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“That might be a good idea later,” Estelle said quietly, “but light is cheering, somehow, and every one feels so blue that I wouldn’t do it to-night. To-morrow they’ll begin to get up their resolution again, and you can ask them to do things.”

“If we’re going to starve to death,” one of the other men said gloomily, “we might as well have plenty of light to do it by.”

“We aren’t going to starve to death,” retorted Arthur sharply. “Just before I came down I saw a great cloud of birds, greater than I had ever seen before. When we get at those birds–“

“When,” echoed the gloomy one.

“They were pigeons,” Estelle explained. “They shouldn’t be hard to snare or trap.”

“I usually have my dinner before now,” the gloomy one protested, “and I’m told I won’t get anything to-night.”

The other men began to straighten their shoulders. The peevishness of one of their number seemed to bring out their latent courage.

“Well, we’ve got to stand it for the present,” one of them said almost philosophically. “What I’m most anxious about is getting back. Have we any chance?”

Arthur nodded emphatically.

“I think so. I have a sort of idea as to the cause of our sinking into the Fourth Dimension, and when that is verified, a corrective can be looked for and applied.”

“How long will that take?”

“Can’t say,” Arthur replied frankly. “I don’t know what tools, what materials, or what workmen we have, and what’s rather more to the point, I don’t even know what work will have to be done. The pressing problem is food.”

“Oh, bother the food,” some one protested impatiently. “I don’t care about myself. I can go hungry to-night. I want to get back to my family.”

“That’s all that really matters,” a chorus of voices echoed.

“We’d better not bother about anything else unless we find we can’t get back. Concentrate on getting back,” one man stated more explicitly.

“Look here,” said Arthur incisively. “You’ve a family, and so have a great many of the others in the tower, but your family and everybody else’s family has got to wait. As an inside limit, we can hope to begin to work on the problem of getting back when we’re sure there’s nothing else going to happen. I tell you quite honestly that I think I know what is the direct cause of this catastrophe. And I’ll tell you even more honestly that I think I’m the only man among us who can put this tower back where it started from. And I’ll tell you most honestly of all that any attempt to meddle at this present time with the forces that let us down here will result in a catastrophe considerably greater than the one that happened to-day.”

“Well, if you’re sure–” some one began reluctantly.

“I am so sure that I’m going to keep to myself the knowledge of what will start those forces to work again,” Arthur said quietly. “I don’t want any impatient meddling. If we start them too soon God only knows what will happen.”

VIII.

Van Deventer was eying Arthur Chamberlain keenly.

“It isn’t a question of your wanting pay in exchange for your services in putting us back, is it?” he asked coolly.

Arthur turned and faced him. His face began to flush slowly. Van Deventer put up one hand.

“I beg your pardon. I see.”

“We aren’t settling the things we came here for,” Estelle interrupted.

She had noted the threat of friction and hastened to put in a diversion. Arthur relaxed.

“I think that as a beginning,” he suggested, “we’d better get sleeping arrangements completed. We can get everybody together somewhere, I dare say, and then secure volunteers for the work.”

“Right.” Van Deventer was anxious to make amends for his blunder of a moment before. “Shall I send the bank watchmen to go on each floor in turn and ask everybody to come down-stairs?”

“You might start them,” Arthur said. “It will take a long time for every one to assemble.”