
this inside and closed the lid.

Then the doctor turned down a thumb-screw upon a little wire which
connected the poles, and stepped back quickly. Presently the forward end
began to rise slowly, until it stood upright, but there it hesitated.
The doctor stepped forward and gave the thumb-screw a hard turn down,
and the model lifted immediately, rising at first gradually, but soon
shooting off with the whizz of a rocket over the lake. We watc