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Savarona's people will be here any moment; they have destroyed the elevator, and " A wave of clamor burst from below. "They've broken the barrier," remarked Estra calmly; he turned to the door, then whirled at a crash which sounded from above. "Through the roof," he added. He did not even glance at the balcony, where the two cars barred the way against any attack from that direction.
For the first time, Estra looked astonished. He and Myrin exchanged lightninglike glances; then the Venusian's face warmed with the smile he gave the architect. "It is very good of you to say that," he said impressively. "I was afraid some of our peculiarities might arouse very different feelings."
For a minute or two it looked as though Van Emmon had raised an unanswerable question. There was no immediate reply. Even Estra looked around, as though in wonder at the silence, and seemed on the point of answering of his own accord when a voice came from a man far up on the left. He said: "A little explanation may be wise.
If I make any mistakes, you must not blame the machine. It is as nearly perfect as I was able to make it." He then asked them what blunders they noted. Billie, who was the most enthusiastic about the thing, declared that they would have no trouble in understanding; whereupon Estra quietly asked: "Do you feel like going now to try them out?"
"Look out!" sharply, from Van Emmon; and with barely an inch to spare, Estra steered his car past another which he had nearly overlooked. For another minute or two there was silence; then Myrin said: "You wonder what there is to interest us. And yet, every time you look up at the stars, the answer is before your eyes.
From what Estra has said, I gather that you have informed yourselves regarding us, in some manner which he has promised to make clear. At all events, I am exceedingly anxious to see your astronomical apparatus."
Van Emmon would have liked it infinitely better if one of them had only become hot about it. At this point Estra rose in his chair. "I think you had best approach us from a fresh viewpoint," said he in his unfailingly agreeable manner. The doctor nodded vigorously, and again Estra closed his eyes in that odd, hesitating way.
Just as they were about to start again, both Estra and Myrin stopped short in their tracks, with that odd hesitation that had mystified the four all along; and after perhaps five seconds of silence turned to one another with grave faces. It was Estra who explained. "It is curious how things do pile up," said he, a little conscious of having employed an idiom.
For one thing, Estra said there would have to be a small delay; and for another, the walls and ceilings of the space were most remarkably ornamented. They were fairly covered with what appeared, at first glance, to be absolutely lifelike paintings and sculptures. Desiring to examine some of the work far overhead, Billie clambered up on a convenient pedestal in order to look more closely.
Against him the governor of Havana sent out a great war vessel, and with it a negro executioner, so that there might be no inconvenient delays of law after the pirates had been captured. But l'Olonoise did not wait for the coming of the war vessel; he went out to meet it, and he found it where it lay riding at anchor in the mouth of the river Estra.
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