Now come into the conning-tower and we'll see how things are going." As they bent their heads over the instrument-table Redgrave saw that the remorseless needle had moved two degrees more to the right.

The keel of the _Astronef_, under the impulse of the R.Force, was continually turning.

The pull of the invisible orb was dragging her slowly but irresistibly out of her line.
"There's nothing for it but this," said Redgrave, putting out his hand to the signal-board, and signalling to Murgatroyd to put the engines to their highest capacity.

"You see, dear, our greatest danger is this: we had to exert such a tremendous lot of power getting away from Jupiter and Saturn, that we haven't any too much to spare, and if we have to spend it in counteracting the pull of this dead sun, or whatever it is, we may not have enough of what I call the R.fluid left to get home with." "I see," she said, staring with wide-open eyes at the needle.

"You mean that we may not have enough to keep us from falling into one of the planets or perhaps into the Sun itself.