that did not easily assimilate in the Professor's mind.
"I only hope to heaven," he said, "that Captain Evered will listen to me when he does come, and will kill that fiend."
"He'll be sure to make his report first," said Hughes, with conviction.
"By heaven, Hughes, you are right!" cried the Professor. "If he goes first to the signal-room, we are done for. That decides me. I'll take the bull by the horns and make my own report now, if I can get the First Lord at the other end. He is already half prepared for what I have to tell him."
Should Macrae Be Killed
He asked Hughes to call up the Admiralty and say that Professor Rudge at Station X wished to speak at once to Mr. Mansfield, the First Lord of the Admiralty.
Although the call came two hours before his usual hour for rising, in one hour Hughes was able to report that Mr. Mansfield was waiting to hear Professor Rudge's communication.
Rudge had passed this hour, during which darkness had descended on Station X, with a restlessness he could not restrain. He went more than once to the door of Macrae's room and listened, but there was no sound from within. Thinking this absolute silence might be only while he was listening, he walked away and, after an interval, returned to the door noiselessly. Still profound silence.
Was the Martian dead?
The Professor was not troubling himself about whether or no he had killed the Martian. The question with him was, what was he doing if alive? Not for a moment did he believe his prisoner dead. But, although bound quite securely, some movement on the floor was possible, if he were struggling to be free and, although gagged, an inarticulate moan could be emitted. But there was not a sound.
The Professor once put his hand in his pocket for the key. The action recalled the occasion when another hand had taken a key from that pocket. The memory caused him to desist.
He went and stood at the star-lit entrance of the station-house. He recalled the words of the Venerian: "You are not nearly sufficiently in earnest, Professor Rudge." Would he say the same thing now, was the uncomfortable thought. Perhaps!
If the Venerian were speaking to him now, Rudge knew in his heart what the advice would be. He could in imagination almost hear the Venetian's stern words: "Kill, kill!"
After a time some impulse prompted him to return and use that key. Some impulse, for he had no clearly defined object in going to the room where the Martian lay.
When Macrae's hand had taken a key from that pocket it had been a moment of crisis indeed; perhaps not greater than this one in its possibilities. The hand was different, but the directing mind was the same. On the first occasion it had acted from afar; now it was perilously near.
A few seconds later Professor Rudge was again at the entrance to the signal-room, with white face, seeking the company of Hughes. At that moment the message came through that the First Lord was at the instrument.
The Professor assumed the headpiece. He gave a detailed account of all that had happened at Station X from the time of his arrival down to the time of speaking. He reminded Mr. Mansfield of their conversation in London, when he had requested permission to come with Macrae to the station, and made sure that the account he then gave of his interviews with Macrae, resulting in his complete assurance of the latter's bona fides, was clearly remembered by Mr. Mansfield. He found that the contents of Macrae's diary, and the evidence he had given before his examiners at the Admiralty, was better remembered than he had expected by the First Lord.
Professor Rudge was satisfied so far, and with the fact that Mr. Mansfield seemed a good deal startled at the assertion that a Martian was now at Station X, a being with powers of unknown extent, but certainly vastly superhuman. He answered a great many questions, and ultimately himself asked the plain question, if Mr. Mansfield himself accepted the fact of the Venerian communication and his, Rudge's, evidence as to the present position.
How the Admiralty Took the Message
The answer was disappointingly non-committal, and some further conversation that ensued left Professor Rudge with the conviction that it would be worse than useless to ask authority for Captain Evered to hold an inquiry with plenary powers for the Martian's execution, should the evidence satisfy him of its necessity. Better make his appeal to Captain Evered with the question open than meet with a direct refusal binding Evered's hands.
Professor Rudge left the instrument depressed with the feeling that he had done very little if any good, for the ultimate decision had been that Captain Evered's confirmation and advice must now be awaited. The real purpose of his going first to the instrument had not been accomplished.
Mansfield was interested in what he had just heard, and in the whole "Macrae affair," as he called it, and curious as to the dénouement. He had sufficient knowledge to see that the alleged communication contradicted no law of science. Knowing that the etheric waves on which wireless depended would travel from the centre of propagation throughout space indefinitely, he realized that the reception of a radio message from a neighboring planet was a mere question of the competence of the receiver to detect it. As to its having been done in this instance, he wished to keep an open mind.
This attitude was to Professor Rudge as useless as would have been entire incredulity. Those who were not with him were against him. The Martian peril had not sufficiently impressed Mr. Mansfield to make him see the need for instant action. He lacked the penetration of mind required. Sitting amid his comfortable surroundings in London, he was incapable of realizing that an event now happening on a remote islet of the Pacific could constitute a menace to the whole world.
This attitude did not prevent him from speculating as to Captain Evered's account of affairs when he arrived. Knowing that, accident apart, this must be within a very few hours, he gave instructions before leaving the Admiralty radio room that he
