ent board he seated himself, and at his touch the
generator of the ship came startlingly to life. It grumbled softly at
first, then the hoarse sound swelled to a thunderous roar, while the
metal grating surged up irresistibly beneath the captain's feet. His
weight was intolerable. He sank helplessly to the floor....

Blake was white and shaken when he alighted from the ship an hour
later, but his eyes were ablaze with excitement. He stopped to seize
the tall man by the shoulders.

"I am only a poor devil of a flying man," he said, "but I am speaking
for the whole world right now. You have saved us; you've furnished the
means. It is up to us now. You've given us the right to hope that
humanity can save itself, if humanity will do it. That's my next
job--to convince them. We have less than a year and a half...."

* * * * *

There was one precious week wasted while Captain Blake chafed and
waited for a conference to be arranged at Washington. A spirit of
hopelessness had swept over the world--hopelessness and a mental sloth
that killed every hope with the unanswerable argument: "What is the
use? It is the end." But a meeting was arranged at Colonel Boynton's
insistence, though his superiors scoffed at what he dared suggest.

Blake appeared before the meeting, and he told them what he knew--told
it to the last detail, while he saw the looks of amusement or
commiseration that passed from man to man.

There were scientists there who asked him coldly a question or two and
shrugged a supercilious shoulder; ranking officers of both army and
navy who openly excoriated Colonel Boynton for bringing them to hear
the wild tale of a half-demented man. It was this that drove Blake to
a cold frenzy.

The weeks of hopeless despair had worn his nerves to the breaking
point, and now, with so much to be done, and so little time in which
to do it, all requirements of official etiquette were swept aside as
he leaped to his feet to face the unbelieving men.

"Damn it!" he shouted, "will you sit here now and quibble over what
you think in your wisdom is possible or not. Get outside those
doors--there's an open park beyond--and I'll knock your technicalities
all to hell!"

The door slammed behind him before the words could be spoken to place
him under arrest, and he tore across a velvet lawn to leap into a
taxi.

There was a rising storm of indignant protest within the room that he
had left. There were