'Well, Henry Q.,' he said at length. 'I've nothing against you personally except that you are a damned nuisance, but I'll have to tie you up or you might ditch the whole plan.'
Roy Saber was inexpert at trussing. He used more rope than was necessary, and his knots were the jumbles of the amateur; nevertheless, he contrived to reduce the other to a state of loglike immobility. Then he produced a handkerchief and carefully began to roll it diagonally.
'I'm sorry, but I can't afford to have you bawling for help. Open!'
Henry Q.'s mouth remained obstinately shut. He received a painful jab in the ribs.
'Open!'
He opened. His captor turned back to the cylinder and carefully shut the entrance-panel. Then he thrust the big revolver into a pocket, and picked up the bound man. At the edge of the clearing, he laid him down among the concealing bushes.
'I'll only be about a couple of hours,' he remarked considerately.
Henry Q. twisted his head and glared balefully after him as he disappeared between the tree-trunks.
Roy Saber was back in something under the two hours, and he did not return alone. By his side walked a girl, whose fair hair shimmered in the shafts of sunlight which penetrated the foliage. Her face was fresh-coloured and her chin was rounded, but firm. With her blue eyes and impertinent nose, none could deny her prettiness; but somehow her mouth, though not too small, failed to suggest an equable disposition. She looked up at her companion with a slightly puzzled frown.
'But, Roy,' she said, 'you look older. Your hair's not all black —I'm sure I can see grey streaks here and there. And you're wearing such funny clothes. What's happened?'
'I am older, Betty, but there's no time to explain just now. You must wait a bit.'
He looked admiringly at her, so neat and lithe in her close-fitting red frock—a deep red, to contrast with her fairness. They paused beside the clump of bushes where he had hidden Henry Q. As he parted the leaves, Betty heard him mutter under his breath.
'What is it?'
Roy did not answer for a moment. He stared thoughtfully at a few tangled cords which were the only evidence of Henry Q.'s late presence. Then he glanced out at the clearing where the cylinder still lay.
'Wait a minute,' he directed, and ran off to one side. He was back in less than the minute. 'It's all right,' he said, leading her into the open. 'I thought someone might be laying for me behind the machine.'
He thought for a moment. 'I meant to talk to you a bit before we risked anything, but this changes things. We'll have to hurry.'
'I don't understand—what are you talking about?'
'I'll explain it all later,' he said, as he hastened her towards the cylinder. He drew the revolver from his pocket, and she looked at it askance.
'What―?'
'Later,' he repeated, hurriedly sliding back two panels in the curved surface. He pointed to the end space. 'In you get, Betty!'
She peered doubtfully at the dark opening. It was possible to see that the whole of the interior was thickly padded and supplied with loose cushions.
'But—'
'Quick, quick!' he insisted, lifting and helping her through the space. He slid the cover over her. Even as it clicked into place, he heard a crackle of running feet among the trees and a voice came bellowing across the clearing.
'Stop where you are! Put 'em up!'
Henry Q. Jones had evidently returned, with reinforcements. With eel-like agility, Roy slid into the cylinder. As he did so, two men in uniform burst from the trees and came pelting into the clearing, pistols in hand.
'He's got a gun,' called Henry Q.'s voice from somewhere behind them.
Roy had a glimpse of one of the policemen taking aim. Like lightning, he ducked and slammed the panel over his head. There came a crash as the bullet struck the cylinder somewhere forward of him. He blanched at the thought of the blob of lead in its delicate machinery, but thanked the Lord it had hit the forward compartment and not the rear, where Betty lay. In frenzied haste, he twisted the dials on his small control-panel, and snapped in the minor switches.
The policemen had reached the cylinder now. They were battering on it with their pistol-butts, and Roy could hear their voices raised in a muffled shouting. With a desperate hope that the shot had injured no vital part, he wrenched over the main switch.
Outside two bewildered policemen stared open-mouthed at each other. Even while they hammered on its walls, the cylinder had vanished without trace.
'Well I'll be―!' one muttered. The other said nothing; he looked badly scared. Henry Q. Jones emerged from the safety of the trees.
'And you call yourselves cops,' he sneered, unpleasantly.
Roy's biggest surprise, when he had made his first journey in the cylindrical machine, had been the entire absence of sensation. He had closed the sliding lid and shut out the view of his workroom. Then he had pulled the switch and waited, tensely, for something to happen. Apparently nothing did, and he had started to reopen the panel with the conviction that the experiment had miscarried and that further adjustment would be necessary. He had gasped to find that, after all, the contrivance had worked perfectly—had, in fact, moved him back ten years in time, without changing his position on Earth.
It was the more surprising in the face of the witnesses' prophecy of utter failure. Sam Hanson, his attorney, had protested :
'It's ridiculous, Roy—impossible! Why, if you did go back ten years, you would have to be in two places at one and the same time—you might even meet yourself! It would be entire confusion. Just think of the disorganisation that success would imply. There'd be neither past nor future any more.'
Roy had shook his head. 'I shan't meet my younger self: I should remember it now, if that meeting had ever occurred. And as for being in two places at the same time—well, why not? Has anyone ever proved it impossible? It is just a ridiculous assertion made by persons completely ignorant of the nature of time. Anyway, I'm going to try!'
And he had succeeded. Succeeded, not only in travelling through time, but also in his main purpose, which was the finding of Betty. Now he was carrying her home in triumph. He had meant to put the plan before her first, but the intrusion of Henry Q. Jones had upset that. It would be good to see the amazed faces in his work-room when they both climbed out of the machine... .
For a second after he had pulled the switch, nothing happened. Then there came a jolt. The cylinder swayed, as though poised uncertainly. Further and further over it leaned, until it tilted violently over to the right, rolling him up the padded side of his compartment. As it twisted, he wondered what could have happened; after that, he became too busy to speculate. The cylinder was bumping unevenly, and turning with increasing speed. Grimly, he drove his elbows and knees into the padding, in an effort to wedge his body instead of having it bounced around like a ball. The forward end brought up against some obstruction with a crash; the machine slewed violently, and the bump with which Roy's head met the end of the compartment was but little softened by the padding.
He thought with anguish of the havoc that crash must have caused amid the mechanism. He stretched one hand up towards the sliding panel. The movement, small as it was, served to upset the precarious balance. Again the cylinder canted over, and recommenced its jolting progress, spinning and bouncing like a runaway barrel as it went. After long-drawn minutes, it slowed and rolled jerkily to a stop. Roy moved cautiously to assure himself that, this time, it was stable. It was, but he made a disconcerting discovery.
'Betty!' he shouted.
'Yes?' Her voice came faintly through the partition between their compartments.